Abstract

This thesis makes a close examination of syllable, tone and stress in Chinese languages, in order to find out general properties that are shared by all natural languages. It offers the following related claims: ; All Chinese syllables have the following uniform underlying structure: ; The general tonal model is as follows:where the tonal structure is part of the feature geometry under a Root node. The V/R node represents both consonant voicing and tonal register. The Pitch node is specified for tone bearing segments only. ; The tone bearing unit is the moraic segment, or equivalently, the segment in the rime, whether it is a vowel or any consonant. A geminate has two Roots and may serve as two tone bearing units. ; Contour segments do not exist. Their absence is attributed to a universal principal, the No Contour Principle , which is given as follows: ; The tonal domain is the stress domain. Most syntax-phonology mismatches are due to lack of stress in some constituents. ;