This book is about the close historical and linguistic relationship between the languages of Surinam and Benin, a relationship which can be viewed in terms of a Trans Atlantic Sprachbund or linguistic area. It consists of a detailed analysis of various possible substrate and adstrate effects in a number of components of the grammar, in the Surinam Creole languages, primarily from the Gbe languages of Benin but also from Kikongo.

This book is about the close historical and linguistic relationship between the languages of Surinam and Benin, a relationship which can be viewed in terms of a Trans Atlantic Sprachbund or linguistic area. It consists of a detailed analysis of various possible substrate and adstrate effects in a number of components of the grammar, in the Surinam Creole languages, primarily from the Gbe languages of Benin but also from Kikongo.

From the contents: Lexical and postlexical tone sandhi in Chongming.- Resolving the paradox of Tianjin tone sandhi.- Mandarin third tone sandhi and prosodic structure.- Towards a systematic account of Shanghai tonal phonology.- The representation of the netral tone in Chinese Putonghua.- The Cantonese vowel system in historical perspective.- Underspecification and the description of Chinese vowels.