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.

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.