Tonogenesis as an index of areal relationships in East Asia

Abstract

One of the anonymous publisher's readers of my new book, Middle Chinese, remarked: "The problem of substrata and diffusion is given little weight and internal development is taken for granted where many will see the results of outside influences, especially as regards the Altaic connection in the north and the Tai connection in the south." Since his report was otherwise quite favourable, I can hardly complain about such an expression of opinion. On the other hand, since my book is not concerned with the whole history of the Chinese language but simply with reconstructing the internal development of the phonology of the standard language over a period of several centuries, the point made by my critic, even if true, seems rather irrelevant.