This book is designed for students of linguistics who want to learn more about tone. It assumes a basic knowledge of phonological theory such as might be acquired in a year-long phonology course, but it does not assume any particular prior exposure to work on tone. The theoretical chapters of the book are framed in Optimality Theory (OT), but should be intelligible to students with no previous background in OT.

The book is suitable for a semester-long course on tonal phonology at the advanced undergraduate or graduate level. The theoretical chapters include some simple exercises, and the answers are given at the end of each chapter. It is also hoped that the book will be a useful reference work on the fundamentals of tone, and to this end it includes extensive references to both primary fieldwork sources and to theoretical works. An effort has been made to give broad coverage of tone languages, both typologically and geographically.