语音可以分为辅音、元音和声调。声调以音高来传达语词的意义。世界上大约有70%的语言是声调研的语言，汉语在其中无疑是非常有代表性的。深入地研究这些语言的声调，对汉语研究的重要参考价值不言而喻。
本书论述了声调的类型、特征和发生，在优选论的框架下分析声调的超音段性质，探讨了声调音系层面和形态、句法层面的关系。同时力求级研究者提供一个完善的知识结构、所讨论的声调语音系统遍布亚洲、美洲和非洲，涉及尽可能多的语言类型，并对声调的感知和习得也做了一些论述。
本书作者专门研究过汉语声调，著有《汉语声调系统》一书。

List of figures
List of maps
Preface
Acknowledgements
Notation systems,symbols and abbreviations
Glossarty of terms and abbreviations
Alphabetical list of OT constraints
Maps
1 Introduction
1.1 What is a tone language
1.2 How is tone produced
1.3 The structure of the grammar:Phonetics and phonology
1.4 The place of phonology in the larger grammar
1.5 The organization of this book
2 Contrastive tone
2.1 Which languages are tonal
2.2 Tonal notations
2.3 Fiedl-work issues
2.4 Contrastion level tones
2.5 Location,number and types of rising and falling tones
2.6 Tone and vowel quality
2.7 Consonant types and tone
2.8 Tonogenesis:the birth of tones
3 Tonal fatures
3.1 Desderata for a feature system
3.2 Numbers of level tones
3.3 Contours
3.4 Feature geometry
3.5 Realtionship to laryngeal features
3.6 Binarity,markedness,and underspecification
4 The autosegmental nature of tone,and its analysis in Optimality Theory
4.1 Characteristics of tone
4.2 Autosegmental repersentations
4.3 The bare bones of Optimality Theory
4.4 An OT treatment of the central properties of tone
4.5 Tonal Behaviour and its OT treatment
4.6 Some Bantu phemomena in OT
4.7 Initial left-to-right association
4.8 Exrametricality
4.9 Relation Between tone and stress
4.10 The Obligatory Contour Principle
5 Tone in morphology and in syntax
……
6 African langrages
7 Aisan and pacific languages
8 The Americas
9 Tone,stress,accent,and intonation
10 Perception and acquisition of tone
Biblisography
Author index
Subject index