Tone is about melody and meaning inflection is about grammar and this book is about a bit of
both. The contributions to this volume study possible and sometimes complex ways in which the
tones of a language engage in the expression of grammatical categories. There is a widespread
conception that tone is a lexical phenomenon only. This is partly a consequence of the main
interest in tone coming from phonology while the main interest in inflection has stemmed from
segmental morphology. Similarly textbooks on inflection and textbooks on tone give very few
examples of the inflectional use of tone and such examples are often the same ones or too
similar. This volume aims to broaden our understanding of the link between tone and inflection
by showing that there is more to tone than meets the eye. The book includes general chapters as
well as case studies on lesser known languages of Asia Africa and Papua New Guinea with a
special focus on the Oto-Manguean languages a large and diverse linguistic stock of Mexico that
inspired Kenneth Pike's 1948 seminal work on tone. Most of the contributions to this volume
provide first-hand data from recent fieldwork that stems from important language documentation
activities.
