余文生副研究員Jonathan P. Evans（語言學研究所）

       Languages in which at least some units of meaning (morphemes) carry a specification of relative pitch may be termed tone languages.  Among such languages, tones may be as frequent as every syllable (e.g., dialects of Chinese), or as sparse as once per phrase (varieties of Japanese).  Sparse tonal systems, in which no more than one tone is pronounced per word (or longer phonological unit), are termed 'culminative'.