Table of Contents

1. Introduction: What Are Rime Tables and What Do They Mean? (by Branner, David Prager); 2. Part I: Rime-Tables in Chinese Reconstruction; 3. On the Principle of the Four Grades (by Chan, Abraham); 4. The Four Grades: An Interpretation from the perspective of Sino-altaic language contact (by Li, Chris Wen-Chao); 5. On Old Turkic Consonanticism and Vocalic Divisions of Acute Consonants in Medieval Han Phonology (by Lim, An-King); 6. The Qieyun System 'Divisions' as the Result of Vowel Warping (by Schuessler, Axel); 7. Part II: The History of Rime Table Texts and Reconstruction; 8. Reflections on the Shouwen Fragments (by Coblin, W. South); 9. Zhang Linzhi on the Yunjing (by Coblin, W. South); 10. Simon Schaank and the Evolution of Western Beliefs About Traditional Chinese Phonology (by Branner, David Prager); 11. Part III: Rime Tables as Descriptive Tools; 12. How Rime-Book Based Analyses Can Lead Us Astray (by Simmons, Richard VanNess); 13. Modern Chinese and the Rime Tables (by Norman, Jerry); 14. Common Dialect Phonology in Practice.: Y.R. Chao's Field Methodology (by Simmons, Richard VanNess); 15. Some Composite Phonological Systems in Chinese (by Branner, David Prager); 16. Common Dialectal Chinese (by Norman, Jerry); 17. Appendix I: Pronunciation Guide to Boodberg's Alternative Grammatonomic Notation (by Ledyard, Gari K.); 18. Appendix II: Comparative Transcriptions of Rime Table Phonology (by Branner, David Prager); 19. Bibliography; 20. Index of Biographical Names; 21. General Index