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The first is a wide-ranging sample of successful tonal analyses.

Even beginning students in linguistics are made familiar with an appreciable variety of consonant systems, both in their general outlines and in many specific details.

An advanced student has read a considerable number of descriptions of consonantal systems, including some of the more unusual types.

By contrast, even experienced linguists commonly know no more of the range of possibilities in tone systems than the over-simple distinction between register and contour languages.

This limited familiarity with the possible phenomena has severely hampered work with tone.

Tone analysis will continue to be difficult and unsatisfactory until a more representative selection of systems is familar to every practicing field linguist.

Papers like these four, if widely read, will contribute importantly to improvement of our analytic work.