Tonsandhi

Under sandhi refers to rules that in tonal languages affect the pronunciation of different sounds. The word sandhi comes from Sanskrit and means 'to put together'.

In standard Chinese, for example, there is a rule that if there are two consecutive syllables in the third tone, the first of the two syllables is pronounced in the second tone. The frequent greeting nǐhǎo ( 你 , nǐ  - "You" + 好 , hǎo  - "Good") is then pronounced as níhǎo (the diacritical marks mark the tone, see Pinyin ).

See also: Tones of Standard Chinese