are there allophones in Mandarin?
A tonic allophone is sometimes called an allotone, for example in the neutral tone of Mandarin. http://en.wikipedia.
I once bought a self-study DVD meant for advanced Chinese students of Standard Mandarin, just to see how much I’d understand. So far, my success has been meager, but one thing I have understood is that Mandarin initial consonants have rounded and unrounded allophones, complementarily distributed in the obvious way. By the way, the answer to the question “Are there allophones in XXX?” is always “yes”, regardless of which language XXX is. Edit: There’s something about the subject in Wikipedia, but it doesn’t go to great depth: http://en.wikipedia.
