The monosyllabic lexical tone in Chinese is a composite of the two prosodic components that interact with each other as constraints. “Tonal features” specifically refer to the features associated with pitch, including register and contour, while the “non-tonal features” refer to those related to phonation types, including consonant types, vowel quality and syllable duration. The stress effect on the tonal features in polysyllabic words is studied. In the dialects attested, two stress patterns are coexistent: right stressed pattern and left stressed pattern. Stress reduction could result in the neutralization of tonal features, which varies in manner and degree across the dialects. Four types of neutralization are observed in the dialects: (α) Context dependent, local type, (β) Context dependent, systematic type, (γ) Context free, partial type and (δ) Context free, complete type. Type (δ) is the case of the so called “neutral tone”, which forms a “word tone” in combination with the tone in the stressed syllable. An ultimate consequence of tonal neutralization is monotonalization, which nowadays is going on in the new types of the Wu dialects, such as those in Shanghai and in Hangzhou. An interesting finding is that a sort of accentual system emerges in the process of monotonalization. Some related topics are discussed together with the historical background of the development of word tones in northern dialects.