pitch tone languages contrastively phonemic level contour

Transcription

1 Tone! The contrastive use of pitch (fundamental frequency)! tone languages languages in which di"erences in pitch are used contrastively (i.e. they are phonemic)! Some descriptive terminology! level tones! high vs. low; high vs. mid vs. low (occasionally >3 levels)! contour tones! falling; rising (occasionally others, e.g. rising-falling; di"erences in starting point and/or end point) 1

2 Tone: some notation! Standard (phonological) conventions in the transcription of tone:! level tones! acute accent [ á ] = high tone! grave accent [ à ] = low tone! macron or no accent [! ]/[ a ] = mid tone! contour tones! circum#ex accent [ â ] = falling tone! [ " ] = rising tone 2

3 Tone in terms of features! Tone is typically carried by (= realized on) whatever is in the syllable nucleus/peak! on a vowel, or on a syllabic consonant (if relevant)! Are tone features just like other features?! analogous to [±round], [±high], [±back], etc.?! One possibility (for level tones):! high = [+hightone, lowtone] mid = [ hightone, lowtone] low = [ hightone, +lowtone]! but what about contour tones? 3

4 Tone in terms of features! Are tone features just like other features? [ á ] =? 4

5 Tones as autosegments! Alternative view: tones are semi-independent (autonomous) elements of structure! Representationally speaking:! tones are on a separate tier from the segments on which they are realized (= the tone-bearing units, TBUs)! di"erent tiers are linked (synchronized) in terms of association lines! Some possibilities:! many-to-one associations! phonological rules can manipulate association lines (as well as insert/delete/change tones or TBUs) 5

6 Tones as autosegments! What autosegmental representations look like! here the segmental (TBU) tier is shown on top and the tonal tier on the bottom; the opposite is more common 6

7 What for?! Some behavioral aspects of tone that support an autosegmental analysis:! unboundedness ( spreading ; tone spans )! contour tones $ sequences of level tones! persistence (stability)! autonomy ( #oating tones; toneless TBUs)! existence of tonal melodies 7

8 Unboundedness! Tone often seems to spread across several TBUs! result can be viewed as a single, multiply-linked tone! = a single tone, which spans several syllables! Often some independent evidence for multiplelinked structure! sequence of identically-toned syllables behaves as a unit with respect to phonological rules a"ecting tone! cf. the Shona rule H % L / H (a.k.a. Meeussen s Law) 8

9 Contour tones! Behaviour and distribution of contour tones often suggests that they are sequences of level tones! falling = H+L! rising = L+H! rising-falling = L+H+L! Parallels between (e.g.) a HL contour on one syllable and a H+L sequence over two syllables! cf. Yoruba, Marghi, Igbo 9

10 Persistence (stability)! When a TBU (usually a vowel) is deleted, often the tone remains! tone becomes #oating! #oating tone then (usually) docks onto a neighbouring TBU instead! often results in a contour tone on that TBU! cf. Marghi 10

11 Autonomy! Logical possibilities:! TBUs which are (underlyingly) toneless! tones which are (underlyingly) #oating! Toneless TBUs receive tone from their environment! cf. Shona, Marghi! Floating tones dock onto a nearby TBU! cf. Shona, Igbo 11

12 Tonal melodies! Often the morphemes of a language have tone patterns that can be reduced to a very simple set of tonal melodies! e.g.: {H, L, HL, LH}! Tones line up with TBUs in accordance with the Association Convention! resulting surface tone pattern depends on! how many TBUs the morpheme/word has! how many tones there are in the melody (of that morpheme) 12

13 Association Convention! Once thought to be universal, but isn t quite! Assumes that tones and TBUs are not associated (yet) in the UR (i) (ii) Available tones and TBUs are associated in a one-to-one fashion, going from left to right The last/rightmost tone (usually) spreads to any leftover TBUs, resulting in a multiply-linked tone (iii) Any leftover tones (usually) dock onto the last/ rightmost TBU, resulting in a contour tone 13

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17 =[àb&rô] 17

18 (Central Igbo version) RESULT: [àgbá è'wè] 18