Tone-1: African Languages

24.961 Tone-1: African Languages 1. Main theme • the study of tone in African lgs. raised serious conceptual problems for the representation of the phoneme as a bundle of distinctive features. • the solution to the problem (autosegmental representations) became a model for all other features • tone exhibits the widest range of phonological behavior, perhaps reflecting fact that F0 is separated from rest of signal at an early point in auditory processing 2. Phonetic correlates of tone • F0; stiffen and slacken vocal folds • typically realized on modal voicing • domain: often larger than single segment (syllable, word) • Tone-Bearing Unit: typically syllable, mora also possible (Lithuanian, Makua, Japanese); often spills over syllable boundary (peak delay) • often accompanied by voice quality features like creaky and breathy voice • can be affected by laryngeal features of adjacent consonants (tonogenesis) 3. notation • Two-way contrast: á vs. à (or a) most Bantu languages • Three-way contrast: a vs. a (or a) vs. à (Yoruba, Buli syuk H 'path', syuk M 'navel', syùk 'fish sp.' • Contours: a (rise) a (fall) • Features for H, M, L • Goldsmith: [+highpitch, -lowpitch], [-highpitch, -lowpitch], [-highpitch, +lowpitch] (3-way height contrast; cf. vowel height) • Yip: [+upper, -high], [-upper, +high], [-upper, -high] ([+upper, +high] for raised H) (4-way height contrast) 4. descriptive problems with tone motivating a novel conception of feature organization • decomposition of contour tones Rise into LH and Fall into HL • tonal melodies and tonal polarity 5. Margi (Chadic, Nigeria): H, L, R (Williams 1973, Hoffmann 1963) • • rising tone behaves phonologically as combination of Low plus High derivational source from syllable coalescence sál kùm tágú ú?ù • sál-árì kùm-árì tágw-árì ú?w-arì 'man' 'meat' 'horse' 'fire' tonal melody in verbs 1 sá ghà hu ndábyá dzà?ù gùsú H L R HH LL LH in a language with tonal melodies, the number of tonal contrasts does not increase with the length of the lexical item; rather the melody is extended to encompass additional syllables • tonal polarity: affix takes the opposite tone from the root: [tense-root-subject] à sá gù á wì gú á vl gù 'you go astray' 'you run' 'you fly' 5. adding features of [±rise], [±fall] does not express the equivalence with LH and HL 6. Goldsmith (1976) Autosegmental Phonology • • • tonal features are represented on a separate level (tier) from segmental features the temporal relation between the tonal tier and the segmental tier is represented by association lines rules of tonal phonology define and modify the associations as well as changing the feature coefficients 7. Margi analyzed autosegmentally devocalization u?u-ari | | | | H L HL • u?w-ari | | | H L HL -> u ? w - a r i | /| | H LH L segmental tier tonal tier tonal stability: while vowel deletes or devocalizes to a glide and hence loses its ability to hold a tone, the tone does not disappear but is reassociated with an adjacent syllable 8. Goldsmith's (1976) Well-Formedness Condition on autosegmental representations (rules apply to maximally satisfy it; early example of rules driven to satisfy a constraint) • • • every tone is associated with a tone-bearing unit (TBU = syllable, mora) every tone-bearing unit is associated with a tone association lines do not cross (for locality) 9. Margi tonal melodies • verb roots belong to one of three tonal classes: H, L, LH 2 • • • • • • tones are associated with tone-bearing units (syllable) one-to- one, left-to-right tones spread to satisfy the first condition of the WFC tones associate to satisfy the second implication that asymmetric location of plateux and contours should correlate subsequent research fails to support this prediction Zhang (UCLA diss) and others: contours prefer right edge of word; reflex of phonetic duration in citation, phrase-final position 8. Leben (1978): further work by Dweyer finds that LHH melody of Hausa ndàvúlá 'sling' is counter-exemplified by more numerous LLH of làsìmó 'amulet'. Leben suggests that H is mapped to right edge for majority class while left-to-right is default similar asymmetry for Kukuya (Paulian 1974) ka 'to pick' kárà 'paralytic' káràgà 'be entangled' sa 'knot' sàmí 'conversation' mwai 'younger brother' 9. Zoll 2003 • *Spread-H >> *Spread-L (Clash >> Lapse) • eliminates gradient alignment as vestige of directional rule mapping /lasimo, LH/ Max LLL *! LHL LHH -> LLH Dep *Spread-H *Spread-L *! *! * 10. tonal polarity: a particle has opposite tone of root: V -> [-@hitone] // ___ Co [+syll, @hitone] 11. some other useful properties of autosegmental notation • common tone sandhi rules expressed as addition of association lines (tone spread) L -> F / H __ Yoruba bá bà 'meet' 'perch' ó bá ó ba H -> R / L ___ Buli 'head' wà zuk 'his head' zúk 'he meets' 'he perches' - Yoruba and Buli are three-tone languages: H, M, L - the sandhi rules apply to tones at the F0-extremes - tone sandhi rules are typically perseverative reflecting fact that F0 coarticulation is normally delayed; cf. vowel height coarticulation, which is typically anticipatory (Hyman 2006); cf. Italian metaphony 3 • addition of association plus deletion of original association line (tone shift) Odden, David. In Introducing Phonology. Cambridge University Press, 2005. © Cambridge University Press. V V | / H • across-the-board tonal change: Meeussen's Rule in Shona (Odden 1981) H -> L / H ___ Shona: mbwá 'dog' badzá 'hoe' hóvé 'fish' mbúndúdzí 'worms' né#mbwa 'with a dog' né#badzá 'with a hoe' né#hove 'with a fish' sé#mbundudzi 'like worms' Ø multiple linking of tone required Ø imposed by Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP): adjacent identical trones are banned: successive H tones as in hóvé 'fish' and mbúndúdzí 'worms' analyzed with one multiply-linked H H | ne • H / \ hove H H | / | \ ne mbundudzi tonal particle: a grammatical morpheme whose only exponent is a tonal effect on neighboring word Odden, David. In Introducing Phonology. Cambridge University Press, 2005. © Cambridge University Press. 4 L H | ?as H | mus L 12. automatic downstep (aka delination, catathesis) • high tone is realized at a lower F0 value that a previous H when preceded by a L • found in many diverse languages: Japanese, English list notation Yoruba: Laniran & Clements (2003) Laniran, Yetunde O., and G. N. Clements. “Downstep and High Raising: Interacting Factors in Yoruba Tone roduction.” Journal of Phonetics 31, no. 2 (2003): 203–50. © Elsevier. • • phonetic value of H could be lower than value of earlier L grammaticalization of natural lowering of subglottal pressure across breath group as speech is articulated from "left-to-right" 13. Moore (Gur, Burkina Faso) • H á vs. L a; has automatic downstep • has non-automatic downstep: second of two high's realized at a lower level: á! á • cf. English vocative: declarative Susan [ -- -- ] vs. vocative Oh Susan! [ -- --] ko sá:ga ko korgó zá sá:ga zá kór!gó 'give a broom' 'give a sack' 'bring a broom' 'bring a sack' kor béda kor ke:gá sá béda sá ké:!gá za korgo |/ | | H L H 14. data from Lama problem (PGG 7.10) 5 'big sacks' 'green sacks' 'big brooms' 'green brooms' • • develop an OT analysis for the data from this problem you may postulate Max and Dep constraints on tone as well as markedness constraints contolling the formation and location of contour tones Kenstowicz, Michael. Phonology in Generative Grammar. Blackwell Publishing, 1994. © Blackwell Publishing. All rights reserved. 6 Kenstowicz, Michael. Phonology in Generative Grammar. Blackwell Publishing, 1994. © Blackwell Publishing. All rights reserved. 7