Theoretical Aspects of Bantu Tone
Theoretical Aspects of Bantu Tone

Author: Larry M. Hyman

Publisher: Stanford Univ Center for the Study

Published: 1998-01-01

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 9781575860954

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This book brings together a collection of papers focusing on the tonal systems of the Bantu languages of sub-Saharan Africa. These papers are alike in their attempt to fuse the description of Bantu tone with linguistic theory, but at the same time reflect a range of such theoretical perspectives (autosegmental phonology, lexical phonology, optimality theory, optimal domains theory). Much new descriptive material is to be found in this collection, as well as attempts to bring Bantu tonology to bear on critical issues of phonological theory. This book provides new theoretical insights and analyses of the complexities known to characterize Bantu tone systems. New insights into the treatment of long-distance tonal effects, tonal domains, depressor consonants, and other issues known through the autosegmental and metrical literature on tone are highlighted.

An Integrated Theory of Autosegmental Processes
An Integrated Theory of Autosegmental Processes

Author: Rochelle Lieber

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1987-09-30

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1438410832

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This volume resolves an inconsistency that has arisen in the autosegmental theory of phonology and morphology - some versions of this theory allow a single distinctive feature to be duplicated on more than one tier, and others do not. In this book the author affirms that duplication of features should be allowed, but should not be restricted, by a device called the Duplicate Features Filter. She proposes a number of other revisions to current autosegmental theory, and shows how this unified theory can lead to elegant and revealing analyses of such varied phenomena as consonant mutation, umlaut, infixation and the behavior of depressor consonants in tone languages, and vowel and consonant harmony processes. Languages as diverse as Khalka Mongolian, modern German, Zulu, Andalusian Spanish, Terena, Mixtec, Chumash, Fula, Nuer, and Chemehuevi are discussed. Integrated autosegmental theory draws together diverse linguistic phenomena and reveals underlying similarities among them. The result is a concise and detailed work which brings the phenomena of autosegmental phonology and morphology into a single cohesive framework.

Tone and Inflection
Tone and Inflection

Author: Enrique L. Palancar

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2016-03-07

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 3110450364

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Tone is about melody and meaning, inflection is about grammar, and this book is about a bit of both. The contributions to this volume study possible and sometimes complex ways in which the tones of a language engage in the expression of grammatical categories. There is a widespread conception that tone is a lexical phenomenon only. This is partly a consequence of the main interest in tone coming from phonology, while the main interest in inflection has stemmed from segmental morphology. Similarly, textbooks on inflection and textbooks on tone give very few examples of the inflectional use of tone, and such examples are often the same ones or too similar. This volume aims to broaden our understanding of the link between tone and inflection by showing that there is more to tone than meets the eye. The book includes general chapters as well as case studies on lesser known languages of Asia, Africa and Papua New Guinea, with a special focus on the Oto-Manguean languages, a large and diverse linguistic stock of Mexico that inspired Kenneth Pike’s 1948 seminal work on tone. Most of the contributions to this volume provide first-hand data from recent fieldwork that stems from important language documentation activities.

Segmental Structure and Tone
Segmental Structure and Tone

Author: Wolfgang Kehrein

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2017-12-18

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 3110377497

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This volume seeks to reevaluate the nature of tone-segment interactions in phonology. The contributions address, among other things, the following basic questions: what tone-segment interactions exist, and how can the facts be incorporated into phonological theory? Are interactions between tones and vowel quality really universally absent? What types of tone-consonant interactions do we find across languages? What is the relation between diachrony and synchrony in relevant processes? The contributions discuss data from various types of languages where tonal information plays a lexically distinctive role, from ‘pure’ tone languages to so-called tone accent systems, where the occurrence of contrastive tonal melodies is restricted to stressed syllables. The volume has an empirical emphasis on Franconian dialects in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, but also discusses languages as diverse as Slovenian, Livonian, Fuzhou Chinese, and Xhosa.