How does tone develop?

Ran · Post by **Ran** » Sat Nov 22, 2003 7:54 pm

Eddy the Great wrote:How might tone sandhi develop?

Assimilation, dissimilation, metathesis, same as other sound changes.

Aurora Rossa · Post by **Aurora Rossa** » Sun Nov 23, 2003 11:37 am

Would this be a good sound change? T?l? becoming tal, for example. The final vowel drops off the sonorant and changes the tone of the preceeding vowel.

Ran · Post by **Ran** » Sun Nov 23, 2003 11:40 am

Sure. Or you can make it t?l, with a rising-falling tone.

alice · Post by **alice** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 5:50 am

Eddy the Great wrote:How does tone sandhi develop?

It develops when evil capitalists and followers of Nietzsche decide that
they can make more profit and increase the amount of hierarchy in the world by joining two tones together and confusing the populace

It can also develop in much the same way as other forms of sandhi, under the umbrella term of "to ease pronunciation". For example, if a low tone is followed by a high tone, either tone could develop into a rising tone, simply because it flows more easily.

Trebor · Post by **Trebor** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 7:23 pm

geoff wrote:It can also develop in much the same way as other forms of sandhi, under the umbrella term of "to ease pronunciation". For example, if a low tone is followed by a high tone, either tone could develop into a rising tone, simply because it flows more easily.

Not speaking a tonal language, what I'm interested to know is what sandhi is most natural for two tones- e.g. syllable 1 low, syllable 2 extra high; syllable 1 rising-falling, syllable 2 mid- to go through. Does anyone know of a good list?

Ran · Post by **Ran** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 7:33 pm

Trebor wrote:
geoff wrote:It can also develop in much the same way as other forms of sandhi, under the umbrella term of "to ease pronunciation". For example, if a low tone is followed by a high tone, either tone could develop into a rising tone, simply because it flows more easily.
Not speaking a tonal language, what I'm interested to know is what sandhi is most natural for two tones- e.g. syllable 1 low, syllable 2 extra high; syllable 1 rising-falling, syllable 2 mid- to go through. Does anyone know of a good list?

It really really depends. Take a look at the tone sandhi of Taiwanese, for instance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_ ... uistics%29

Basically, any tone that's not final undergoes a chain shift. And the chain shift appears to have no discernable pattern whatsoever.

Aurora Rossa · Post by **Aurora Rossa** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:05 pm

I hate to resurrect a six year old thread, but I figured it beat starting a whole new one on the same general topic.

How does tone sandhi develop in a language with a very simple tone system, such as only high and low tones? Try as I might, I just don't see much opportunity for sandhi to arise when each tone has only the option of remaining the same or switching to the opposite one.

Whimemsz · Post by **Whimemsz** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 1:04 pm

A good example of this can be found in Cheyenne, which developed two phonemic tones by changing long vowels to vowels with high tone (while originally-short vowels received low tone). However, modern Cheyenne has five surface tones, as described by Wayne Leman ("Cheyenne Pitch Rules", International Journal of American Linguistics 47(4):283-309): high (á), low (a), mid (ā), lowered high (ǎ), and raised high (â). The rules that lead to these five phonetic tones are pretty friggin' complex (and also interact with rules governing vowel devoicing), but I'll give some examples:

(1) "A low is raised [to a mid] before a word-final high" (and it's raised all the way to a high tone if preceded by a high tone as well), e.g.: /méʃené/ = [méʃéne] "ticks"; /póesón/ = [póéso] "cat"; /kosán/ = [kōsa] "sheep"; /éoveʃé/ = [éovēʃe] "he is going to bed".

(2) "[A]n entire sequence of highs becomes low-pitched, except for the first high, if a low comes between the sequence of highs and the end of a word", e.g.: /néméhótóne/ = [némēhotone] "we (inclusive) love him".

(3) "A high is raised prepenultimately if it follows a high which is not a trigger for [the rule discussed as (2) above]...and precedes a phonetic low", e.g.: /émésehe/ = [émêsehe] "he ate"; /téhméseheto/ = [tséhmêse̥heto] "when you ate".

(4) A high before a word-final low is lowered (to a lowered-high), e.g.: /péʔe/ = [pěʔe] "nighthawk"; /éheʔéve/ = [éheʔěve] "she is a woman".

(5) Word-final vowels get a low tone (plenty of examples above).