<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head> <title></title> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no"> </head> <body style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#000000;font-size:13px;"><img id="A716B863DEA51EF8CDF7781D28409147" width="0px" src="https://read-receipts.canarymail.io:8100/track/751F2D81C98B64244A1B80D2AD97DBC4_A716B863DEA51EF8CDF7781D28409147.png" height="0px"><div id="CanaryBody"> <div> <span class="" style="font-size: 13px;">Hi Laura,</span></div><div><br></div><div><span class="" style="font-size: 13px;">I think your question as is can’t really be answered, because (as Ian is hinting at) tone systems can’t be directly compared. Different researchers will analyze the same language differently (depending on their theories and frameworks etc.), so you might end up with the same system being described as high vs. extra-high by one researcher and mid vs. high by another. In my experience (working with Mixtecan languages), researchers quite often disagree about how many tonemes there are or whether a system should be analyzed as having a tone-less unit or not, because these are just tricky questions.</span></div><div><br></div><div><span class="" style="font-size: 13px;">So maybe it would help to add some detail about the system you are describing - the distribution of the tones, the average pitch levels, etc. depending on what exactly you are interested in. Then it would be easier to see for others whether they are familiar with such a system regardless of the labels attached to the tone levels.</span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><span class="" style="font-size: 13px;">All the best,</span></div><div><span class="" style="font-size: 13px;">Sandra</span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div> </div> <div id="CanarySig"> <div> <div style="font-family:Helvetica;">—<br><b><font face="Linux Libertine Display O"><span class="" style="font-size: 12px;">Sandra Auderset </span></font></b><div><font face="Linux Libertine Display O"><span class="" style="font-size: 12px;">PhD Candidate | [she/her]</span></font></div><div><font face="Linux Libertine Display O"><span class="" style="font-size: 12px;">Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution</span></font></div><div><font face="Linux Libertine Display O"><span class="" style="font-size: 12px;">MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology</span></font></div><div><font face="Linux Libertine Display O"><span class="" style="font-size: 12px;">&</span></font></div><div><font face="Linux Libertine Display O"><span class="" style="font-size: 12px;">Department of Linguistics</span></font></div><div><font face="Linux Libertine Display O"><span class="" style="font-size: 12px;">University of California Santa Barbara</span></font></div></div> <div><br></div> </div> </div> <div id="CanaryDropbox"> </div> <blockquote id="CanaryBlockquote"> <div> <div>On Wednesday, Jan 27, 2021 at 16:12, JOO Ian [Student] <<a href="mailto:ian.joo@connect.polyu.hk">ian.joo@connect.polyu.hk</a>> wrote:<br></div> <div> <div name="messageBodySection"> <div dir="auto"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman">Dear Laura,</span><br> <br> <span style="font-family:Times New Roman">If a language has High tone, Extra-High tone, and No-tone (phonetically Low, I assume), then what would stop us from calling them Mid and High tones instead of High and Extra-High?</span></div> </div> <div name="messageSignatureSection"><br> From Hong Kong, <div dir="auto">Ian</div> </div> <div name="messageReplySection">On 27 Jan 2021, 11:06 PM +0800, ARNOLD Laura <Laura.Arnold@ed.ac.uk>, wrote:<br> <blockquote type="cite" style="border-left-color: grey; border-left-width: thin; border-left-style: solid; margin: 5px 5px;padding-left: 10px;"> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> Dear colleagues, <div><br> </div> <div>Does anyone know how frequent two-tone inventories contrasting only High and Extra-High are? I’m working with data from a language which has an inventory that can possibly be analysed this way (the two tones also contrast with toneless syllables). I suspect this is quite an unusual inventory, cross-linguistically – it would be helpful to confirm this. I would also be interested to hear about similar examples elsewhere in the world.</div> <div><br> </div> <div>Many thanks,</div> Laura<br> </div> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <br> </div> <div style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">~~~ </span><br> </div> <div> <div id="Signature"> <div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" dir="ltr" style="font-size:12pt; color:#000000; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif"> <div style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif; color:rgb(32,31,30); text-align:start; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"> <span style="margin:0px"></span><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Cambria,Georgia,serif"></span> <div style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <span style="margin:0px; font-family:Cambria,Georgia,serif"><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif"></span><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif">Laura Arnold – </span><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif">British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow</span></span></div> <div style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <span style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif"><a href="https://www.laura-arnold.org/" title="https://www.laura-arnold.org" style="margin:0px; font-family:Cambria,Georgia,serif; background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif">laura-arnold.org</span></a><br> </span></div> <span style="margin:0px"></span><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Cambria,Georgia,serif"></span> <div style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <span style="margin:0px; font-family:Cambria,Georgia,serif"><br> <span style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif"></span></span></div> <div style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <span style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif"></span><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif">Room 1.13, Dugald Stewart Building</span><br> </div> <span style="margin:0px"></span><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Cambria,Georgia,serif"></span> <div style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color:rgb(0,0,0)"> <span style="margin:0px; font-family:Cambria,Georgia,serif"><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif">School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences</span><br> </span></div> <span style="margin:0px"></span><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Cambria,Georgia,serif"><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Calibri,Helvetica,sans-serif; color:rgb(0,0,0)">University of Edinburgh </span></span></div> <p style="margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px"></p> </div> </div> </div> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.</blockquote> </div> <img alt="" src="https://www.polyu.edu.hk/emaildisclaimer/PolyU_Email_Signature.jpg"> <p><br> <em><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Disclaimer:</font></em></p> <p></p> <p style="margin-left: 0.5in"><i><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span>This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose. 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