[Lingtyp] Summary of the discussion on the loss of tone (tonoexodus)

[Joo, Ian]

Dear all,

Many thanks for providing fruitful comments and insights on the question about the loss of tone, or tonoexodus as it was previously coined by Wayne Lea. Many have pointed out Korean is indeed not the only language whose tonoexodus we can observe, because there are: creole languages in contact with non-tonal European superstrata (Kofi Yakpo); certain Chinese dialects in Indonesia (David Gil); certain Slavic and Baltic languages (Ilja Seržant); Quiaviní Zapotec (Hiroto Uchihara); Chacobo (Adam James Ross Tallman); and others. It seems that the general pattern is not an abrupt shift from tonal to atonal, but rather a gradual shift from completely tonal to tonal only in certain phonotactic or lexical boundaries (e. g. only in long syllables or only in ideophones). So perhaps tono “exodus” is a better term with the term I tried to coin, tono “thanasia”, because exodus is gradual whereas death is (more or less) abrupt.
Also thanks to Don Killian for pointing out that tones survive in certain Korean dialects. I wasn’t sure if they had tones or pitch-accent, but thanks for sharing literature on the tonality of these dialects.
Needless to say, it would be a great paper to write an overviewing summary of the typology of tonoexodus.

From Jena, Germany,
Ian
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