[Lingtyp] languages with just lexical contour tones / bitonal units?

[Larry M. HYMAN]

Adam - In my "catalogue" of 664 tone systems, I have 398 that have only two
levels. Of these 85 have a LH tone. Of these 11 have been analyzed as
having a contrast between LH and something else. A warning though: This is
really an interpretation—for example, Fasu has been analyzed as having a
/H/ vs. /L/ on its stressed syllable, but it could have been set up as /HL/
vs. /LH/ (probably other possibilities). The fewer tonal contrasts, the
more room for interpretation. I'm skeptical that you *have to* analyze the
language that way.

Here is the list (I haven't gone back to look at the references, read many
years ago, which are in my office, which is not available to us these
days!):

LH vs. Ø (which you asked for):
Mal (dialect). [MLF] Mon-Khmer. Filbeck, David. 1972. Tone in a dialect of
T’in. Anthropological Linguistics 14.111-118

LH vs. HL:
Dafla (Nisi), Tibeto-Burman (Tani). Ray, Punya Sloka. 1967. Dafla phonology
and morphology. Anthr. Lx. 9.8, 9-14.
Daw (Maku, Brazil): Martins, Valteir. 2005. *Reconstruçao Fonológica do
Protomaku Oriental*. Doctoral dissertation, LOT (Netherlands Graduate
School of Linguistics).
Hup (Maku, Colombia, Brazil): Epps, Patience. 2005. A grammar of Hup.
Doctoral dissertation, University of Virginia
Oksapmin (Trans-New-Guinea): Okspamin Organized Phonology Data. SIL, Papua
New Guinea.

H vs. LH:
Tshangla (Tsangla), Tibeto-Burman, Himalayish (Bodic): Zhang Jichuan 1986,
cited in Andvik, Erik. Tshangla.  In Thurgood, Graham & Randy J. LaPolla.
2003. The Sino-Tibetan Languages. London & New York: Routledge
Auye (Trans-New-Guinea, Wissel Lakes): Moxness, Michael. 2006. Auye
phonology. Ms. (SIL?)
Foe (Trans-New-Guinea, Kutubuan): Rule, Murray. 1993. The culture and
language of the Foe-Lake Kutubu People of the Southern Highlands Province,
Papua New Guinea.
Pame (Northern) (Oto-Manguean, Pamean): Berthiaume, Scott Charles. 2003. *A
phonological grammar of Northern Pame.* Doctoral dissertation. University
of Texas at Arlington.

H vs. LHL
Ama (Left May, Papua New Guinea, East Sepik): 1994. Ama Organised Phonology
Data.  SIL, Papua New Guinea.

And with some confusion between HL vs. H, H vs. LH, or even HL vs. LH:

Kuman (Trans-New-Guinea, Chimbu): Hardie, Peter. 2003. Is Kuman tonal? An
account of basic segmental and tonological structure in the Papuan language
Kuman. MA Thesis. ANU.


On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 9:15 AM Adam James Ross Tallman <
ajrtallman at utexas.edu> wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> It's been suggested to me that the language I'm working on really makes a
> distinction between 0 vs. LH lexical marking, rather than 0 vs. H as I had
> previously thought. Looking at connected speech the evidence for this seems
> very strong and I'm starting to overcome my initial resilience to the
> proposal.
>
> Has this been proposed for any other language? (i.e. a language that just
> has 0, LH or 0, HL and no corresponding lexical Ls and Hs). I want to know
> what the evidence looks like for other language? In my case it's primarily
> phonetic and I'm not really sure what strictly phonological evidence would
> look like.
>
> Notice I'm not asking about pitch accents or intonational marking etc. But
> cases where it can be shown that the categories are really lexically
> specified.
>
> Help would be appreciated, I hope everyone is well and healthy.
>
> best,
>
> Adam
>
> --
> Adam J.R. Tallman
> PhD, University of Texas at Austin
> Investigador del Museo de Etnografía y Folklore, la Paz
> ELDP -- Postdoctorante
> CNRS -- Dynamique Du Langage (UMR 5596)
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>


-- 
Larry M. Hyman, Professor of Linguistics & Executive Director,
France-Berkeley Fund
Department of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/people/person_detail.php?person=19
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20200322/a7864e7f/attachment.htm>