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

[Mark Donohue]

Another "catalogue" perspective.
Based on a sample of 2621 tone languages, we find that in languages with
only two tonal contrasts, after languages with only level tones (typically,
but not exclusively, H vs. L), it is more common to find a system
exclusively consisting of contour tones than it is to have one level and
one contour tone.[1] With systems having more than two contrasts, mixed
systems very quickly rule the roost, though H M L holds up well, and with 7
or more contrasts all systems are a mixture of level and contour tones
(though we note that there are only 145 such systems in the database with
tonal systems so elaborate, 5.5% of the whole).

level contour mixed n
2 72% 20% 8% 890
3 47% 9% 44% 570
4 5% 5% 90% 505
5 1% 4% 95% 291
6 0% 3% 97% 210
7 0% 0% 100% 67
8 0% 0% 100% 50
9 0% 0% 100% 18
10+ 0% 0% 100% 20

So it's not really a shock to learn of a language with only contour tones,
especially if it's a small tone system.

Looking just at the languages with only contour tones (10.4% of the
sample), 65% have only two contrasts, 19% have 3 contrasts, 9% have four,
5% have five, and just seven languages have six contrasts. These most
elaborate contour-only systems (with six contrasts) are all from southern
China; here the tones before the  '|' are found in syllables ending with a
vowel, glide, or nasal, and those after the '|' are those found with -p -t
-k or -ʔ; note that some level tones emerge in this part of the system,
with only Qiyang, Chadong, and the Liula dialect of Lakkia surviving.

Zhuang-Ningming HH- HM MM- ML MH MHM 343 32 35 43 54 21 | 44 55 11 Tai-Kadai
Qiyang HL LML MHL MHM MLHM HLML 231 342 442 453 2142 4232
Tibeto-Burman_Sinitic_Xiang
Sui-Sandong_Hezhai HL HM ML LM MH LML 121 42 32 53 35 13 | 55 35 33 32
Tai-Kadai
Zhuang-Jingxi HM ML LM MH MLH LMLM 54 31 2323 13 45 214 | 44 55 21 13
Tai-Kadai
Longyou HM ML LM MH H-H MLM 445 212 45 13 53 31 | 5 12
Tibeto-Burman_Sinitic_Wu
Chadong HM ML M-L LM MH H-H 53 31 21 23 35 45| 45 21 (short vowel); 31 23
(long vowel) Tai-Kadai
Lakkia-Liula ML LH MH MLH LML MHM 453 231ʔ 45 214~ 24 221 | 34 45
Tai-Kadai

-Mark

[1] Note: unlike Larry, I take the Blang 55 51 31 13 system as being H HL
ML LM, preferring more phonetic detail. I would not be adverse to 51 and 41
being analysed as HL and ML, for example, but I'm quite happy to lose L as
a primitive in the Blang system. As a result, my numbers and Larry's
numbers are not directly comparable.





On Mon, 23 Mar 2020 at 03:15, 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
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20200324/850c5750/attachment.htm>