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

[Johann-Mattis List]

Interesting, what sample is that based on? Was it the one which Damian
Blasi and colleagues used to check for a correlation between desiccation
and tone?

On 24.03.20 13:16, Mark Donohue wrote:
> 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 <mailto: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)
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