30.2272, Review: Morphology; Phonetics; Phonology; Syntax: Snider (2018)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-2272. Thu May 30 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.2272, Review: Morphology; Phonetics; Phonology; Syntax: Snider (2018)

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Date: Thu, 30 May 2019 23:43:46
From: Christopher Green [cgreen10 at syr.edu]
Subject: Tone Analysis for Field Linguists

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36511617


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-672.html

AUTHOR: Keith L. Snider
TITLE: Tone Analysis for Field Linguists
PUBLISHER: SIL International Publications
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: Christopher R Green, Syracuse University

INTRODUCTION

This book has something for everyone, from aspiring field workers, to
experienced tonologists, to specialists in other subfields of linguistics who
are curious to know, once-and-for-all, how tone ‘works.’ The book and its many
examples have an undeniable slant towards African languages, a fact that
should be unsurprising to anyone familiar with Snider’s prolific career
working on a number of languages indigenous to that continent, and in
particular, the Ghanaian language Chumburung. Indeed, just over 40% of the
book is devoted specifically to tackling issues directly related to
Chumburung, and, in addition, examples from this language constitute the vast
majority of all those included in other chapters. Snider certainly does his
due diligence in often mentioning properties of other African languages, as
well as other tonal languages of the world, and despite this slant, the
utility of the book stands on its own. Following Snider’s carefully
articulated methodology for tone analysis will lead any field linguist in the
direction of successfully tackling their favorite language’s tonal system.

SUMMARY

Tone Analysis for Field Linguists contains six chapters, a brief Preface and
Acknowledgments from the author, and a small index. Before even arriving at
the author’s Preface, however, readers are treated to a Foreword by
world-renowned Africanist and tonologist Will Leben (Stanford) and a fairly
lengthy list of endorsements and testimonials (fourteen in total) from other
well-respected tonologists, field workers, and even several students from
Trinity Western University, where Snider is Professor of Linguistics.

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the enterprise of studying tone and
tonal languages. It provides information on what it means to be a ‘tone
language’ (Section 1.1), followed by other sections introducing tonal contrast
(1.2) and contrastive tone height (1.3). Section 1.4 concerns itself with
contrastive tone patterns (i.e., melodies), and the chapter closes with
Section 1.5 on data collection. 

Snider bills this book (as do several others endorsing it before the Preface)
as a suitable primer for budding tonologists. My impression, however, is that
Chapter 1 might in fact frighten away some of the very individuals that the
books hopes to be attracting to the study of tone. The reason for this is not
the content of the chapter, but rather in the way that it is organized.
Section 1.1 delves right in to seeking evidence for a three-way, Low vs. High
vs. Toneless underlying tonal contrast in Kenyang and, in doing so, uses
Snider’s chosen ‘bar notation’ to illustrate the surface tonal patterns being
discussed. The reader is told only in passing how to read these
representations, many of which contain both level and contour pitch patterns.
I was struck by the fact that the discussion jumped so quickly into a
three-way contrast rather than easing the reader in to examples like those
later presented in Section 1.3 which instead probe a two-way tonal distinction
with pitches at level heights. Snider also utilizes examples that require the
introduction of somewhat extraneous facts about Kenyang in order to understand
what is underway, which he must, in turn, mention but set aside in favor of
what is “more germane to the discussion at hand” (p. 5). In what reads as a
high-level introduction to certain facts about identifying contrast, the
reader is often required to guess at what is meant by the author’s frequent
reference to one being sure to consider “all aspects that can affect how tone
is realized” (p. 7) without being told what these are or might be. This is not
to say that these issues are not clarified, but rather, they are only done so
in later sections. I believe that the chapter would have been more successful
had it begun with the content of Section 1.5, letting the reader know how to
interpret the bar notation representations, and also Section 1.3 wherein the
author intimates more about the various factors that potentially affect pitch
realization cross-linguistically (e.g., vowel length, presence vs. absence of
sonorant codas, pause, etc.). Armed with this information, the reader might
more seamlessly internalize the content in Sections 1.1 and 1.2. These mild
criticisms aside, Section 1.4 on the utility of morpheme-based tonal melodies
based on Leben’s seminal work on Mende is particularly enlightening.

Chapter 2, far and away, encompasses the core contribution of this book. This
chapter clearly, concisely, and comprehensively spells out Snider’s tried and
true methodology for analyzing phonological tone. It is in this chapter that
the many earlier mentions of “all the factors that can influence tone” are
finally elucidated in detail. Snider discusses why and how characteristics
such as grammatical category, stem shape, syllable profile, and a host of
other factors (e.g., consonant-tone interaction, phonation, stress) should be
carefully taken into consideration in approaching and working through a tonal
analysis. All of these matters are discussed alongside helpful pointers for
the creation of databases and best practices for the organization of data more
broadly. The chapter concludes with a step-by-step procedure for assessing and
dealing with one’s data, including detailed discussion about what to tackle
first and, thereafter, a potential order of investigation after the tonal
basics have been at least preliminarily established. I certainly found myself
jotting notes in the margins that I will be sure to revisit in preparation for
my next field methods course; this is truly a chapter where there is something
for everyone.

Snider turns in Chapter 3 from phonological analysis to the interpretation of
phonetic pitch using pitch traces and supplementary waveforms. The chapter
begins with a basic introduction to waves and acoustic properties of pitch,
including four different wave types that one can reasonably expect to
encounter in linguistic research. The majority of this chapter, however, is
devoted to explicit discussion of seven characteristics of pitch traces,
including potential pitfalls associated with them, that one should keep in
mind in order to most accurately and consistently measure pitch. Also included
is a brief acoustic study of automatic vs. non-automatic downstep in Bimoba
where Snider, once again, discusses important dos and don’ts while
simultaneously showing the utility and application of these practices with
natural language data.

Chapter 4 is concerned with the practical matter of representing tone in a
language’s orthography. Snider discusses the importance of taking into
consideration the functional load played by tone in the language being
targeted. This includes an overview of the pros and cons of adopting none vs.
some vs. complete tonal marking in orthography, with a number of fascinating
examples given for arguably somewhat less well-known instances of diacritic
marking for the indication of grammatical tone. The chapter transitions to a
concise overview of theoretical issues bearing directly on orthography
development, and namely factors related to the phonological ‘depth’ (i.e.,
surface vs. phonemic vs. lexical vs. underlying) that an orthography ought to
represent and ways to test for the adequacy of one approach vs. another. The
reader ultimately learns late in the chapter that this discussion is meant to
introduce and subsequently motivate Snider’s own Lexical Orthography
Hypothesis, by which he proposes that a language’s orthography should be
designed based on the output of lexical (rather than postlexical) rules.

Chapters 5 and 6 are vastly different from earlier chapters in the book. While
the first four chapters adopted a very how-to approach more suitable for a
primer, the latter two chapters are more of a case study pertaining
specifically to Chumburung. Chapter 5 is, for all intents and purposes, a
60-page tonological sketch of the language whose details are revealed by way
of the methodology Snider prescribes earlier in the book. The comparatively
short Chapter 6 closes the book by the application of the Lexical Orthography
Hypothesis to the development of a practical orthography for Chumburung.

EVALUATION

It is without a doubt that Snider’s Tone Analysis for Field Linguists should
be on every linguist’s shelf–yes, even non-‘P’ people; the book serves as a
convenient and concise go-to resource for information on tonological analysis
and as a quick reference for information on where and why tone might end up
being relevant in one’s linguistic research. Snider has packed this fairly
short book with countless tips and suggestions that are applicable to any
tonologist, regardless of their skill level. Chapters 2 and 3, in particular,
are indispensable reading for any field methods course on a tonal language or
for anyone planning a trip to the field for data collection. I mention above
some organizational issues that might present an initial challenge to students
or tonology novices, but this in no way detracts from the overall utility of
the book. If pressed to raise a more global shortcoming of the book, I would
say only that it perhaps tries to be too many things at once. Portions of it
could be viewed as a primer on tone vs. pitch, a guidebook on potential
pitfalls in tonological analysis, a sketch of one language’s tonology, and a
how-to guide for orthography development, all the while being a plug for the
author’s work concerning the connection between orthography development and
phonological theory.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Christopher Green is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Syracuse
University in the Department of Languages, Literatures, & Linguistics. His
research covers a variety of topics related to prosodic structure and tone. He
has published on a number of African languages, including Bambara, Susu,
Somali, and Wanga.





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