37.419, Qs: HLH Plateauing in West African Languages

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-419. Thu Jan 29 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.419, Qs: HLH Plateauing in West African Languages

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Date: 28-Jan-2026
From: Christina Schrader [christina_schrader at sil.org]
Subject: HLH Plateauing in West African Languages


Especially those of you working with West African languages, but
anyone can chime in:
I'm looking at a tone process in Kusuntu (bqg) of central Togo called
HLH plateauing and wondering if it is an aerial phenomenon.
Plateauing occurs where there is an underlying HLH pattern across a
morpheme- or word-boundary. The singly-linked L tone delinks and
floats. The unassociated segment takes a H (because of H-spreading),
but the floating L causes it to downstep so the resulting surface
pattern is HꜜHH.
Have you seen this or a similar process occurring in the languages you
are studying?

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
                     Phonology

Subject Language(s): Bago-Kusuntu (bqg)

Language Family(ies): Gur
                      Niger-Congo



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