Re: Accent Terminology Question

Hi David,
I almost didn't recognize this ... Obviously, my description was completely
inadequate. I had to go back to the original post to see what I did wrong
and still can't figure it out, but then I've never been good at using the
English language for communication. More below ...

On Fri, 11 Oct 2002 15:26:45 EDT, David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>
wrote:

>I read your description, and it seems like your words would be tough to
>pronounce, if I'm understanding right.   So, let's say you have a word:
>
>bolokambenata
>
>And let's say the stress comes on "na".
Actually, it wouldn't, for reasons I didn't mention, but we can ignore that.

>That one would get a high tone.
So far so good.

>And let's say the only unstressed unaccented syllbe is "ta",
No, there's only one unaccented (i.e. unstressed) syllable. Obviously one
thing that wasn't clear. I guess I could use the term "falling tone".

> so that gets a low. That means each of the other syllables get a falling
> tone? (High to low is called falling.) So, if we use 1 for low and 2 for
> high, that'd be:
>
>bo(21)lo(21)kam(21)be(21)na(2)ta(1)
It should be:

bo(1)lo(1)kam(1*)be(1)na(2)ta(1)

(or preferably, bo(1)lo(1)kam(1*)be(2)na(1)ta(1) )

>Seems kind of odd...   Also breaks the rules of the contour principle.
I don't doubt it.

>Anyway, for the spreading tone you're talking about...  Generally, tone
>spreads from right to left.  I think it can go left to right, but I don't
>remember.  But anyway, generally if one tone has an underlying tone and a
>different tone spreads to it, the result is a contour.  If it has no
>underlying tone, it takes the tone whole.
That's something I didn't know. Does that mean that the normally low
syllables that become high have no underlying tone? What is an underlying
tone anyway?

>I still think I'm not understanding, though. Could you do a word with the
>numbers? It's easier to see that way.
I'll try my original examples with numbers.

circumflex: SAa(21)
            te(1)KAe(21)
            gif(1*)tom(1*)BOa(21)
acute:      BU(2)ne(1)
            JOU(22)del(1*)
            ke(1)TON(2*)di(1)
            MA(2)ru(1)ko(1)
            GAS(2*)ti(1)res(1*)
(3rd type): SUF(2*) TE(2)NE(2)KAA(22)ta(1)
            CE(2) BOM(2*)MOu(21)

The words in the 3rd set of examples would be:
            suf(1*)
            te(1)ne(1)KAA(22)ta(1)
            ce(1)
            bom(1*)MOu(21)
when occurring separately. {suf} and {ce} are the actual 3rd type words;
{tenekaata} and {bommou} are "acute" and "circumflex", respectively.

Does all that help, or just multiply the confusion?

Jeff

>
>-David
>
>"imDeziZejDekp2wilDez ZejDekkinel..."
>"You can celebrate anything you want..."
>               -John Lennon
>

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