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Re: Random Questions #1: Tone Languages

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Friday, March 22, 2002, 14:14
En réponse à David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>:

> > Well, Hausa does have a contour tone, that being a falling tone, but > it > only occurs on long vowels, or sometimes when an affix with an > underlying low > tone is suffixed to a word ending in a high tone. Is it still > basically > contour? (I'm starting to learn it.) >
I still consider it to be register, since this non-flat tone is restricted to very well-defined environments. It's the same as Ancient Greek: the fact that its long vowels and diphtongues could take non-flat tones doesn't mean that it was a contour tone language, but just a pitch language where pitch was moraic rather than syllabic. Categories are not separated by brick walls :)) . Indeed, my language Itakian is exactly at the limit between register tone and contour tone, since each syllable of its words can take one of four tones: high, low, rising and falling. Still, since there are only two levels from where and to where the tone can go, and the words are strongly polysyllabic, I call it a register tone language. Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.