Re: Random Questions #1: Tone Languages

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

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