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Re: When are Pitch-accents and Tonemes too bothersome?

From:Adam Walker <carrajena@...>
Date:Wednesday, April 14, 2004, 22:48
--- Joe <joe@...> wrote:
> See, I don't see that there is a reasonable limit. > If people can > understand tones as phonemic, they carry essentially > the same value as > any other sound, and, as such, can be stretched out > as much as you > like. The main obstacle would be the number of > tones - you wouldn't > really want to have many more than six, and > certainly no more than ten.
Some Sinitic languages have more than six. Taiwanese only has six now, but historically had seven. IIRC on dialect of Wu has seven today, and Cantonese is variously analyzed as having between six and nine tones. I can't think of any other examples at present, but I seem to remember some language somewhere with eleven. Adam ===== Indjindrud edjuebu ul Azor ad ul Sadoc. Indjindrud edjuebu ul Sadoc ad ul Acim. Indjindrud edjuebu ul Acim ad ul Eliud. Indjindrud edjuebu ul Eliud ad ul Eleazar. Indjindrud edjuebu ul Eleazar ad ul Matan. Indjindrud ul Matan ad ul Jagovu. Indjindrud edjuebu ul Jagovu ad ul Jozevu ul maridu djal Maja dji fin ninadud ul Jezu fin nicuamad Cristu. Machu 1:14-16

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John Cowan <cowan@...>