Re: Let me introduce my conlang

On Friday, October 1, 2004, at 04:44 , Joe wrote:

> David Peterson wrote:
>
>> <<
>> Verbs, nouns & adjectives have a primary tone on a high pitch. If
>> there are 4 or more syllables there is a secondary tone on a medium
>> pitch.  The other syllables have a basal tone which is a low pitch.
>> Polysyllabic words in other classes only have secondary and basal
>> pitch.
>> >>
>>
>> This doesn't make sense to me.  Can you list a couple of examples?
>> To me what it sounds like is that you're explaining a stress system,
>> not a tonal system.
>
>
> To be more specific, it sounds like a pitch-accent system.  Which I
> suppose could be kind of called tonal...
I agree. caeruleancentaur's description is not of a tonal language of the
Chinese or Vietnamese type, certainly. But it fits well, as I see it, with
the tonal languages that use pitch accent such as ancient Greek or modern
Yoruba and many other west African languages.

Ray
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