Re: THEORY: Tonogenesis
| From: | Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, February 4, 2005, 13:37 |
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Roger wrote:
> Mayan langs. I think are tonal; some African too, but they seem to work
> differently.
One of the characteristic features of Mesoamerica is the use of
tone. There's a good article in _Language_ (Vol. 62, no. 3) "Mesoamerica
as a linguistic area" by Lyle Campbell, Terrence Kaufman, and Thomas C.
Smith-Stark that discusses some of the properties of Mesoamerican
tonal languages. E.g. Oapan Nahuatl acquired tonal contrasts although
Uto-Aztecan is not tonal in general.
=========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
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