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Re: THEORY: Tonogenesis

From:Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Date:Wednesday, September 11, 2002, 5:02
On 11 Sep 02, at 3:37, ukasz Korczewski wrote:

> How can tones come into being?
I believe that in Tibetan and Chinese, at least, they came because CVC syllables turned into CV; the tone then helped marked the final -C which was lost. (For example, syllables might have high tone for a following voiced consonant and low tone for an unvoiced consonant. Or make even finer distinctions.) But that's just my recollection; it might be fairly inaccurate. Cheers, Philip -- Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>