Re: Lots of Questions About Tones (more questions)

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:23:33 -0400, Eldin Raigmore
<eldin_raigmore@...> wrote:

>Well, "contour" is used in three different senses.
>
>Sense 1
>In one sense, "contour" is used opposite to "register".
>
>In a "register tone language", the absolute pitch at which a syllable is spoken
>is its tone, and has phonemic and/or lexical and/or morphological significance.
An unfortunate collision with the meaning of "register" that is 'complex of
tone and phonation and other knock-on effects'.

>But, in a "contour(sense 1) tone language" what matters is whether, and by
>how much, the pitch changes.
>So a "contour(sense 1) tone language" can have at most one level tone; that
>is, all level tones mean the same thing.  If it has four relevant pitches
(say 1
>and 2 and 3 and 4), there is a choice of three falls and of three rises;
>21, 32, and 43 are all one possible kind of fall;
>31 and 42 are another possible kind of fall; and
>41 is a third possible kind of fall.
>These languages can tell 41 apart from 31 and from 42, but can't tell 31 apart
>from 42; they can tell 41 apart from any of 21, 32, or 43, but can't tell 21 or
>32 or 43 apart from each other.
Can there, or will there, be default numbered pitch levels for the tones in
a contour(s1) tone language?  Or are the realisations of the tones supposed
to be completely in free variation?  Or something else?

If you're just reporting the results of a discrimination task on single
words each from different speakers presented in isolation, I could see this
even for speakers of a language without a contour(s1) tone system.  Surely
register(s1) tonality doesn't imply perfect pitch.

Alex