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Re: C'ali update: tonal phonology

From:Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
Date:Sunday, May 23, 2004, 18:43
Hallo!

On Sun, 23 May 2004 04:11:59 -0500,
"Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> wrote:

> Hi all. > > Given the relatively low traffic on the list, and that I haven't done > any work on C'ali in a long time, I thought I might post some musings > about prosodic phonology in C'ali and Phaleran.
Yes, welcome! It's always nice to see interesting stuff like that.
> I have already discussed before the issue of stress assignment > in Phaleran (see archives), but I don't think I had decided at > that time what actual acoustic correlate most strongly defines > stress, but now I believe it is a basically unremarkable kind of > pitch-accent system: the pitch remains "high" up to and including > the stressed syllable (which syllable gets stress is determined > primarily by the moraic weight of the syllable, though it is also > sometimes underlyingly specified), after which the pitch markedly > decreases providing the effect of "stress".
My conlang Old Albic has a stress accent system, which I might change into a pitch accent system, in which the pitch, as in Phaleran, remains high up to and including the syllable carrying the accent. However, I think I'll keep the stress accent; anyway, the accent rule would remain the same. The accent position is determined by essentially the same rule as in Latin or Quenya.
> C'ali, however, is somewhat more complicated system. Stress, as > such, does not exist. In its place is a tonal system, > which is partly underlyingly specified and partly predictable > according to verbal and nominal category. There is an underlying > contrast between H(igh) and L(ow) tone, though a large number of > morphs have no specification, receiving their surface tone by > phonological or morphological processes. Tone, when present, seems > always to be associated with the final vocalic mora of the root.
[examples snipped]
> It's clear that the tonal specification for agreement suffixes is > important to understanding the surface tone structure, so below I > will repeat my chart of a previous post (almost a year ago) with > tonal values underneath:
[chart and comments snipped]
> Some of the following processes are apparent from even this > small data set: > (1) Leftward spread: prefixes acquire tone of root. > (2) Word-final L: all final syllables must be L.
Yes, I have noticed that.
> (3) No short contour tones.
I see no long contour tones in your examples, either.
> Underlyingly, there is a contrast between > long and short /u/~/u:/ and long and short /o/~/o:/.
One moment... I thought C'ali had no vowel length distinction, or did you change your mind (and your design)?
> When a tone spreads > onto an underlyingly long /u:/ or /o:/, it may spread onto the adjacent > mora, but not the further mora. Now, the contrast of underlying short > /u/ and /o/ with /y/ and /ö/ is always neutralized to [y] and [ö] > respectively, while their long counterparts shorten.
Hence, /u/ > /y/ /o/ > /ö/ /u:/ > /u/ /o:/ > /o/ Correct?
> In this circumstance, > only underlyingly long /u:/ and /o:/ receive surface contour tones; > their fronted, underlyingly short counterparts may not do so.
As I said above, I haven't seen any contour tones in your examples. Each syllable is either H or L. Where are the contour tones?
> (4) Morphophonologically, the sonorants /m n l r/ and the stop /?/ may > act as depressor consonants when in coda position, making any immediately > preceding tone a L tone: > > H H H HH > saxmë-thei 'man-AGT' => saxmëthei > H H H H > saxmë-tsi 'man-PAT' => saxmëtsi > H L L L > saxmë-n 'man-OBL' => saxmën > > Some morphemes seem resistant to this effect, however, as is clear from > the nasal consonants in (1) 'she ran off long ago'. The most straightforward > answer to this is that these depressor consonants lexically specify a > L tone in the UR, while the non-depressor 'depressor' consonants as in > (1) simply lack this specification. (When not in coda position, these > consonants are by definition not moraic, and thus cannot host any tone.)
Interesting!
> One last fact about this system is that Phaleran tends to borrow words > from C'ali with underlying H tone into Phaleran with pitch accent permanently > docked to that segment. (On which, see archives) > > Anyways, that's about it for now. Any questions or comments?
See above. Greetings, Jörg.