Re: THEORY: Tonogenesis (?) from PIE (Was: The rebirth of m"/21aw as mql21aw)

* Paul.Bennett@xncorp.com (Paul.Bennett@xncorp.com) [991105 18:06]:
> Lars>>>>>>
> > Date:         Fri, 5 Nov 1999 14:41:33 +0000
> > From: Paul Bennett <Paul.Bennett@...>
>=20
> > Anybody like to exchange ideas as to how PIE (essentially 2 or 3
> > syllables with stress?) could turn into a monosyllabic lang with
> > tones?
>=20
> Well, for inspiration you might look into how rural Norwegian came to
> be the way it is; I think a lot of the words there are monosyllables,
> and it has a tonal distinction.
> <<<<<<
>=20
> Okeydokey.  Can you (or anyone) recommend a good source of further info=
rmation
> on these aspects of Norwegian?
Crash-course, Norwegian tonemes (pardon my stunt-translations):

There's toneme 1 and toneme 2, how they are realized varies from dialect
to dialect but the difference is always audible, except in dialects in
the "buffer-zones" between the two main styles, eastern and western.

The default toneme[*] is t1, marked with <'> or a superscripted 1 in
dictionaries etc. The other is marked with <"> or superscripted 2.

This is the eastern style, the western switches the two.
(My dialects is eastern, btw.)

SAMPA:
  \  -
<b=F8nder> /'b2n@r/ "peasants"
 /\  /
<b=F8nner> /"b2n@r/ "beans"

(Some drop the schwas, making the r, a tap, syllabic)

In the northern half of Norway, you have _apocope_, dropping of the last
syllable of a word. So while you in the south have <=E5 sage> "to saw",
incidentally with toneme two, where I live you have <=E5 s=E2g> "to saw",
still toneme two, but with the entire movement compressed onto the
remaining syllable. Ditto for apocoped words with toneme one, not that
anyone would notice the difference :) This compression prevents <=E5 s=E2=
g>
from becoming homonymous with <ei sag> "a saw", which is toneme one,
like all other good one-syllable words.

 /\ /               /\/
<sage> /"sA:g@/ -> <s=E2g> /"sA:g/

Now if you want the mumbo-jumbo autosegmental take on it, I'll have to
get my notes :) I'll be looking for online resources _in English_ on it=20
too, as going from English to Norwegian linguistic terms (and back
again) is a bit hairy...

[*] In SAMPA, toneme 1 is marked with <"> and toneme two with <""> but
that is butt ugly (as is SAMPA) so I didn't use that.


tal.
--=20
"Better living through conlanging"