Re: tonal languages
| From: | John Cowan <jcowan@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, January 8, 2003, 17:22 |
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Douglas Koller, Latin & French scripsit:
> This is interesting. When I've heard natives talk about their own
> dialect, they usually inflate the number of tones (e.g.: Cantonese
> speakers will say they have 10+ tones;
Well, you can make a case for 11 tonemes in Cantonese: a yin and a yang tone for
each open syllable, 3 for closed syllables, and two "changed" tones
which (unlike ordinary tones) are morphemes of a sort.
At the etic level, though, there are only 6-7.
--
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