Re: NATLANG: pitch accent question

 --- Elyse Grasso <emgrasso@...> wrote: >
On Thursday 01 May 2003 02:53 am, Jonathan Knibb
> wrote:
> > If I understand correctly, Japanese (a language
> rarely discussed round
> > here - wonder why?) has contrastive tone, but the
> pattern of tones is
> > organised on the word level, by the position (and
> choice?) of a pitch
> > accent, in a similar way to the Swedish system.
> >
> > Two questions for you all.  Firstly: am I right?
> Secondly: are there
> > any other natlangs (or conlangs for that matter)
> that organise tone on
> > a lexical level, and do they have interestingly
> different ways of
> > achieving this?
> >
> > ObConlang: I need this kind of structure for
> Telona and I'm not sure
> > how to go about creating it in a naturalistic way.
> >
> > Thanks!
> > Jonathan.
> >
> > [reply to jonathan underscore knibb at hotmail dot
> com]
> > --
> > 'O dear white children casual as birds,
> > Playing among the ruined languages...'
> > Auden/Britten, 'Hymn to St. Cecilia'
> >
> >
> I'm not sure what you mean by contrastive tones on a
> lexical level.
> Standard Japanese has standard tone patterns. But
> they happen more on
> the sentence level, and I can't think of any
> specific words that differ
> only by tone pattern. Also, there are major regional
> differences in the
> tone patterns (I think it's the Osaka area that
> basically doesn't have
> them at all, and the patterns in Hokkaido are very
> different from the
> Tokyo standard.)
> --
> Elyse Grasso
i'll unlurk briefly :

tokyo japanese has a tone contour system based on
moras ( one short syllable length ) :

there are 2 pitches, high and low
moras 1 and 2 are of contrasting tone
if 1 is high, all others are low
if 1 is low, then 2 and any number following it can be
high, followed by any number of low

the minimal pair i remember is sake and sake (lh and
hl), one of which means rice wine and one of which
means salmon.

-----

ancient greek and vedic sanskrit also had a pitch
contour system.

the greek system has a high which can fall on any of
the three final moras of a word ( or on the fourth
from the end if the second and third make up a
syllable )

the pattern seems to have been either climb-high-fall
or crouch-high-fall, depending who you believe.

because the rules are based on moras rather than
syllables, which are the mainstay of greek
orthography, the rules on where to put the accent and
what type to write are relatively complex.

-----

both tokyo japanese and greek seem to have various
rules of pitch sandhi, governing juncture between main
words and juncture between words and particles. both
seem to have free accent except that greek verbs
almost always have their pitch as far back as
possible.

-----

before i relurk, and update on what's going on :

bac is on the backburner a bit. i've played around
with the orthography and phonology a bit ( result:
tragic loss of nasal and long vowels ), but haven't
done much else recently.

eestaak is still in its infancy, but i've had various
ideas and it's beginning to take some sort of shape.
i'm also working on the syllabary . . .

i am working on a new website which will have more
information on these and other projects, as well as
random bumph, so keep an eye out.

oh, and the keensighted will have seen my face on yer
ugly mug

-----

anyway, i'll throw more swine amongst the pearls some
time in the future,

till then,

tara,

bn

=====
bnathyuw | landan | arR
stamp the sunshine out | angelfish
your tears came like anaesthesia | phèdre

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