Re: Lots of Questions About Tones
| From: | Eugene Oh <un.doing@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Tuesday, July 8, 2008, 16:51 |
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On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 12:11 AM, Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...>
wrote:
> If I correctly gather which theories about tonogenesis are most widely- or
> well-
> -accepted; and if I understand them to the right degree; I don't
> understand
> why any language has more than three tones. To wit, a rising tone, a
> falling
> tone, and a level tone: with no distinction between two different rises,
> nor
> two different falls, nor two different level tones; and also, with no
> contour
> tones.
>
> <snip questions>
>
> Any information related to the above questions will be appreciated.
>
> Thanks.
>
I suspect many of the questions will have a simple answer - consonant
clusters and how each simplification adds a tone. I'm thinking of Middle
Chinese, which Bernhard Karlgren reconstructed to show complex consonant
clustering, as compared to modern Mandarin, which obviously has much
simplified phonotactics.
Eugene
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