NEW: a tonal lang (was: Tonogenesis)

I'm beginning to settle the guidelines for my next language,
where I'll try tones, for a change. The language has no name
yet, but I will derive it from the same ancient language as
Draseléq (I have about 1300 years for radical changes to take
place, which seems enough).

In short, tones will emerge from the influence of different
consonants. The old language was mainly CV(N), with N being
any nasal, and relatively long words; the new lang will be
shorter, collapsing all syllables after the stress, and
keeping only nasal codas (plus diphthongs in /j/ and /w/
and maybe /l/ and/or /r/).

Since tonogenesis is singularly difficult to research, I'm
taking what I've heard as a point of departure; I will have
stops lower the initial pitch of each syllable, while
fricatives will be neutral, and nasals and vowels will rise
the beginning pitch; and so on for each syllable, forming a
pitch contour. Then some syllables will be dropped most
times. For example (1 low, 2 high, 12 rising, 21 falling):

    /'peke/ > /'pe1ke1/ > /pek1/ > /pe1/
    /'bamu/ > /'ba1mu2/ > /bam12/
    /'metu/ > /'me2tu1/ > /met21/ > /me21/
    /'nane/ > /'na2ne2/ > /nan2/

I still have to decide what to do with non-nasal codas. I think
/k/ > 0 is fine, but /t/ > 0 is not (plus it will cause an awful
lot of homonyms -- and don't tell me Mandarin has them). I was
thinking on the line of

    /ta/ > /t_@/ > /@/ > /:/ ??
    /ti/ > /t_j/ > /j/
    /tu/ > /t_w/ > /w/
    etc.

This would produce tons of homonyms too, which I would solve in
the usual manners (compounding, e. g. 'green' > 'greencolour',
'house' > 'brickhouse', etc.).

What do you think?


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  ... I cannot combine any characters that the divine Library
  has not foreseen, which in some of its secret tongues do not
  bear some terrible meaning. No-one can articulate a syllable
  not filled of caresses and fears; which is not, in some one
  of those languages, the powerful name of a god...
                   Jorge Luis Borges, _The Library of Babel_