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Article published In:
Diachronica
Vol. 39:2 (2022) ► pp.226–267

The phonetic tone change *high > rising

Evidence from the Ngwi dialect laboratory

ORCID logo | SIL International

Previous research has proposed a direct path from consonantal effects on F0 to the development of a rising tone value. However, findings from tone change studies in Asian languages suggest an additional pathway to rising: a high tone (i.e., with a tonal target in the upper pitch range) may evolve into a rising tone. This study examines tone change pathways to rising in the Ngwi (Loloish) languages. Among the 11 Ngwi language clusters examined, a new rising tone value has unambiguously developed from an historically high tone in nine of them. In several clusters, prevocalic consonants conditioned a tone split, but in other clusters, *high > rising appears after both voiced and voiceless prevocalic consonants. The findings suggest that a high tonal target is a suprasegmental condition favorable to the development of a rising tone value, as reaching a high tonal target in connected speech frequently entails a rising contour.

Keywords: rising tone, tone change, Ngwi, dialect laboratory, pathways to sound change
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Ngwi languages
    • 2.1Geography and subgrouping
    • 2.2The history of tone in Ngwi
  • 3.Phonetic origins of rising tones
    • 3.1Segmental origins of rising tones
    • 3.2*High > rising may occur across all segmental environments
  • 4.Methodology: The Ngwi dialect laboratory
  • 5.Pathways to rising in Ngwi
    • 5.1*High > rising in Laloid smooth syllables
    • 5.2*High > rising in other clusters
    • 5.3*Tense > high > rising in Laloid checked syllables
    • 5.4*Tense > high > rising in other clusters
    • 5.5Summary of results
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • List of supplementary materials available at doi:10.5281/zenodo.4643782
  • References
Published online: 19 January 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.19062.yan
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