The phonetic tone change *high > rising
Evidence from the Ngwi dialect laboratory
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.
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
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References