Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T19:42:04.240Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reassociated tones and coalescent syllables in Naxi (Tibeto-Burman)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2007

Alexis Michaud  and
He Xueguang
Alexis Michaud
Affiliation:
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique laboratoire Langues et Civilisations à Tradition Orale [email protected]
He Xueguang
Affiliation:
Naxi Culture Education Centre, Lijiang
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Western dialect of Naxi has four lexical tones: High, Mid, Low and Rising; the latter is rare in the lexicon. Rising contours on monosyllables are frequent in connected speech, however, as a result of a process of syllable reduction: reduction of a morpheme carrying the High tone results in re-association of its tone to the syllable that precedes it in the sentence, creating a rising contour. An experiment (with one speaker and five listeners) establishes that there is not only one rising contour that originates in tonal reassociation, as reported in earlier descriptions, but two: Low-to-High and Mid-to-High – as could be expected by analogy with phenomena observed in Niger-Congo languages and elsewhere. A second set of experiments (same speaker; six listeners) investigates the reduction of Mid- and Low-tone syllables: they reduce to [] and [], respectively, and coalesce with the preceding syllable (in Naxi, syllabic structure is simply consonant + glide + vowel). Unlike High-tone syllable reduction, this process stops short of complete tonal de-linking. These experiments aim to provide a complete picture of syllable reduction patterns in Naxi. It is argued that the notions of floating tones and tonal reassociation can be usefully applied to the Naxi data.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the International Phonetic Association , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , December 2007 , pp. 237 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Journal of the International Phonetic Association 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barry, W. (1992). Comments on Browman and Goldstein: ‘“Targetless” schwa: an articulatory analysis’. In Docherty, & Ladd, (eds.), 65–67.Google Scholar
Boersma, P. (2001). Praat, a system for doing phonetics by computer. Glot International 5, 341–345.Google Scholar
Browman, C. P. & Goldstein, L. (1992). ‘Targetless’ schwa: an articulatory analysis. In Docherty, & Ladd, (eds.), 26–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Docherty, G. J. & Ladd, D. R. (eds.) (1992). Papers in Laboratory Phonology II: Gesture, Segment, Pro-sody. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
傅懋勣, Fu Maoji (1984). 纳 西 语 图 画 文 字 “白 蝙 蝠 取 经 记” 研 究 Naxi-zu Tuhua-wenzi ‘Bai bianfu qu jing ji’ yanjiu [A study of a Naxi pictographic manuscript, ‘White Bat's Search for Sacred Books’] (vol. 2). Tokyo: Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages (Monograph Series 6).Google Scholar
Goldsmith, J. (1976). Autosegmental Phonology. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT. [Published 1980, Garland Publishing, New York.]Google Scholar
Good, J. (2002). Tonal morphology in a creole: High-tone raising in Saramaccan serial verb constructions. In Booij, G. & van Marle, J. (eds.), Yearbook of Morphology 2002, 105–134. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
和即仁, He Jiren & Jiang Zhuyi, 姜竹仪 (1985). 纳 西 语 简 志 Naxiyu Jianzhi [A short monograph on the Naxi language]. Beijing: 民 族 出 版 社 Minzu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
He Zhiwu, 和志武 (1987). 纳 西 语 基 础 语 法 Naxiyu Jichu Yufa [A basic grammar of Naxi]. Kunming: Yunnan Minority Publishing House (云 南 民 族 出 版 社).Google Scholar
Henrich, N., d'Alessandro, C., Castellengo, M. & Doval, B. (2004). On the use of the derivative of electroglottographic signals for characterization of non-pathological voice phonation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 115, 1321–1332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michailovsky, B. & Michaud, A. (2006). Syllabic inventory of a Western Naxi dialect, and correspondence with Joseph F. Rock's transcriptions. Cahiers de linguistique – Asie Orientale 35, 3–21.Google Scholar
Michaud, A. (2004). Final consonants and glottalization: new perspectives from Hanoi Vietnamese. Phonetica 61, 119–146.Google ScholarPubMed
Michaud, A. (2005). Prosodie de langues à tons (naxi et vietnamien), prosodie de l'anglais: éclairages croisés. Ph.D. dissertation, Université Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle. [Available at http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00130149 (OAI identifier: oai:tel.archives-ouvertes.fr:tel-00130149_v1).]Google Scholar
Michaud, A. (2006a). Tonal reassociation and rising tonal contours in Naxi. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 29 (1), 61–94.Google Scholar
Michaud, A. (2006b). Three extreme cases of neutralisation: nasality, retroflexion and lip-rounding in Naxi. Cahiers de linguistique – Asie Orientale 35, 23–55.Google Scholar
Ohala, J. (1978). The production of tone. In Fromkin, V. A. (ed.), Tone: A Linguistic Survey, 5–39. New York, San Francisco & London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ohala, J. & Ewan, W. G. (1973). Speed of pitch change. Presented at 84th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America; abstract in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 53 (1), 345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinson, T. M. (1998). Naxi–Chinese–English Glossary, with English and Chinese Indexes. Dallas, TX: The Summer Institute of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Rothenberg, M. (1992). A multichannel electroglottograph. Journal of Voice 6, 36–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sundberg, J. (1979). Maximum speed of pitch changes in singers and untrained subjects. Journal of Phonetics 7, 71–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar