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Government and tonal phrasing in Papago
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 February 2020
Extract
The intonation contour of a Papago sentence is entirely predictable on the basis of its surface syntactic structure. It consists of a sequence of instances of the pattern (L)HL. For example, one Papago sentence may manifest a single (L)HL pattern, as in (I):
while another will show repetitions of the canonical tonal shape, as in (2):
Our task in this paper will be to characterise the distribution of the (L)HL pattern in Papago sentences. Our analysis is that the phonological representation of a sentence of Papago consists of a sequence of one or more tonal phrases, and that (L)HL is the pattern assigned to a tonal phrase. This tonal phrasing - i.e. the beginnings and ends of individual tonal phrases - will be indicated by parentheses in the tonal tier, as in (1) and (2). The association of the (L)HL pattern within each tonal phrase is captured by simple rules of the phonology, to be described in §2. Thus the description of the syntax of Papago intonation contours will centre on the tonal phrasing itself, and on the manner in which it is determined with respect to surface syntactic structure.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987
Footnotes
Our work on Papago would have been impossible were it not for the native speakers of that language who have, over the years, generously provided data on the language. Among the people to whom we are indebted are Albert Alvarez, Sam Angelo, Joe Moreno, Nick Moreno, Herman Narcho, Raymond Narcho, Luke Preston and Ofelia Zepeda. The first and last of these have made important contributions not only as speakers of Papago but also as colleagues in linguistics generally and as teachers in Papago linguistics particularly.
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