Abstract: UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2010) Do Tones Have Features? Larry M. Hyman University of California, Berkeley Paper Presented at Tones and Features: A Symposium in Honor of G. Nick Clements, Paris, June 18-19, 2009 • Submitted to the memorial volume ABSTRACT Unless explicitly concerned with developing a system of features per se, most studies of tonal phonology refer to contrasting high, mid, low and contour tones as H, M, L, HL, LH (etc.), or with integers, rather than with features such as [± UPPER ], [± RAISED ]. Since this practice stands in marked contrast to vowel and consonant phonology, where features seem unavoidable, it is natural to ask whether this difference in practice is due simply to convenience or whether tones lend themselves less naturally to a featural interpretation than vowels and consonants. In this paper I suggest that this is indeed the case: while features sometimes facilitate a general and insightful account, there are inconsistencies, indeterminacies, and other reasons to doubt the value of tonal features (and tonal geometry). This then naturally leads to a more general question: Why should tone be different? In Hyman (in press), I provide evidence to suggest that tone is different in its capabilities: tone can do everything that segmental and accentual phonology can do, but the reverse is not true. I start by illustrating some examples to make this point then turn to the question of how this provides insight into the relative unimportance of featural analyses of tone. In this paper I also raise the question of why tone, which might seem like a good bet, is not a linguistic universal (as compared to consonants and vowels). I suggest that it is the relative autonomy and “non-integration” of tone that accounts for its versatile and unique properties. Since some tonal phenomena have no segmental or stress analogues, I argue that anyone who is interested in the outer limits of what is possible in phonology would be well-served to understand how tone systems work. Introduction: Three questions about tone In this paper I address the question of whether tones have features. Given that most phonologists accept either binary features or privative elements in their analyses of segmental systems, it may appear surprising that such a question needs to be asked at all. However, as I discuss in Hyman (in press) and below, tone has certain properties that appear to be unique within phonological systems. Hence, it could also be that featural analyses of tones are not necessary, even if they are well-founded in consonant and vowel phonology. Before considering whether tones have features, there are two prior questions about tone which will bear on my conclusion: Question #1: Why isn’t tone universal? Question #2: Is tone different? Question #3: Do tones have features? The first question is motivated by the fact that all languages exploit pitch in one way or another, so why not lexical or grammatical tone? It is generally assumed that somewhere around 40-50% of the world’s currently spoken languages are tonal, although the distribution is highly areal, covering most of Subsaharan Africa and East and Southeast Asia, as well as significant parts of Mexico, the Northwest Amazon, and New Guinea. There would seem to be several advantages for universal tone: First, tone presents few, if any articulatory difficulties vs. consonants (which all languages have). Second, tone is acoustically (hence perceptually?) simple, F 0 , vs. consonants and vowels. Third, tone is acquired early (Li and Thompson 1978, Demuth 2003), such that nativists may even want to claim that human infants are prewired for it. Thus, if all of the languages of the world had tone, we would have no problem “explaining” why this is. The more interesting question, to which I will return in §5, is why tone isn’t universal.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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