tibeto-burman tone typology (in the south asian context)

TIBETO-BURMAN TONE TYPOLOGY (IN THE SOUTH ASIAN CONTEXT)

International workshop on typological profiles of language families of South Asia

16 September 2016

Kristine Hildebrandt1, Amos Teo2

1SIU Edwardsville; 2University of Oregon

BACKGROUND

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Tone Typology

What is a ‘tone language’ anyway?

Within a typology of word-prosodic systems (see special

Phonology volume edited by Remijsen & van Heuven 2006)

Tonal vs. Register vs. Non-tonal languages

Tone vs. Pitch Accent vs. Stress Accent languages (Hyman 2006; 2009)

Background Typological Features Other Considerations Summary

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Tone Typology

“A tone language may be defined as a language having lexically significant, contrastive, but relative pitch on each syllable.” (Pike 1948: 3)


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Tone Typology

“A language with tone is one in which an indication of pitch enters into the realization of at least some morphemes.” (Hyman, cited in Yip 2002: 4)

“The use of pitch patterns to distinguish individual words or the grammatical forms of words, such as the singular and plural forms of nouns or different tenses of verbs.” (Maddieson 2013)


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Tone Typology

“Linguistic tone should not simply be equated with F0. F0 is the defining property of tones in the vast majority of the world’s prosodic systems.However, there also exist tones that cannot be reduced to F0.” (Michaud 2008: 14)


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Tone Typology

Previous studies of tone typology:

Number of tonal contrasts (Maddieson 2013)

e.g. none vs. simple (2) vs. complex (>2)

Level vs. contour tones

e.g. contour tone restrictions (Gordon 2002)

Phonetic correlates of tone (Hildebrandt 2007)

e.g. F0 only vs. F0 + phonation type


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Atonal

2 tonal contrasts

3 + tonal contrasts

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Tone Typology

Previous studies of tone typology:

Domain of tone

e.g. syllable vs. mora vs. word

Tonal phonological rules (Evans 2009)

Absence vs. presence of tone sandhi (Ding 2009)


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Tone Typology

Tibeto-Burman tone typology

Hildebrandt’s (2007) proposal for a “buffer zone” between Sinosphere and Indosphere, based on:

- presence vs. absence of tone

- phonetic correlates of tone

Evans (2009) – evidence for & against a “Himalayan Tone typology”, based on:

- binarity of tone

- culminativity and restricted locations of tone

- morpho-tonemic rules


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TYPOLOGICAL FEATURES 11

TYPOLOGICAL FEATURES - TONAL CONTRASTS

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No. of Tonal Contrasts

Range of tonal contrasts

Atonal: Newar, Kiranti languages, Lepcha, Atong (Bodo- Garo), some Tibetan dialects

2 tones: Meithei (Chelliah 1997); Galo (Post 2007); Standard Tibetan (Tournadre 2010); Boro (Basumatari 2005)

3 tones: Karbi (Konnerth 2014); Mongsen Ao (Coupe 2007); Sumi (Teo 2014); Khezha (Kapfo 2007)


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No. of Tonal Contrasts

4 tones: Tamang (Michaud & Mazaudon 2006)

Sherpa (Graves 2007)

Manange (Hildebrandt 2005)

Gurung (Glover 1974; Hildebrandt in prog.)

Khonoma Angami (Blankenship et al. 1994)

5 or more: Tenyidie / Standard Angami (5) (Kuolie 2006)

Lhomi (6) (ANU Phonotactics)

Nubri (7) (ANU Phonotactics)

Mru (8) (ANU Phonotactics)


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Issues with counting tones

Counting tonal contrasts not always a straightforward task:

i) Depends on how tones & syllable types are counted

ii) Sometimes ‘tones’ not realized only by differences in pitch, but also by differences in phonation type


Tamang (Mazaudon & Michaud 2008):

F0 lower on Low tones /3, 4/

Vowel OQ raised (‘breathy’) on Low tones /3, 4/

Initial stop C’s never voiced

High tones /1, 2/ have +/- aspiration in initial stops

Lenition of word-medial stop C in suffixed words in Low tones /3, 4/

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Pitch and Syllable Type

Counting of tones depends on syllable type

Some analysts consider a difference in vowel length (even when pitch is similar) as a tonal difference;

Some treat the absence vs. presence of a segment like a glottal stop in coda position as a tonal difference

e.g. Standard Tibetan

2 tones (Sprigg 1981; Tournadre 2010)

8 tones (2 pitch heights x 4 syllable types) (Hu & Xiong 2010)


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Pitch and Syllable Type (Karbi)

Counting of tones depends on syllable type

Karbi (Assam):

Some speakers distinguish Mid tone from High tone on un-affixed monosyllables only by glottal stop


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Pitch and Phonation Type (Gyalsumdo)

Counting of tones depends on whether differences in phonation are considered sufficient to distinguish tonal categories

E.g. Gyalsumdo (Hildebrandt in prog.)

When F0 is plotted against a four-way model (1 = High, 2 = High (asp), 3= Low, 4 = Low (breathy), results are non-significant

F1


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Pitch and Phonation Type (Gyalsumdo)

Gyalsumdo (Hildebrandt in prog.)

When 1/2 = “High” register, 3/4 = “Low” register, differences significant across measurement points


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TYPOLOGICAL FEATURES - TONAL DOMAINS

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Tonal Domains

Notion of “Tone Bearing Unit” (TBU)

“The tone bearing unit is the element in the segmental tier to which tone associates.” (Gussenhoven 2004: 29)

“A domain in which pitch and voice quality (breathiness) contrasts have to be stated.” (Pike 1970: 82)


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Tonal Domains

Notion of “Tone Bearing Unit” (TBU)

Word: TGTM languages (Mazaudon 2005)

Syllable: Mongsen Ao; Sumi; other T-B languages on the India-Myanmar border

Mora: (not described for T-B languages)

(or morpheme, which could correspond to syllable or word)


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Location of Tonal Contrast

When the word is the domain of tone, the location of the main tonal contrast is important:

Typically at the edge of word:

Word-initial: some Tibetic languages

Word-final: Boro (Joseph &Burling 2001)


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Word-initial: Yolmo & Kagate disyllables

Tone only contrastive on 1st syllable; pitch on 2nd syllable predictable (but does not fit into High or Low categories)


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Word-final: Standard Angami disyllables

All 5 tones contrastive on final syllable; 1st syllable usually has a default low-high tone (one of the 5 tones)

ke le ‘to shake’ merə ‘not visible’

kele ‘consented’ merə ‘to hope’

kele ‘temperature’ merə ‘round in shape’

kele ‘to pinch’ merə ‘to roll’

kele ‘to starve’ merə ‘hungry’

(Kuolie 2006: 54)


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Tonal Domains

Some languages exhibit syllabic + word level patterns

Each syllable can take any tone in the inventory, but permitted sequences of tone within a word are limited

e.g. Mongsen Ao (Nagaland) disyllabic words (prefix + root) prefer sequences of:

High-High Mid-Mid Low-Low (Coupe 2003)

Galo (Arunachal Pradesh) disyllabic compounds allow sequences of:

High-High High-Low (Post 2015)


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TYPOLOGICAL FEATURES - TONAL ALTERNATIONS

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Tonal Alternations

Presence vs. absence of “tone sandhi” sometimes used as a typological feature

Chen (2000: xi) notes lack of clear definition:

“Tone sandhi … sensu stricto describes phonetically conditioned morphotonemic alternations at the junctures of words or morphemes. Over time, however, tone sandhi has been extended to cover a number of related phenomena including allotonic variations, intonational effects, and morphologically or syntactically conditioned tone changes.” (own emphasis)


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Tonal Alternations

Also leads to the assumption that unaffixed words in isolation should display the maximum number of tonal contrasts

Xu (2008) on the use of monosyllabic words spoken in isolation frames:

“Because they are produced free of contextual influences, they could be assumed as being close to the canonical forms of the tones.” (own emphasis)


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Tonal Alternations

However, considering tonal alternations may be crucial for determining the no. of tonal contrasts found in a language

In some languages, the full tonal contrast is not found on unaffixed words

e.g. Standard Angami (Nagaland):

- ‘two High’ tones realized by same pitch height; but they can trigger different tones on certain suffixes (Meyase 2015)


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Tonal Alternations (Karbi)

e.g. Karbi (Assam)

In monosyllabic unaffixed words, some speakers do not distinguish Mid tone from High tone by F0 in production, only by glottal stop


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Tonal Alternations (Karbi)

But tones on stems are produced with 3 distinct pitch heights when certain suffixes are added (Teo & Konnerth, in prog)


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Tonal Alternations

Still unclear how useful the absence or presence of tonal alternations is as a typological feature

Might be linked to how isolating vs. agglutinative the languages are?

Linked to other prosodic factors, e.g. stress?


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OTHER TYPOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

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OTHER CONSIDERATIONS - INTERACTION WITH OTHER PROPERTIES

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Interaction with Phonation

Often discussed & increasingly researched due to access to lab environments / instrumentation

Acoustic Articulatory

Manange: Initial C VOT: Only Tones /1, 2/ permit aspirated and unaspirated initial stops (Hildebrandt 2005)

Bai: four phonations: modal, tense, breathy, harsh (Edmonson & Li 1994)

Kurtöp and initial C VOT: a former voicing distinction on High & Low tones >>> voiceless only (Hyslop 2009)

Tamang: breathiness in Low tones appreciated via EGG open-quotient values (Mazaudon & Michaud 2008)


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Interaction with Phonation (Gurung)

My ongoing work with acoustic & articulatory data from Lamjung & Manang Gurung speakers

Data from a female speaker

Also: vowel intensity significantly distinguishes 3 of four tones

Also: vowel jitter significantly distinguishes 2 of 4 tones


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Interaction with Stress

Interaction between tone and stress little described for Tibeto-Burman languages

“Stress Accent” and “Tone” languages previously assumed to be mutually exclusive categories

Morey (2014) notes that Singpho (Jingpho) has iambic stress and this can affect the nature of contours on final syllables

Hyslop (ms.) Kurtöp tone aligns with F0 while stress aligns primarily with duration and secondarily with F0

Other languages (see Hyman 2006; Remijsen & van Heuven

2006; Mazaudon 2005; Caplow 2009; inter alia)


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Interaction with Intonation

Interaction between tone and intonation also little described for Tibeto-Burman languages

‘Tone vs. Intonation languages’ myth

Highly constrained use of pitch for non-lexical contrast in East Asian tone languages, except at phrasal edge / boundary (Chao 1933; Duanmu 2004; Brunelle et al 2012)

Explained as a ‘functional trade-off’ (Torreira et al. 2014)


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Interaction with Intonation (Kagate)

In repetitions of monosyllabic minimal pairs:

Low vs. High distinction produced only at word onset (Teo, Gawne & Baese-Berk, 2015)

/mi/ ‘person’ vs. /mi/ ‘eye’ (female speaker)

mi mi mi

person person person

150

400

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

0 1.54

00.110022728

mi mi mi

eye eye eye

150

400

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

0 1.717

00.0715197149


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Interaction with Intonation (Kagate)

Repetition 1

Repetition 2

Repetition 3

H tone

L tone


Teo & Gawne (in prog.)

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Interaction with Intonation

To what extent does word prosody constrain sentence prosody?

More likely to find sentence intonation with smaller tone inventories?


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OTHER CONSIDERATIONS - SOCIO-TONETIC VARIATION

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Socio-tonetic Variation

Tonal dialectometry & socio-tonetic surveys are newly emergent, but are revealing in small, clan-based societies (Stanford 2009; Yang 2011)

Hildebrandt (2004, 2005, 2007) describes a phonetic merger (High, High falling; Low, Low falling > High/Low) for some urban Manange speakers (vs. rural)

Mazaudon (1973: 82) notes that breathiness is easier to perceive in males’ speech (vs. female)


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Variation by gender in Manang Gurung:

Vowel EGG is only marginally significant in contrasting tones for males, and only in mid-point measurements of vowels,

This is compared to females, where significance is maintained across vowel measurement points

But, Vowel Spectral Tilt (F0-H1) is a more reliable cue for males than for females


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Socio-tonetic Variation (Gurung)

Female speaker 1


Female speaker 2

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Socio-tonetic Variation (Gurung)


Male speaker 1 Male speaker 2

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Geographic variation

EGG and F0 correlates pattern more significantly with a Manange model of tone for all speakers of Manang Gurung than with other varieties of Gurung (Glover 1974; Tamu 2004) models

Potential tonal convergence between Manang Gurung and Manange in Upper Manang


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More general issue in typology, not just studies of tone

Typological studies often ignore variation within languages

Generalizations often based on single / few data points for each language


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SUMMARY

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Summary

Moving away from dividing languages up into gross types

Discovering the fine-grained variables that apply to a feature like tone

Still trying to determine relevant typological variables

Following Nichols (1992) and Bickel (2007):

“What’s possible?” >> “What’s where why?”

Independent and narrowly defined variables, rather than “ideal types”


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Degrees of Tonality

Sun’s (1997) degrees of tonality in Tibetan varieties

Tonality Description of each measure

Atonal - no phonemic tone or redundant ‘habitual’ tone

- no phonemic tone; redundant ‘habitual’ tone

- tone phonemic in restricted environments only

- tone generally phonemic ; tone values unstable /non-contrastive in some syllable types

- tone values stable; redundancy high

Tonal - additional contrast between level and falling contours


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Acknowledgements

National Science Foundation (BCS/DEL 1149639)

Lauren Gawne

Linda Konnerth

Sumi Literature Board

Karbi Lammet Amei

Lamjung Yolmo & Kagate communities

Gurung, Gyalsumdo & Manange Communities

SIUE URCA Assistants (Ian Green, Caleb Pecue, Ada Lewis, Cassidy Martin, Allison Rue, Mehali Patel, Alex Jackson)

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tibeto-burman tone typology (in the south asian context)

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