nuer is a western nilotic language within the nilo … · • nuer attests many similarities with...

A pilot study of Tone in Nuer Nouns

⇤

Phonology Colloquium; Institut fur Linguistik, Goethe Universitat Frankfurt

Siri Gjersøe – siri [email protected]

Leipzig University

June 15, 2016

1 Introduction

This talks shows results from fieldwork in Jerusalem in February 2016.

Goal of study

• Find acoustic evidence for tonal contrasts in Nuer nouns:

– Check for tonal processes conditioned by prosodic positions and surrounding tones

– Test duration di↵erences of nouns

– Check for singular- plural derivations marked by tone

Main findings:

– Nuer nouns attests H, L and falling tones (HL)– The falling tones form a heterogeneous group regarding F0 fall:– one group of nouns retain a HL contrast in all tested contexts,

– another group surface with a H allotone in sentence-initial position– a third pattern involves HL tones which surface with a L allotone

– The HL – H tone alternation correlates with duration

⇤I am grateful to Eitan Grossman and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for organizing the field work in Jerusalem. I alsowant to thank Lukas Urmoneit for help with Praat annotations, and Matıas Guzman Naranjo for advising with R.

1

Nuer language

• Nuer is a Western Nilotic language within the Nilo-Saharan language family spoken inSouth Sudan and the western parts of Ethiopia.

• About 900 000 speakers (Lewis, Paul et al. 2015)

• Dialect of study: Eastern Jikany variant (Gambela, Ethiopia)

Previous research on NuerGrammar, dictionary (Crazzolara, 1933; Hu↵man, 1931), Morpho-syntax (Trommer, 2011;Storch, 2005; Baerman, 2012; Frank, 1999; Faust and Grossman, 2015), Phonology(Yigezu, 1995)

• Nuer attests many similarities with its neighboring language Dinka

• Dinka is a tone language with a three-way length contrast

• Both languages attest extensive use of nonconcatenative morphology: Inflection andderivation involves root-internal changes of vowel quality, voice quality, vowel length,and stem-final consonant mutation

Consonants

Bilabial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar GlottalPlosive p b t” d” t d c j k gNasal m n” n ñ N

Fricatives f c hLiquid l

rGlide w y

Table 1: Sources: (Faust and Grossman, 2015; Monich et al., 2016)

Vowels

Plain VowelsFront Central Back

High i uHigh.mid e oLow-mid E @ OLow a

Table 2: Nuer vowels (source: (Faust and Grossman, 2015))

• Vowel length and voice quality is phonemic2

• Vowels /i, e, o, a/ occur with breathy voice (Monich et al., 2016)

• Nuer is claimed to have three di↵erent vowel length distinctions (Monich et al., 2016)

(1) Short: 94msba

¨l

be.tasteless.intr

(2) Mid: 145msba

ä¨l

jump.intr

(3) Long: 192msba

ää¨l

jump.tr

Average durations in ms (Monich et al., 2016)

Morphosyntax

• Nouns are marked in number (singular and plural) and case (genitive and locative)

• Both number and case morphology in Nuer nouns is very complex with alternation ofvowel quality, length, voice, and a�xation.

Nom. sg Nom. pl Translation Morphological Process

t”in t”i¨n ‘breast’ breathiness

dit diit ‘bird’ vowel lengtheningbap bapni ‘torso’ a�xation

Table 3: Examples of number marking (Faust and Grossman, 2015)

Word order

• Lexical DPs occur initial in declarative sentences

• The direct object follows the imperfect verb (SVO) but precedes the infinite verb inother aspects (AuxSOV)(Faust and Grossman, 2015)

(4) a. NoamNoam

camm-Eeat.tr-3sg

maNgamango

‘Noam is eating (a) mango.’b. Noam

Noamc-Epfv-3sg

maNgamango

cameat.tr

‘Noam ate a Mango.’ (Faust and Grossman, 2015)

3

2 Method

• A reading task with one male speaker: Taidor Lam

• Recordings were made in a quiet room at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with aH5 Zoom recorder and a dynamic head-worn microphone SM10A. Sampling rate: 44.1KHz with 16-bit quantization.

Data set

• The target words were nouns in singular and plural

• All mid vowels1

• Three groups of nouns according to onset ( Sonorant, Voiced obstruent, or Voicelessobstruents)

• Items with CVC or CVV(V)C structure

• 28 items pronounced in singular and plural

• 3 repetitions x 4 sentences types (= 672 tokens)

Onset: Sonorant

(5) loiñ ‘lion’

Voiceless obstruents

(6) tet ‘hand’

Voiced obstruent

(7) bok ‘book’

Test sentences

a: noun pronounced in isolation

b: noun pronounced in carrier sentence

c: noun pronounced as preverbal object (Object sentence)

d: noun pronounced as sentence-initial subject (Subject sentence)

1Exceptions to this are diphthongs consisting of a mid and a high vowel.

4

(8) Singular

a. door‘tribe’

b. h@n1sg

lar-Esay.ipfv-1sg

‘door’tribe.sg

kakElonce

‘I say ‘tribe’ once.’c. h@n

1sg

c-@pfv-1sg

doortribe.sg

nEEnsee.inf

‘I saw the tribe.’d. door

tribe.sggwa-Enice-3sg

‘The tribe is nice’

(9) Plural

a. dor‘tribes’

b. h@n1sg

lar-Esay.ipfv-1sg

‘dor’tribe.pl

kakElonce

‘I say ‘tribes’ once.’c. h@n

1sg

c-@pfv-1sg

dortribe.pl

nEEnsee.inf

‘I saw tribes.’d. dor

tribe.plgOw-kEnice-3pl

‘Tribes are nice ’

• V = T(arget) vowel and V = C(ontrol) vowel

• T and C were annotated in Praat

• F0 values were extracted with a Praat script. The values were run in R-studio withcluster analyses and linear models.

Factors:

• Sentence type: Isolation, Carrier sen-tence, Object sentence and Subject sen-tence (4 levels)

• Onset: Sonorant, Voiced obstruent,Voiceless obstruents (3 levels)

Dependent variables

• F0 of first quarter, midpoint, and thirdquarter of vowel.

• F0 fall: sum F0 contrast between Firstquarter and third quarter of target vowel

• Duration

Posteriorly, Tone was added as factor (H, L, and HL)

! If Nuer does not have a lexical tonal contrast, segmentally similar words like tet ‘hand’and tot ‘summer’ are not expected to di↵er in F0.

5

3 Results

3.1 Minimal/near minimal tonal pairs

(10) Ltot‘summer’

(11) HtOt‘summers’

(12) Lwuu:ht‘ostriche’

(13) Hwuuht‘manhood’

(14) HlOc‘hearts’

(15) HLlOOc‘heart’

3.2 Duration

• The di↵erent lengths of the noun root can be considered mono- and bimoraic. All threetonal patterns surface on the roots regardless of the di↵erences in length

• Some nouns appear to have an extra long vowel: VV:

Short

(16) Hdor‘tribes’

(17) Htet‘hand’

(18) HLdEp‘butter’


Long

(20) Hdoor‘tribe’

(21) Hgeem‘jaw’

(22) HLtook‘guords’

(23) LkE

¨E¨r

‘rail’

Extra Long?

(24) Hdoo:l‘boy’

(25) HLkee:r‘calabash plant’

6

Long - extra long contrast

(26) HtEEr‘septembers’

(27) took‘calabash’

(28) HLtEE:r‘september’

(29) HLtoo:k‘calabashes’

• Duration was tested in R on all target words in Carrier sentence and Object sentence

• Method: k-means clustering method to group the di↵erent durations

• NbClust found the best split to be a 2-way distinction

Figure 1

• However, when enforcing a three-way clustering, K-means results in the 3 clusters ofsizes 216 ms, 150 ms, 90 ms. These correspond to the groups already proposed byMonich et al. (2016).

Group mean1 91.1 ms2 151.8 ms3 216.4 ms

Table 4: Cluster means of target words pronounced in Carrier sentence and Object sentence

7

Duration di↵erences conditioned by sentence type

• The correlation between Duration and Sentence type was tested in a linear model

• Isolation and Subject sentence were significantly longer in duration compared to Carriersentence and Object sentence

(30) Results of linear model for Duration ⇠ Sentence typeR2 = 0.044, F(3, 570) = 8.9, p < 0.001

Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(> |t|)Intercept (= Carrier sen.) 141.1 ms 5.2 27.0 < 2e-16 ***SentenceType: Isolation 28.5 ms 7.4 3.8 0.000142 ***SentenceType: Object sen. 0.2 ms 7.3 0.03 0.969958

SentenceType: Subject sen. 26.0 ms 7.4 3.4 0.000505 ***

3.3 H and L tones

(31) lar-Esay.ipfv-1sg

‘tet’hand.pl

kakElonce

‘I say ‘hands’ once.’


‘kE¨E¨r’

rail.sg

kakElonce

‘I say ‘rail’ once.’

Figure 2: H- and L-toned nouns pronounced in Carrier sentence

8

(33) c-@pfv-1sg

nOOpreporter.sg

nEEnsee.inf

‘I saw the reporter.’

(34) c-@pfv-1sg

totsummer.sg

nEEnsee.inf

‘I saw the summer.’

Figure 3: H- and L-toned nouns pronounced in Object sentence

(35) doortribe.sg

gwa-Enice-3sg

‘The tribe is nice’

(36) nE¨E¨n

mirror.sg

gwa-Enice-3sg

‘The mirror is nice.’

Figure 4: H- and L-toned nouns pronounced in Subject sentence

9

• K-means clustering was tested on F0 Midpoint of all target words labeled with H or Ltone to test the register of these labeled tones

• Results were 2 clusters means of 137 Hz and 111 Hz

Group Cluster means1 137.2 Hz2 111.1 Hz

Figure 5: Register of H and L tones divided with cluster analysis

3.4 H tones

The H-toned nouns retain a H tone in all four sentence types.

(37) HnOOp‘reporter’

(38) H

C-@pfv-1sg

nOOpreporter.sg

nEEnsee.inf‘I saw the reporter.’

(39) H

nOOpreporter.sg

gwa-Enice-3sg

‘The reporter is nice

10

Singular: H tone

(40) tet‘hand’

(41) door‘tribe’

(42) rOOt‘armpit’

Plural: H tone

(43) tet‘hands’

(44) dor‘tribes’

(45) lOc‘hearts’

Singular: H tone

(46) nOOp‘reporter’

(47) wook‘upper arm’

(48) doo:l‘boy’

Plural: H tone

(49) tOt‘summers’

(50) kut‘spirits’

(51) d@t‘sheeps’

(52) kEEr‘calabash plants’

3.5 L tone

• There are fewer L-toned nouns than H-toned nouns (five items)

• The L tone is also retained in all sentence types

• Two of the nouns have breathy voice

(53) LnE

Ë¨n

‘mirror’

(54) L

C-@pfv-1sg

nEË¨n

mirror.sgnEEnsee.inf

‘I saw the mirror.’

(55) L

nEË¨n

mirror.sggwa-Enice-3sg

‘The mirror is nice.’

L in singular

(56) kEË¨r

‘rail’

(57) tot‘summer’

(58) cOOaG‘bone’

(59) rEEadh‘dryness’

11

Figure 6

3.6 Automatic Downstep

Automatic downstep is found on H tones following a control L tone in Carrier sentence

• A H target word following the control L in Carrier sentence is lowered in F0

• Tested correlation for target H tones: Midpoint ⇠ Target:SentenceType

• The H tone is lowered 12.8 Hz after the L control tone (p < 0.001)

Figure 7

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3.7 Coarticulation

• Voiced obstruents do not show any significant e↵ect on F0 midpoint

Midpoint ⇠ Onset: p = 0.1905

• When testing Midpoint ⇠ Onset on H-toned nouns separately, they show no e↵ect formidpoint: p= 0.1226

• A small e↵ect for first quarter of the vowel ⇠ Onset is attested: p=0.002

• H tones with a voiceless obstruent as onset have an estimate of 6 Hz higher comparedto sonorants and voiced obstruents

3.8 HL tones

• The falling tones di↵er in surface tones

• One group of nouns retains a HL contrast in all sentence types (stable HL)

• Another group gets a level tone in Carrier sentence and/or Subject sentence (UnstableHL)

3.9 Stable HL pattern

The stable HL tone (s.HL) retains a HL contrast in all sentence types.

Isolation: HL

(60) took‘calabash’

Object sentence: HL

(61) C-@pfv-1sg

tookcalabash.sg

nEEnsee.inf‘I saw the calabash.’

Subject sentence: HL

(62) tookcalabash.sg

gwa-Enice-3sg

‘The calabash is nice.’

(63) tEE:r‘september’

(64) C-@pfv-1sg

tEE:rseptember.sg

nEEnsee.inf‘I saw september.’

(65) tEE:rseptember.sg

gwa-Enice-3sg

‘September is nice’

(66) tuOk‘guord’

(67) C-@pfv-1sg

tuOkguord.sg

nEEnsee.inf‘I saw the guord.’

(68) tuOkguord.sg

gwa-Enice-3sg

‘The guord is nice’

13

(69) too:k‘calabashes’

(70) C-@pfv-1sg

too:kcalabash.pl

nEEnsee.inf‘I saw calabashes.’

(71) too:kcalabash.pl

gOw-kEnice-3pl

‘Calabashes are nice’

3.10 Unstable HL pattern: H and L allotones

H allotone

Isolation: HL

(72) dEp‘butter’

Object sentence: HL

(73) C-@pfv-1sg

dEpbutter.sg

nEEnsee.inf

‘I saw the butter.’

Subject sentence: H

(74) dEp gw-aEbutter.sg nice-3sg‘The butter is nice’

(75) lOOc‘heart’

(76) C-@pfv-1sg

lOOcheart.sg

nEEnsee.inf‘I saw the heart.’

(77) lOOc gw-aEheart.sg nice-3sg‘The heart is nice ’

(78) dec‘soldier’

(79) C-@pfv-1sg

decsoldier.sg

nEEnsee.inf‘I saw the soldier.’

(80) dectribe.sg

gw-aEnice-3sg

‘The soldier is nice’

L allotone

• Another group of HL-toned nouns surface with a L tone after the L-final verb larE inCarrier sentence and with HL elsewhere

Isolation/Object sentence : HL

(81) nuop‘reporters’

Carrier sentence: L

(82) lar-Esay.ipfv-1sg‘nuop’reporter.pl

kakElonce

‘I say ‘reporters’ once.’

Subject sentence: HL

(83) nuopreporter.pl

gOw-kEnice-3pl

‘The reporters are nice’

14

(84) dOO:l‘boys’


‘dOO:l’boy.pl

kakElonce‘I say ‘boys’ once.’

(86) dOO:lboy.pl

gOw-kEnice-3pl

‘The boys are nice.’

(87) loIñ‘lions’


‘loIñ’lion.pl

kakElonce‘I say ‘lions’ once.’

(89) loIñlion.pl

kE-tıcop.pl-3pl

gOwnice

‘The lions are nice’

• Two nouns attest both allotones: L in Carrier sentence and H in Subject sentence

Isloation/Obj. sen: HL

(90) dEEl‘sheep’

Carrier-sentence: L


‘dEEl’sheep.sg

kakElonce‘I say ‘sheep’ once.’

Subject form: H

(92) dEElsheep.sg

gwa-Enice-3sg

‘The sheep is nice’

(93) bok‘book’


‘bok’book.sg

kakElonce‘I say ‘book’ once.’

(95) bokbook.sg

gwa-Enice-3sg

‘The book is nice’

15

Example of tokens

(96) stable HLlar-E ‘tEE:r’ kakEl‘I say ‘september’ once.’

(97) HLLar-E ‘lOOc’ kakEl‘I say ‘heart’ once.’

Figure 8: Stable HL vs. unstable HL tone in Carrier sentence

(98) stable HLtEE:r gw-aE‘The september is nice’

(99) H allotonelOOc gw-aE‘The heart is nice ’

Figure 9: Stable vs. unstable HL tone in Subject sentence

16

Table 5: Overview of unstable HL tones with allotones

Noun Transl. Isolation Carrier sen. Subj. sen.bok ‘book’ HL L HdEEl ‘sheep’ HL L HdEp ‘butter’ HL HL Hdec ‘soldier’ HL HL HlOOc ‘heart’ HL HL HloIñ ‘lions’ HL L HLnuop ‘reporters’ HL L HLdOO:l ‘boys’ HL L HL

• Stable HL tones retain a HL contrast in all sentence types

• The unstable group has the following three di↵erent tonal patterns:

– L allotone in Carrier sentence, HL elsewhere;

– H allotone in Subject sentence, HL elsewhere;

– L allotone in Carrier sentence and H allotone in Subject sentence, HL elsewhere

! The current patterns results in 4 surface patterns of falling tones in Nuer

Figure 10

17

• A cluster analysis of the F0 fall (FirstQ.Third Q) was applied on all falling tones in Rto test for a determining factor for the di↵erent patterns of the falling tones

• NbClust found the best split to be a 2-way distinction using K-mean clustering

• The cluster analysis blindly categorizes any token that has a falling contour tone vs.tokens that do not have a falling contour contrast

! Group 1 has a F0 falling contrast below 10 Hz (=level tone), group 2 has a F0 fallingcontrast above 10 Hz (= a HL contour tone)

Figure 11

18

Figure 12

Figure 13

Duration

• Duration and sentence type are determining factors for the two groups 1 and 2

• The tones of group 2 tones are longer in duration compared to group 1

• In Subject sentence, the falling tones that surface with a H allotone are shorter induration compared to the falling tones that retain a HL contrast

19

Figure 14

(100) Results of linear model for Duration ⇠ group + Sentence typeR2 = 0.1621, F(4, 172) = 8.31, p < 0.001

Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(> |t|)Intercept (= group 2) 183.5 ms 9.4 19.5 < 2e-16 ***

group 1 -49.9 ms 12.3 -4.0 8.04e-05 ***SentenceType Carrier sent. -21.9 ms 13.1 -1.6 0.09. SentenceType Object sent. -45.6 ms 13.1 -3.4 0.00063 ***SentenceType Subject sent. 15.8 ms 13.4 1.1 0.23

Table 6: HL pattern divided according to duration

Isolation Object sentence Subject sentence Estimate DurationHL HL H 133 msHL HL HL 183 ms

Section summary

• Falling HL tones surface with di↵erent tones:

– Stable HL tones retain a falling contrast in all sentence types

– Unstable HL tones surface either as H in Subject sentence , L in Carrier sentence,or in both

– The H -HL tone alternation in Subject sentence correlates with duration

20

4 Discussion of data

• What determines the falling tone simplification in Nuer?

(101) Proposed hierarchies concerning hospitable TBUs for contour tones(S = sonorant, O = obstruent) (Hyman, 2007)

a. rime types: CVV > CVS > CVO > CVb. # of syllables in word: monosyllabic > bisyllabic > polysyllabicc. metrical prominence: stressed > unstressedd. domain position: final > non-final

• Contour tones may be subject to simplification if they are in a non-hospitable TBU

In Bantu languages, contour tones are often restricted to long vowels and a domain-finalposition (Zhang, 2002).

• Hyman (2010) Oku: A level L tone contrast with a falling L tone before a pause

• Gjersøe et al. (2016): Limbum, falling tones are longer in duration compared to leveltones and they only occur sentence-final

• Tucker (1994): Luo attests di↵erent kinds of falling contour tones:

– High falling ‘crumbled’ tone surfaces on short syllables and has a downsteppedfalling allotone which is easily confused with a L tone

– H falling tone and the extra H falling tone surface on long syllables. They startfrom a higher pitch and fall more steeply

Types of contour tone simplification: (Hyman, 2007, 12)Absorption: “[...] one of the components of the tonal contour is lost when it is followed(preceded?) by a like tone”leveling: “ [...] a tonal component is lost in other environments”

Tonal absorption (Hyman, 2007)

(102) a. NaturalLH-H ! L-HHL-L ! H-L(progressive)

b. UnaturalL-LH ! L-HH-HL ! H-L(regressive)

(Hyman, 2007):

• In Luba, the progressive absorption applies to a contour tone when followed by a liketone: (a) Progressive absorption: L-LH-H ! L-L-H

• A contour tone is retained when surrounded by contrasting tones:(b) Contour tone retained: H-LH-L ! H-LH-L

21

L Absorption in Dinka (Andersen, 1987; Remijsen and Ladd, 2008)

• The L component of a HL contour tone is deleted when followed by another L tone

• The application of this rule depends on the syntactic configuration:

– Preceding an adjective, L absorption applies– Preceding an adverb, L Absorption does not apply

(103) L Absorption (Remijsen and Ladd, 2008) (modified representation)

H L ] L

� �=

Falling tones in Nuer: The puzzle

Object sentence: s.HL and u.HL retain HL

(104) H HLobj

L ! HL (105) C-@pfv-1sg

tookcalabash.sg

nEEnsee.inf

‘I saw calabash.’

Subject sentence: u.HL tone surfaces as H

(106) HLsubj

L ! H (107) lOOc gwaEheart.sg nice-3sg‘The heart is nice ’

• The pattern represented in (106) is strikingly similar to the L absorption in Dinka

• From a typological perspective, it would be expected that the falling tones in (104)and (106) would both be simplified:

– Both are surrounded by like tones– Both are in a non-final position

u.HL surfaces as L in Carrier sentence

(108) L HLcit

H ! L (109) /nuop/

larEsee.ipfv-1sg

‘nuop’reporter.pl

kakElonce

‘I say ‘reporters’ once.’

• The falling tone represented in (108) would be expected to retain a HL contrast:

– It is pronounced in a non-final position

– It is surrounded by contrasting tones

22

Preliminary proposal

Duration

• On the one hand, CVC and CVV(V)C attest all three tonal patterns on the rootsregardless of the di↵erences in length. This could indicate that the Tone Bearing Unitis the syllable as in Dinka (cf. Remijsen and Ladd, 2008)

• On the other hand, regarding falling tones, unstable HL tones are significantly shorterin duration compared to stable HL tones

! HL simplification in Nuer is sensitive to both prosodic boundaries and surroundingtones

! The di↵erences between stable and unstable HL tones lies in the underlying tonalstructure

! The mora is the TBU

! Absorption applies on the moraic level

(110) Unstable HL tones in Nuer

H L

µ

�(111) Stable HL tones in Nuer

H L

µ µ

�

• Unstable HL tones behave similar to the Dinka pattern with progressive HL simplifi-cation

• A lexical subject in Nuer triggers a prosodic break

(112) Unstable HL tones:L Absorption applies

( H L )�

L

µ µ

� �

=

(113) Stable HL retained(absorption does not apply)

( H L )�

L

µ µ µ

� �

23

(114) Unstable HL tones:HL is retained within a p-phrase

( H L L )�

µ µ

� �

(115) Stable HL retainedwithin a p-phrase

( H L L )�

µ µ µ

� �

L allotone in Carrier sentence

• The L allotone does not correlate with duration

• The short nouns bok ‘book’ and the long noun dEEl ‘sheep’ surface with a L allotone inCarrier sentence

• The short noun dEp ‘butter’ and the long noun lOOc ‘heart’ retain a HL contrast inCarrier sentence

(116) Optional rule: H ! Øin sequence L.HL.H

L H L H

µ µ µ

� � �

=

(117) Optional rule: H ! Øin sequence L.HL.H

L H L H

µ µ µ µ

� � �

=

5 Summary

• Nuer attests a three-way tonal distinction on noun roots: H, L and HL

• The H- and L-toned nouns retain the tone in all the tested sentence types

• Automatic downstep is attested on H tones

• A group of nouns with HL tone simplify to a H or a L tone

• Duration and prosodic domain correlates with L absorption:

! short noun roots are subject to L absorption in subject position while long nounroots retain a HL contrast

– This pattern was explained with di↵erent moraic structures of the noun where thetone bearing unit is the mora

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5.1 Open questions

• Does Nuer have a two- or three-way length contrast

• Do HL tones simplify in sentence-final position?

• What triggers the H tone absorption in the Carrier sentence?

• Is there a prosodic boundary in the Carrier sentence?

ReferencesAndersen, T. (1987). The phonemic system of Agar Dinka. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 9,

1–27.

Baerman, M. (2012). Paradigmatic chaos in Nuer. Language 88 (3), 467–494.

Crazzolara, J. P. (1933). Outlines of a Nuer Grammar. Vienna: Anthropos.

Faust, N. and E. Grossman (2015). Nuer (western nilotic): A preliminary survey. 2015.

Frank, J. W. (1999). Nuer noun morphology. Master’s thesis, University of New York at Bu↵alo.

Gjersøe, S., J. N. Awasom, and L. Paschen (2016). The interaction of lexical tone and phrase-level intonationin Limbum. In Proceedings of Speech Prosody, Boston May 31- June 3.

Hu↵man, R. (1931). Nuer-English dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hyman, L. (2007). Universals of tone rules: 30 years later. In T. Riad and C. Gussenhoven (Eds.), Tonesand tunes, Volume 1 of Typological studies in word and sentence prosody, pp. 1–34. Berlin & New York:Mounton de Gruyter.

Hyman, L. (2010). How to study a tone language, with exemplification from Oku (Grassfield Bantu,Cameroon). UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report .

Monich, I., T. Reid, M. Baerman, O. Bond, and B. Remijsen (2016). Stem modification in Nuer. In ACAL47, Berkeley: March 24.

Remijsen, B. and D. R. Ladd (2008). The tone system of the Luanyjang dialect of Dinka. Journal of AfricanLanguages and Linguistics 29 (2), 173–213.

Storch, A. (2005). The noun morphology of West Nilotic. Koln: Rudiger Koppe Verlag.

Trommer, J. (2011). Phonological aspects of Western Nilotic mutation Morphology. Habilitationsschrift,Institut fur Linguistik, Universitat Leipzig.

Tucker, A. N. (1994). A grammar of Kenya Luo (Dholuo). Koln: Rudiger Koppe.

Yigezu, M. (1995). The Nuer vowel system. Journal of African languages .

Zhang, J. (2002). The e↵ects of Duration and sonority on contour tone distribution – A typological surveyand formal Analysis. New York: Routledge.

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A Derived falling tones on verb

• The infinitive form of the verb nEEn normally surfaces with a L tone as in (118)

• With some H or L level-toned nouns nEn surfaces as HL

(118) nEEn is LC@ rOt nEEn‘I saw the armpit.’

nEEn is HL

(119) PL HC@ gem nEEn‘I saw the jaws.’

(120) PL HC@ d@t nEEn‘I saw the sheeps.’

(121) SG LC@ nE

¨E¨n nEEn

‘I saw the mirror.’

(122) SG LC@ loıñ nEEn‘I saw the lion.’

(123) SG HC@ nOp nEEn‘I saw the reporter.’

nEEn is L

(124) HLC@ geem nEEn‘I saw the jaw.’

(125) HLC@ dEEl nEEn‘I saw the sheep.’

(126) PL HLC@ nEne

¨nEEn

‘I saw the mirrors.’

(127) PL HLC@ loIñ nEEn‘I saw the lions.’

(128) PL HLC@ nuop nEEn‘I saw the reporters.’

B Tone patterns in singular and plural

• H sg ! H in pl

(129) Hdoor‘tribe’

(130) Htet‘hand’

(131) Hwok‘upper arm’

(132) Hdor‘tribes’

(133) Htet‘hands’

(134) HwoOk‘upper arms’

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• H sg ! s.HL pl

(135) HnOp‘reporter’

(136) s.HLnuop‘reporters’

(137) Hdoo:l‘boy’

(138) s.HLdOO:l‘boys’

• L ! H


(140) HtOt‘summers’

Stable HL tone in SG

• s.HL ! s.HL

(141) s.HLtOOk‘calabash’

(142) s.HLtoo:k‘calabashes’

(143) s.HLtuO:k‘a guord’

(144) s.HLtoo:k‘guords

s.HL ! H

(145) s.HLkot‘spirit’

(146) Hkut‘spirits’

(147) s.HLkee:r‘calabash plant’

(148) HkEr‘calabash plants’

(149) s.HLtEE:r‘september’

(150) HtEEr‘septembers’

u.HL ! H

(151) u.HLlOOc‘heart’

(152) HlOc‘hearts’

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(153) u.HLdEEl‘sheep’

(154) Hd@t‘sheeps’

Extra syllable in pluralL ! HL

(155) LnE

¨n

‘mirror’

(156) HL (HH in Object sentence)nEne

¨‘mirrors’

L - LH

(157) LkE

¨E¨r

‘rail’

(158) LHkE

¨rı¨‘rails’

u.HL – LH

(159) u.HLdEp‘butter’

(160) u. HLdec‘soldier’

(161) LHdEpnı

¨‘butters’

(162) LHdeenı‘soldiers’

(163) u.HLbok‘book’

(164) L.Hbo(k)Nı‘books’

(165) Overview of tone changes in sg and plural: monosyllabic (left) and bisyllabic (right)

SG � PL �H HL HH s.HL

s.HL Hs.HL s.HLu.HL H

SG � PL ��L H.LL L.H

u.HL L.H

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nuer is a western nilotic language within the nilo … · • nuer attests many similarities with...

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