Unreleased Codas and Tones in

Meiteilol

Meiraba TakhellambamJawaharlal Nehru University

SEALS 24 May 26-May 31 2014

Yangon University, Myanmar.

Introduction

• Meiteilol is a Tibeto-Burman (Kuki-Chin-

Naga) language spoken in Manipur a province

in the north-eastern part of India and its

surrounding areas.

• Meiteilol is listed as mni under ISO 639-3 the

International Standard for Language Code.

map from google map

Figure from http://stedt.berkeley.edu/about-st

• Meiteilol is a monosyllabic language where

both the nominal and the verbal categories can

be analysed down to their constituent

monosyllabic stem and the affixes are also

monosyllabic .

• An interesting phenomenon that we observe in

Meiteilol is that the nouns in Meiteilol can be

both bound as well as free morphemes; but the

Verbs in the Meiteilol are always bound, the

verbal stem in itself cannot be without an

inflectional affix.

• e.g.

Noun Verb

i ‘thatch’ ibə ‘to write’

u ‘tree’ ubə ‘to see’

pa ‘eyelashes’ pabə ‘to read’

hi ‘boat’ hibə ‘ to slice’

cak ‘rice’ cakpə ‘to burn’

• Meiteilol is a Tone language; it has two lexical

tones ;

a) H Register Tone

b) HL Falling Tone

A list of minimal pairs is listed belowː

tin ‘saliva’

kʰoj ‘bee’

kʰoŋ ‘canal’

siŋ ‘ginger’

səm ‘basket’

mi ‘spider’

ma ‘3PS’

lu ‘head’

wa ‘bamboo’

i ‘thatch’

tin ‘insect’

kʰoj ‘navel’

kʰoŋ ‘foot’

siŋ ‘firewood’

səm ‘hair’

mi ‘man’

ma ‘bedbug’

lu ‘fishing trap’

wa ‘word’

i ‘blood’

i

i

thatch

H H

50

350

100

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

27.04 28.07

27.3552164 27.8226567

CVS1_ch1_16000

i

i

blood

H L

50

350

100

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

18.29 18.9

18.4443522 18.7454709

CVS1_ch1_16000

F0 map for the words i ‘thatch’ and the word i ‘blood’

mi

m i

spider

H H

50

350

100

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

38.3 39.37

38.5667993 39.1052238

CVS1_ch1_16000

mi

m i

man

H L

50

350

100

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

50.55 51.37

50.7583011 51.16545

CVS1_ch1_16000

F0 map for the words mi ‘spider’ and the word mi ‘man’

kʰoŋ

kʰ o ŋ

canal

H H

50

350

100

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

61.72 62.91

62.0181341 62.61363

CVS1_ch1_16000

kʰoŋ

kʰ o ŋ

leg

H L

50

350

100

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

32.65 33.47

32.8516921 33.2621653

CVS1_ch1_16000

F0 map for the words kʰoŋ ‘canal’ and the word kʰoŋ ‘foot’

kʰoj

kʰ o j

bee

H H

50

350

100

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

22.13 23.52

22.5168287 23.0329744

CVS1_ch1_16000

kʰoj

kʰ o j

navel

H L

50

350

100

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

76.43 77.37

76.6657875 77.1319301

CVS1_ch1_16000

F0 map for the words kʰoj ‘bee’ and the word kʰoj ‘navel’

• To describe Meiteilol tone any further;

considering the importance stressed upon the

coda position of a syllable for the study of tone

especially in Tibeto-Burman languages the

ramification of the CVC syllable structure into

CVS smooth syllables and CVT stopped

syllable (where S= sonorant and T= obstruent)

is inevitable.

• In Meiteilol the realisation of tonal contrast

can be affected by the coda consonants. The

tone on the stopped syllables can be identified

with the tones on the smooth syllables (Hyman

2007); where the stopped syllables have

voiceless unaspirated plosives at their coda

position.

• Meiteilol displays a rich inventory of

consonants which can occur at the Coda

position of a syllable.

• The presence of obstruent in the Coda or

stopped syllable CVT restricts the number of

contrasting tones in Meiteilol; the obstruent-

final syllable carries only the HL Falling tone.

List of words with HL Falling Tones

mit eye

hik lice

lik Necklace

muk ink

kʰut hand

luk platter

cuk pole

puk belly

suk mortar

lup group

cek brick

tek brass pot

pot thing

kot granary

kok head

pok grey hair

jot Iron

pʰək mat

sək appearance

tʰək Caterpillar

pat lake

tat excuse

kap span

nat culture

cak food

Time (s)

17.03 17.640

5000

Fre

quen

cy (

Hz)

17.1805535 17.4872217

Rakesh_CVT_2_ch1_16000

kot

k o t

granary

H L

50

350

100

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

17.03 17.64

17.1805535 17.4872217

Rakesh_CVT_2_ch1_16000

Spectogram and F0 map for the words kot ‘granary’

Time (s)

20.13 20.56

Pit

ch (

Hz)

50

35020.1910479 20.50376

Rakesh_CVT_2_ch1_16000

Time (s)

20.13 20.560

5000

Fre

quen

cy (

Hz)

20.1910479 20.50376

Rakesh_CVT_2_ch1_16000

kok

k o k

head

H L

50

350

100

200

300

Pit

ch (

Hz)

Time (s)

20.13 20.56

20.1910479 20.50376

Rakesh_CVT_2_ch1_16000

Spectogram and F0 map for the words kok ‘head’

pat

p a t

lake

H L

50

350

100

200

300

Pitc

h (H

z)

Time (s)

2.062 2.449

2.1857106 2.35066859

Rahul_CVT1ch1_16000

Time (s)

2.062 2.4490

5000

Freq

uenc

y (H

z)

2.1857106 2.35066859

Rahul_CVT1ch1_16000

Spectogram and F0 map for the words pat ‘lake’

Time (s)

5.883 6.4030

5000

Freq

uenc

y (H

z)

6.021242796.03922608

Rahul_CVT1ch1_16000

tat

t a t

excuse

H L

50

350

100

200

300

Pitc

h (H

z)

Time (s)

5.883 6.403

6.021242796.03922608

Rahul_CVT1ch1_16000

Spectogram and F0 map for the words tat ‘excuse’

• The realisation of tonal contrast on

monosyllabic nouns is neutralized due to the

nature of the coda consonant and in this case

the voiceless obstruents.

• The three stages that we associate with stops;

contact, hold and release can be observed

when the voiceless obstruents /p/ /t/ and /k/

occur in the onset position.

• However, when /p/, /t/ and /k/ occur in the

coda position in Meiteilol the stops are

unreleased as were observed from the

Spectograms.

• The unreleased phonation blocks the phonetic

spreading of the tone onto the coda consonant

in the CVT syllables.

The distribution of Tone in Meiteilol

H level tone HL falling tone

V + +

CV + +

CVS + +

CVT +

References

• Chen, M. Y. (2012, April). Tone rule typology. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (Vol. 18, No. 2).

• Hyman, L.M. (2007). Kuki Thaadow: An African Tone System in Southeast Asia, UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report.

• Kingston, J. (2005). The phonetics of Athabaskantonogenesis. AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE SERIES 4, 269, 137.

• Steriade, D. (1997). Phonetics in phonology: the case of laryngeal neutralization.