how and why JanOlof Svantesson Lund University Sweden Southeast Asian tonogenesis Merger of voiceless and voiced onset consonants Tonogenesis A nontonal language acquired a twotone system Kammu Wa Vo ID: 346044
Download Presentation The PPT/PDF document "Southeast Asian tonogenesis:" is the property of its rightful owner. Permission is granted to download and print the materials on this web site for personal, non-commercial use only, and to display it on your personal computer provided you do not modify the materials and that you retain all copyright notices contained in the materials. By downloading content from our website, you accept the terms of this agreement.
Slide1
Southeast Asian tonogenesis:how and why?
Jan-Olof Svantesson
Lund University, SwedenSlide2
Southeast Asian tonogenesisMerger of voiceless and voiced onset consonants
Tonogenesis: A non-tonal language acquired a two-tone system (Kammu, Wa (Vo))
“Registrogenesis”: Some languages developed a voice quality contrast (Lamet, Wa (Paraok))
Tone split: Languages that already had a tone system doubled the number of tones (Chinese, Vietnamese)Slide3
Kammu: Austroasiatic language in Laos
Northern Kammu (yellow) has two level tones, Eastern Kammu (green) lacks tonesSlide4
Kammu tonogenesisSlide5
Tones contrast on syllables with these onsets in N Kammu:Slide6
but not on these:Slide7Slide8
NK onset consonants with tone contrastSlide9
Evidence that the Northern Kammu tones are features of the onset consonants
Distribution of tones and onset consonants
Tonal morphophonology
Word playSlide10
Tonal morphophonology:Causatives formed with
p-
always have high tone:Slide11
‘Secret language’:tone remains with onset consonantSlide12
Consonants in Kammu dialectsSlide13
(Non-redundant) featuresSlide14
So, what happened?Phonologically: nothing.
Phonetically: a lot.
EK has 35 consonants, NK 23
EK is non-tonal, NK is a tone language
But: EK and NK speakers understand each other without difficultyBut: EK speakers cannot distinguish isolated NK words like kláaŋ ‘eagle’ and
klàaŋ ‘stone’ (Svantesson & House 2006)Slide15
New pronunciation variant:
Creates words with an aspirated stop or a voiceless fricative as onset but low tone
The tone system is becoming independentSlide16
Indications that the phonological status of the Kammu tone system is changing:
(1) New combinations of tones and initial consonants are introduced, blurring the original correlation between tones and onsets
(2) A tone dissimilation rule (on “sesqui-syllabic” words) has neutralized some tone contrasts also blurring the correlation between tones and onsetsSlide17
Southeast Asian tonogenesis / tone splitRecently created tones are phonologically features of the onset consonants
Being phonetically realized on the rhyme and no longer phonetically dependent on the onset consonants the tones are free to changeSlide18
Why? do a lot of languages in this area acquire tones
I think this is for sociolinguistic rather than phonetic/phonological reasons
Areal phenomenon, prestigious languages in the area have tones
Many monosyllabic morphemes may be favourable for tonogenesis
The languages do not borrow tones from other languages; they borrow the idea of using tones but use their own resources to create themSlide19
Angkuic langugagesSmall Austroasiatic (Palaungic) subgroup spoken in SW China
Angku
Mok
U
Hu...Slide20
The Angkuic mistake
All initial stops became voiceless!Slide21
The Hu solutionSlide22
High vowels: HIGHNon-high vowels: short: HIGH
long: LOW
Hu tonogenesisSlide23
What happened – again?Information is moved into the vowel kernel in N Kammu:
puuc > púuc ‘undress’
buuc > pùuc ‘wine’ Slide24
Information capacityIn information theory (Shannon 1948), the information capacity of a code (e.g. the phonemes that form the onset, kernel or coda of a syllable) is measured by its entropy:
–
Σ
p
i·log2 (p
i), where pi is the (estimated) probability of symbol number i. The information capacity is measured in bits (binary choices).Slide25
KammuThe information capacity was estimated for the Onset, Vowel kernel and Coda of Proto-Kammu and Northern Kammu
mono
syllab
ic words.
Based on 12,883 monosyllables from Svantesson et al., Dictionary of Kammu Yùan language and culture, 2014Slide26
Information across the syllable in KammuSlide27
Tonogenesis and information structureKammu tonogenesis moved information capacity from the onset to the vowel.
Similar behaviour can be seen in other languages that underwent tonogenesis or registrogenesis of this kind as well as in languages that underwent a tone split, like Chinese and Tai languages.Slide28
How about other languages?Mongolian, spoken much further to the north did not develop tonesBut phonological processes that moved information capacity from the edges to the kernel took place
This is most prominent in the Baarin dialect spoken in Inner MongoliaSlide29
Sound changes in Mongolian monomorphemic words
Loss of final vowels made disyllabic words monosyllabic, and some information from the lost vowel is transferred to the first vowel:Slide30
Sound changes in Mongolian
Loss of medial
–h–
made di- or trisyllabic words monosyllabic:Slide31
Information across syllables in Mongolian(Based on 313 words, Svantesson et al
. The phonology of Mongolian
, 2005)Slide32
ConclusionThe development from Old Mongolian to modern dialects has something in common with the development in the tonogenesis/tone split languages
SEA tonogenesis is part of an areal tendency to cram more and more information capacity into the vowel kernel of the (first) syllableSlide33
Thank you!