The Abawiri tone system in typological perspective

Availability:
Not Available Online
Issue Date: 
2016-05
Conference: 
8th Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference, SOAS, London, UK, 13-14 May 2016
Sponsored By: 
Endangered Language Fund
Extent: 
6 pages
Abstract: 
Abawiri (Indonesia: Lakes Plain) is a previously undescribed Papuan language with a relatively complex tone system. There are two level tones, /L/ and /H/, which combine into nine contrastive tone melodies on nouns: /L/, /H/, /LH/, /HL/, /LHL/, /LH/, /LHL/, /ØHL/ and Ø (toneless). Five of the nine tone melodies are found on verbs: /L/, /HL/, /LHL/, /LHL/, and Ø. The default pitch of tonelessness is low. Tone melodies are associated with whole words rather than with syllables or moras, with the shape of a particular melody spreading over an entire phonological word in predictable ways, whether one, two, or more syllables. The tonal elements of each melody are associated with syllables in the realization of the word. There are several phonological processes involving tone. /H/ tone is downstepped after a floating /L/. In avoidance of adjacent /L/ tones, a polar (H) tone is linked to the final syllable of a non-/H/ tone word previous to a /L/-tone word. Utterance-final boundary tone L% is linked to all utterance-final syllables. The Abawiri tone system is characterized typologically as a register tone system (Pike 1948), a word tone system (Donohue 1997), a moveable tone system (Kutsch Lojenga 2014), and as an equipollent+privative two-height system with a three-way phonological contrast between /H/, /L/ and Ø (Hyman 2010). The Abawiri tone system raises questions for markedness because the /L/ tone is the more frequent tone (less marked), but is more activated in the phonology (more marked).
Publication Status: 
Draft (posted 'as is' without peer review)
Country: 
Indonesia
Subject Languages: 
Content Language: 
Field: 
Work Type: 
Nature of Work: 
Entry Number: 
66053