Tone in Cushitic

1
Tone in Cushitic

• Maarten MousLeiden University

2
Stress languages

• -tone, stress
• Highland East Cushitic Kabeena, Sidamo

3
Kabeena

• ultimate or penultimate syllable has stress
  (depending on final vowel whispered or not)
• correlation between stress/whispered final vowel
  and word class
• linked to case, converb vs imperative, polar
  questions
• no distinctive function at lexical level

4
Somali

• Underlying accent system with tonal realisation
  Banti (1988)
• Absolutive on the ultimate or penultimate mora
  underlying accent.
• Genitive accentual pattern of ultimate accent
• Nominative allomorphs involving adding an (empty)
  mora to the end.

5
Rendille

• Accent language underlyingly
• Realised as tone with downdrift
• (Pillinger 1989)

6
Afar

• Domain of high tone is phrase.
• High tone on one syllable in first word of NP
• High tone on one last 3 syllables of that word.
• H on accented syllable of that word (only
  minority of words have an accent) if there is no
  accented syllable H on final (default)
• Hayward (1991).

7
Awngi

• Joswig, Andreas. The phonology of Awngi. Ms
• Awngi Phonology.pdf

8
Oromo

• Banti Two Cushitic systems.pdf

9
Cushitic (general)

• Sasse (1981205)
• Appleyard (1991)

10
Characteristics of Cushitic Tone

• no lexical function
• marked at the right edge
• at most one pitch movement in a word
• sometimes two in morphological complex words
• grammatical function of tone

11
Lexical function

• Tonal minimal lexical pairs through name giving
  strategy in Iraqw.
• konkomo rooster
• konkomó insect species
• hlooro foam
• hlooró locust species
• compare
• doomu rainy season
• doomú personal name
• axweeso evening
• axweesó personal name

12
Lexical function

• Gender distinction through tone in the Sam
  languages Rendille (Oomen 1981 43-44)
• ínam (m) boy inám (f) girl
• áram (m) husband arám (f) wife
• árab (m) elephant aráb (f) elephants
• láhhaw (m) stick lahháw (f) stick
• Final high tone is a relic of a feminine suffix
  et which cause the penultimate tone to move
• ínam-et gt inámet gt ináme gt inám girl.

13
Right edge

• Somali accentual patterns or melodies Saeed
  (1999 42)
• High on the last mora and Low elsewhere
• High on the penultimate mora and Low elsewhere
• Low on all moras
• Cushitic in general High tones on bare nouns are
  on ultimate or penultimate tone bearing unit.

14
Toneless roots

• Iraqw most nominal roots have no high tones
  those that have a high tone on the ultimate are
  mostly Datooga loans ending in long vowel plus t
  or k. Tone on verbs is determined by conjugation.
• Arbore Hayward (1984 98) large number of nouns
  have no high tones.

15
Tone in function words

• Oromo
• hín focus marker hin negation marker
• Somali
• Adpositional particles have high tone lá with,
  kú in
• but adverbial clitics are toneless wada
  together and kala apart

16
Tone on suffixes

• Iraqw demonstrative and possessive suffixes are
  high specific indefinite suffixes toneless
  personal pronouns high.
• Series of high tones
• gajéér-éé-dá-r isa work-my-that-of yesterday
• that work of mine of yesterday.

17
not more than 1 pitch movement

• if more than 1 high than in morphological complex
  word
• Occasionally two movements
• Somali gúrigíi the house (remote) (Saeed
  1999 43). Penultimate high plus high tones
  definite suffix.
• Arbore Arbore lúkku-t-ásut his hens (Hayward
  1984 99). Penultimate high plus high tone
  possessive suffix.

18
Grammatical function of tone

• high toned word classes
• high toned suffixes
• double high tone suffixes
• high tone in verb conjugation
• tone as grammatical morpheme
• right tone shift as grammatical morpheme

19
Double high toned suffixes

• Oromo (Owens 1985 93-95)
• magalaa--lée ? magaláalée markets
• booll-ání holes
• kot-am- ? kot-ám-áa cultivated(m)
• kot-am- ? kot-ám-túu cultivated(f)

20
High tone in verb conjugation

• Past tense is marked by high tone on final
  syllable of the verb in Iraqw

21
Tone as grammatical morpheme

• Beja first-singular possessive is only a low tone
  and the third-person possessive only a high tone
  in the underlying form (Appleyard 1991 7, based
  on Hudson 1976).

22
Tone shift

• Somali genitive is shift of tone nominative is
  erasion of high tone (Saeed 1999 44).
• díbi bull absolutive dibi bull masculine
  nominative dibí bull genitive
• bisád cat absolutivebisadi cat feminine
  nominativebisád cat genitive

23
Culminative behaviour of tone

• lowering previous high tones
• lowering following high

24
Lowering previous high tones

• Beja (Hudson 1976 101-102)
• tam-a-n-ee-k if I ate,
• compare
• tam-a-n I ate.
• Somali (Saeed 1999 43).
• gúri-kée ? gurigéehouse-which?m which house

25
Lowering following high tone

• Beja (Hudson 1976 101-102)
• high tone of the root suppresses the accent of
  the past tense suffix -a

26
Tonal phonetics

• Pillingers analysis of Rendille.

27
Absence of common tone rules

• no high tone spread
• no tone assimilation
• downdrift but no downstep
• no final lowering

28
Tone or Accent

• Tone phonemic function for pitch at word level
• Accent distribution of prominence at word level.
  At least one stressed syllable.
• Cushitic languages pitch but not all words have
  a stressed syllable.
• tone stress in Hymans (2006) typology.

29
Tone bearing unit is mora

• Somali (Banti 1988 13 Saeed 1999 41)
• Dhaasanac (Tosco 2001 36)
• Rendille máàr bullock vs màár heiffer
  (Pillinger 1989)

30
Tone and intonation

• Polar question intonation
• No general question intonation
• Sentence backgrounding by intonation

31
Stress ánd tone

• Awngi stress independent of tone.
• Stress falls on the penultimate and is
  accompanied by a slight rise in pitch.
• Four tones High, Mid, Low, High-Mid Hetzron
  (1997 483). Reanalysed as High Low by Joswig
  (2006)
• Iraqw has stress realised by length, independent
  of tone

32
Historical developments

• tone gt stress in Highland East Cushitic under
  influence from Semitic according to Tosco.
• gender by tone in proto East Cushitic according
  to Appleyard (1991) but see Oomens proposal for
  Rendille above.
• emergence of some tonal oppositions in South
  Cushitic according to Kiessling (2002)