Universals of tone rules: 30 years later

Over 30 years ago, Hyman & Schuh (1974) surveyed a number of West African tone systems and determined that the most common forms of tone rules were tone spreading and (contour) tone simplification. Since then the study of tone has undergone dramatic development both in terms of theory as well as descriptive coverage of the world’s languages. In this paper I reexamine and elaborate on the major findings of the earlier study. Drawing on a wider range of tone systems, I show that Hyman & Schuh’s claims are confirmed in languages outside West Africa as well. Concerning the perseverative bias of tone spreading, cases of tone anticipation in Eastern Bantu are shown to originate at the right edge of a domain, originally triggered by a final boundary tone. Contour tone simplification is systematically examined in context, revealing that the process may be sensitive to the nature of the preceding and/or following tone. At various points a distinction is made between the articulatory vs. perceptual factors motivating recurrent tone rules. These findings cohere with the tendencies in F0 alignment documented in intonational systems as well.

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