How Many Tonal Contrasts in Ikema Ryukyuan?

In this paper we will show that Ikema, a dialect of Miyako Ryukyuan, has a three-tone system, where three tonal classes, Types A, B, and C, are lexically distinguished, contra the previous studies which have claimed that it has a two-tone system. The results of our quantitative analysis of production data also revealed that Type A words are remarkably small in number, indicating that Type A words are in the process of merging into Type B, as a result of ongoing linguistic change.