The interaction between metrical structure and tone in Kera

This paper examines the cues for and interaction between the metrical and tonal systems of Kera. Kera has no word-level stress, but the heads of its quantity-sensitive iambic feet are cued by duration, intensity and vowel allophony; in addition, foot boundaries are identified by vowel-harmony and tone-spreading domains. The tonal system has three underlying tones, which are enhanced by differences in voice onset time (VOT). Kera demonstrates an interaction between the iambic foot and tone. Words have one or two tones. For words of three or more syllables the tone-bearing unit is the foot, but for shorter words it is the syllable. This dichotomy is accounted for by a faithfulness constraint requiring all tones to surface, which overrides a constraint limiting each foot to one tone. Kera shows that a tonal system can be sensitive to metrical structure, while maintaining a certain independence between the two systems.

[1]  David Odden,et al.  ADJACENCY PARAMETERS IN PHONOLOGY , 1994 .

[2]  Karen H. Ebert,et al.  Sprache und Tradition der Kera (Tschad) , 1975 .

[3]  G. Hansson.  Long-Distance Voicing Agreement: An Evolutionary Perspective , 2004 .

[4]  V. Fromkin,et al.  Tone : a linguistic survey , 1980 .

[5]  Ping Jiang-King,et al.  An optimality account of tone-vowel interaction in Northern Min , 1996 .

[6]  Rachel Walker,et al.  A Typology of Consonant Agreement as Correspondence , 2004 .

[7]  Draga Zec,et al.  Footed tones and tonal feet: rhythmic constituency in a pitch- accent language , 1999, Phonology.

[8]  Juliette Blevins,et al.  A Tonal Analysis of Lithuanian Nominal Accent. , 1993 .

[9]  San Duanmu,et al.  Rime length, stress, and association domains , 1993 .

[10]  Denis Creissels,et al.  Tonal morphology of the Setswana verb , 1997 .

[11]  K. Hubbard.  ‘Prenasalised consonants’ and syllable timing: evidence from Runyambo and Luganda , 1995, Phonology.

[12]  Mary Pearce,et al.  Consonants and tone in Kera (Chadic). , 1999 .

[13]  B. Laks,et al.  Current Trends in Phonology : Models and Methods , 1996 .

[14]  P. Newman.  The Hausa Language. An Encyclopedic Reference Grammar , 2002 .

[15]  Cheryl Zoll,et al.  onset , 2018, Speech Processing.

[16]  C. Laeufer,et al.  Phonology and Phonetic Evidence: Papers in Laboratory Phonology IV , 1995 .

[17]  Mary Pearce.  Vowel harmony in Kera (Chadic) , 2003 .

[18]  M. Gordon.  Syllable Weight , 2002 .

[19]  Draga Zec,et al.  SERBO-CROATIAN PITCH ACCENT: THE INTERACTION OF TONE, STRESS, AND INTONATION , 1988 .

[20]  Moira Yip,et al.  Lexicon Optimization in Languages without Alternations , 1996 .

[21]  Bruce Hayes,et al.  Iambic and Trochaic Rhythm in Stress Rules , 1985 .

[22]  San Duanmu,et al.  Syllabic weight and syllabic duration: a correlation between phonology and phonetics , 1994, Phonology.

[23]  Mary Pearce,et al.  Iambicity without stress in Kera , 2005 .

[24]  Thompson River Salish.  Conflicting directionality in , 2002 .

[25]  H. E. Wolff,et al.  Topics in Chadic linguistics , 2003 .

[26]  P. Jaggar,et al.  Chadic and Hausa Linguistics: Selected Papers of Paul Newman with Commentaries , 2002 .

[27]  Larry M. Hyman.  Word-prosodic typology , 2006, Phonology.

[28]  Mary Pearce,et al.  Kera Tone and Voicing , 2005 .

[29]  K. Crosswhite,et al.  Segmental vs. prosodic correspondence in Chamorro , 1998, Phonology.

[30]  Eric Bakovic.  Foot harmony and quantitative adjustments , 1996 .

[31]  E. Wolff,et al.  CONSONANT-TONE INTERFERENCE IN CHADIC AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR A THEORY OF TONOGENESIS , 1999 .

[32]  John Goldsmith,et al.  Autosegmental Studies in Bantu Tone , 1984 .

[33]  M. Pearce.  Iambicity in Kera , 2007 .

[34]  B. Hayes.  Metrical Stress Theory: Principles and Case Studies , 1995 .

[35]  San Duanmu,et al.  Recursive Constraint Evaluation in Optimality Theory: Evidence from Cyclic Compounds in Shanghai , 1997 .

[36]  J. McCarthy,et al.  Prosodic circumscription in Choctaw morphology , 1991, Phonology.

[37]  James D. McCawley,et al.  What Is a Tone Language , 1978 .

[38]  M Pearce,et al.  UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 17 , 2004 .

[39]  Paul de Lacy,et al.  The interaction of tone and stress in Optimality Theory , 2002, Phonology.

[40]  Mary Pearce,et al.  Evidence against voicing spread in Kera , 2006 .

[41]  John J. McCarthy,et al.  Optimality Theory in Phonology: A Reader , 2003 .