Intonation in African Tone Languages by Laura J. Downing Annie Rialland

Author:Laura J. Downing, Annie Rialland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Published: 2017-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

2Chimiini prosodic constituent structure

In the papers referred to above we have argued that an accent (High pitch) is assigned to the last word of a prosodic phrase. This accent is on the final syllable if the phrase contains a final-accent “trigger.” (This statement is an oversimplification, as we shall demonstrate later.) The triggering element may be a morphosyntactic feature complex (e.g. a first/second person affirmative verb in the present or past tense, a relative verb), but in other cases may be a function word. (See the appendix for a list of final accent-triggers.) In the absence of a final-accent trigger, accent falls on the penult syllable of the word. If the final word in the phrase is monosyllabic, then that syllable bears the default accent, effectively masking the contrast between final and default accent. Accent is never heard earlier than the last word of the phrase. An example is given in (1). (We indicate the right edge of a prosodic constituent by the symbol “)φ”. Accent is indicated by an acute accent over the vocalic nucleus of the syllable. If the nucleus has a long vowel, we write the vowel symbol twice. The acute accent mark is placed over the first vowel symbol.)

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