Tone in Cushitic

1. Tone in Cushitic Maarten MousLeiden University

2. Stress languages • [-tone, +stress] • Highland East Cushitic: K’abeena, Sidamo

3. K’abeena • 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. 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

10. 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

11. 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 > inámet > ináme > inám ‘girl’.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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’

15. 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 ‘isawork-my-that-of yesterday ‘that work of mine of yesterday’.

16. 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.

17. 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

18. Double high toned suffixes Oromo (Owens 1985: 93-95) magalaa-´‑léemagaláalée ‘markets’ booll-ání ‘holes’ k’ot-am-  k’ot-ám-áa ‘cultivated’(m) k’ot-am-  k’ot-ám-túu ‘cultivated’(f)

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

20. 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).

21. 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 absolutive’bisadi ‘cat feminine nominative’bisád ‘cat genitive’

22. Culminative behaviour of tone • lowering previous high tones • lowering following high

23. 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’

24. Lowering following high tone Beja (Hudson 1976: 101-102): high tone of the root suppresses the accent of the past tense suffix ‑`a

25. Tonal phonetics • Pillinger’s analysis of Rendille.

26. Absence of common tone rules • no high tone spread • no tone assimilation • downdrift but no downstep • no final lowering

27. 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 Hyman’s (2006) typology.

28. Tone bearing unit is mora • Somali: (Banti 1988: 13; Saeed 1999: 41) • Dhaasanac: (Tosco 2001: 36) • Rendille: máàr ‘bullock’ vs màár ‘heiffer’ (Pillinger 1989)

29. Tone and intonation • Polar question intonation • No general question intonation • Sentence backgrounding by intonation

30. 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

31. Historical developments • tone > 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 Oomen’s proposal for Rendille above. • emergence of some tonal oppositions in South Cushitic according to Kiessling (2002)