One Response to “Tone”

1. Thomas Hart Chappell Says:
   March 9th, 2010 at 1:13 am

   (I did look at http :// typo . uni – konstanz . de / archive / nav / search . php )

   About languages with lexical tone (pitch-tone, not register-tone); I have some “feelings”. I’d like to know if these are true “with overwhelmingly greater than chance frequency” (wogtcf).

   (Archived Universal 719 says that a language with glide tones (that is, rising tones or falling tones) will also have level tones. Archived Universal 721 says that any language with “contour tones” has level tones.)

   My guesses:
   1. If a language has a glide tone, then wogtcf it has at least two level tones.
   2. If a language has two or more rising tones, or has two or more falling tones: then, wogtcf, it has at least three level tones.

   (Archived Universal 720 says that a language with “simple contour tones” (that is, peaking tones or dipping tones) also has glide tones. Archived Universal 722 may also say something similar; it’s either saying that languages with peaks and/or dips also have rises and falls, or it’s saying that languages with peak-dips and/or dip-peaks also have peaks and dips.)

   My guesses:
   3. If a language has a peaking tone or a dipping tone, then wogtcf it has at least one rising tone and at least one falling tone.
   4. If a language has two or more peaking tones, or has two or more dipping tones: then, wogtcf, it has at least three glide tones.

   (Archived Universal 1047 seems to be saying that if there is one or more rising tone then there is also one or more falling tone.)

   My guesses:
   5. If a language has two or more rising tones, then wogtcf it also has at least one falling tone.
   6. If a language has two or more falling tones, then wogtcf it also has at least one rising tone.
   7. If a language has two or more peaking tones, then wogtcf it also has at least one dipping tone.
   8. If a language has two or more dipping tones, then wogtcf it also has at least one peaking tone.

   ————————————-

   Does anyone know whether those are, indeed, statistical implicational universals?

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