Cover not available

In:The Phonetics–Phonology Interface: Representations and methodologies
Edited by Joaquín Romero and María Riera
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 335] 2015
► pp. 171–192

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

The phonetic basis of a phonological pattern

Depressor effects of prenasalized consonants

 | University of California, Berkeley
Published online: 10 November 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.335.09cib
Prenasalized voiced consonants demonstrate an unusual phonologization pattern: in some languages, they have phonologized their depressor effects (the reliable lowering of pitch on a following vowel) — that is, they always coincide with low-tone syllables, while in other languages they have not. The potential origins of this pattern are hard to determine without data on the intrinsic phonetic effects of prenasalized segments on F0. This study reports data on consonant-F0 interaction in Chichewa, a language with prenasalized segments in both high tone and low tone segments, in order to measure these effects in an environment where depressor effects have not been phonologized. The data suggests that the intrinsic phonetic effects of prenasalized consonants fall somewhere between the effects of plain stops and those of plain nasals, positioning these prenasalized segments to pattern either as depressors or as non-depressors, depending on language-specific conditions.
References (28)
References
Boersma, Paul & David Weenink. 2012. Praat: Doing phonetics by computer: Version 5.3.04 ([URL]) (Retrieved on January 12, 2012).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bradshaw, Mary. 1995. “Tone on Verbs in Suma”. Theoretical Approaches to African Linguistics ed. by Akin Akinlabi, 255-272. Trenton: Africa World Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. A Cross-Linguistic Study of Consonant-Tone Interaction. Ph.D. dissertation, The Ohio State University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Di Napoli, Jessica. 2015. “Glottalization at Phrase Boundaries in Tuscan and Roman Italian”. This volume.
Dresher, B. Elan. 2009. The Contrastive Hierarchy in Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haudricourt, André G. 1954. “De l’origine des tons en vietnamien”. Journal Asiatique 242.69-82.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1972. “Two-Way and Three-Way Splitting of Tonal Systems in Some Far Eastern Languages”. Tai Phonetics and Phonology ed. by Jimmy G. Harris & Richard B. Noss, 58-86. Bangkok: Central Institute of English Language.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hombert, Jean-Marie. 1978. “Consonant Types, Vowel Quality, and Tone”. Tone: A linguistic survey ed. by Victoria Fromkin, 77-111. New York, N.Y.: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hombert, Jean-Marie, John J. Ohala, & William G. Ewan. 1979. “Phonetic Explanations for the Development of Tones”. Language 55:1.37-58. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Honda, Kiyoshi. 2004. “Physiological Factors Causing Tonal Characteristics of Speech: From global to local prosody”. Paper presented at Speech Prosody 2004, Nara, March 2004.
House, Arthur S. & Grant Fairbanks. 1953. “The Influence of Consonant Environment upon the Secondary Acoustical Characteristics of Vowels”. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 25:1.105-113. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry M. 2008. “Enlarging the Scope of Phonologization”. UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report, 382-409.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kanerva, Jonni M. 1989. Focus and Phrasing in Chichewa Phonology. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lai, Yuwen, Christopher Huff, Joan Sereno & Allard Jongman. 2008. “The Raising Effect of Aspirated Consonants on F0 in Taiwanese”. Paper presented at the Second International Conference on East Asian Linguistics (ICEAL 2), Vancouver, November 2008.
Lee, Seunghun Julio. 2008. Consonant-Tone Interaction in Optimality Theory. Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lehiste, Ilse & Gordon E. Peterson. 1961. “Some Basic Considerations in the Analysis of Intonation”. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 34:4.419-425. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mackenzie, Sara. 2008. Contrast and Similarity in Consonant Harmony Processes. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mchombo, Sam. 2004. The Syntax of Chichewa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mtenje, Al. 1987. “Tone Shift Principles in the Chichewa Verb: A case for a tone lexicon”. Lingua, 72:2-3.169-209. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. CBOLD Chichewa dictionary. Prepared for FileMaker Pro.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Myers, Scott. 1998. “Surface Underspecification of Tone in Chichewa”. Phonology 15:3.367-391. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. “Tone Association and F0 Timing in Chichewa”. Studies in African Linguistics, 28:3.215-238.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pelling, J. N. 1971. A Practical Ndebele Dictionary. Harare: Longman Zimbabwe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Development Core Team. 2009. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. ([URL]).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tang, Katrina Elizabeth. 2008. The Phonology and Phonetics of Consonant-Tone Interaction. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trithart, Mary L. 1976. “Disyllabified Noun Class Prefixes and Depressor Consonants in Chichewa”. Studies in Bantu Tonology ed. by Larry M. Hyman, 259-286. University of Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics, 3.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Xu, Ching X. & Yi Xu. 2003. “Effects of Consonant Aspiration of Mandarin Tones”. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33:2.165-181. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Di Napoli, Jessica
2015. Glottalization at phrase boundaries in Tuscan and Roman Italian. In The Phonetics–Phonology Interface [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 335], ► pp. 125 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue