Review of "Word tone in a Papuan language: An autosegmental solution," by Dorothy James (original) (raw)
Related papers
Phonology, 2012
Goldsmith's (1995) Handbook of phonological theory provided an influential overview of the field in the mid-90s, earning a well-deserved place on the shelf of practising phonologists. The volume under review is not the first to attempt to update this classic work. Two other recent handbooks of comparable length and scope are the second edition of Goldsmith (Goldsmith et al. 2011), and de Lacy's (2007) well-received Cambridge handbook of phonology. Besides evaluating how well the current work meets the general expectations that readers have for a handbook, this review must necessarily also address the inevitable questions : why yet another handbook of phonology just now ? ; how does this volume distinguish itself from its competitors ? ; does this work fill a gap that is not met by the other handbooks ? The names of the editors and authors provide the first clue to what makes this volume distinctive. Almost all contributors work and/or received their PhDs in Europe, whereas North American phonologists dominate the other handbooks. The European perspective is felt in several of the core chapters in the second and longest part of the volume, ' Research issues ', which discuss certain approaches-such as Element Theory, Government Phonology and CV theory-that tend to be less well known in North America. The chapter by Botma, Kula & Nasukawa on ' Features' has a comprehensive discussion of the phonetic motivation for different feature theories in early generative phonology, followed by a clear introduction to Element Theory. One of the distinctive properties of Element Theory is that the same feature can have different phonetic realisations, depending on the featural configuration (in particular, which other feature is the head of the configuration). The advantages of representing voicing and nasality with a single feature are exemplified with a detailed analysis of alternations involving nasal prefixes in Zoque. Péter Szigetvári's chapter on ' Syllables ' follows a critical historical survey of motivations for syllable structure with an exceptionally clear introduction to CV theory, a theory which essentially dispenses with the syllable as a constituent. As someone who was not trained in this approach, I read the chapter with scepticism. However, by the end of it I felt I had an appreciative understanding of how strict CV licensing can account for classic problems like restrictions on consonant and vowel clusters which are usually considered motivations for syllable structure. Both this chapter and the one on features will be read with interest by phonologists wishing to understand the highlighted theories better. They will surely be recommended to students as useful introductory chapters by phonologists working in the theories presented. However, as the focus in these chapters is on the particular theories under discussion, they are not intended to provide a useful guide to current research and issues in other frameworks.
Lee Bickmore, ,Chilungu Phonology (2007) CSLI Publications, University of Chicago Press,Stanford
2009
Cilungu Phonology provides a comprehensive description of the intricate and diverse tone system of Cilungu, a Bantu language of Zambia classified as M14 in Guthrie's (1967Guthrie's ( -1971 Bantu classification. An asset of this work for which the author must be commended is that it provides a thorough and fully worked out tone system of a particular language in contrast to fragments of tonal systems abounding in the Bantu literature.
phonological variations dissertation.pdf
comparative study of phonological variation in Tonga varieties: A case of Dhombe and Tonga, 2018
Abstract The research discusses phonological variations in the CiTonga language as spoken in Binga (Ndola) and Hwange (Dete) area. It also analysed the possible causes of phonological differences in the two varieties. The study contributes towards the documentation of previously marginalised languages. The study also provides some of the phonemic inventory in line with what was gathered through the guideline of the lexical items of the Swadesh list. A qualitative approach was used in gathering and examining the phonemes of the Tonga varieties. The researcher noted that linguistic studies on the Tonga language have been extensively carried out in Zambia. Limited studies on the Tonga language have been carried out in Zimbabwe. The theoretical tools that were employed in this study include the tenets of the family tree model and the comparative method. The family tree model assumes that languages that share a great number of cognates originated from one proto language. The researcher selected some lexical items from the Swadesh list to present and illustrate phonological variations in Dhombe and CiTonga. The Tonga language variations were established and analysed through the use of the comparative and family tree model. An attempt is made to account for the phonological variations. It was found out that language varieties of Tonga vary as a result of segment loss, simplification or assimilation processes such as plosivisation, fricativisation, voicing and velarisation. These phonological processes do not affect both speech communities of the same language that are geographically separated. That is at certain instances either of the two sister varieties of language returns the proto sound while the other submits to phonological changes. The reconstruction of the possible proto Tonga sounds was done through employing certain tenets of the comparative linguistic method.
Lee Bickmore, Chilungu Phonology , CSLI Publications
Lingua, 2009
Cilungu Phonology provides a comprehensive description of the intricate and diverse tone system of Cilungu, a Bantu language of Zambia classified as M14 in Guthrie's (1967Guthrie's ( -1971 Bantu classification. An asset of this work for which the author must be commended is that it provides a thorough and fully worked out tone system of a particular language in contrast to fragments of tonal systems abounding in the Bantu literature.
Phonology in a Nutshell - FLASH UIZ (2021–22)
2022
This is a basic, brief introductory course to Phonology linguistic sub-field. It is primarily made for the students of the department of English studies at the University of Ibn Zohr, Agadir, Morocco, who cannot attend classes, or who suffer from a lack of resources and maybe lack of communication from some, not all their lecturers. The content is collected and based on the syllabus of the professor Yassine Ait Hammou’s 2021-2022 lectures (y.aithammou@uiz.ac.ma), Faculty of Languages, Arts and Humanities, Ait Melloul, Morocco. No need to state that this work might be useful for undergraduate students of Linguistics all over the world! I wish you the best all.
Tonal Activity in Kara, an Austronesian language spoken in New Britain
S. Cassidy, F. Cox, R. Mannell & S. Palethorpe (eds) Proceedings of the Tenth Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, Sydney: ASSTA, 295-300, 2004
This paper presents the results of a small phonetic investigation of tonal activity in Kara, a little-known Austronesian language spoken in Papua New Guinea. Sketchy reports of some kind of tonal contrast in this language surfaced in the 1960s and 1970s, only to disappear in later published references to the language. Our auditory and acoustic investigations confirm the existence of contrastive tone in Kara. Native speaker intuitions also support such a conclusion. At least two tonemes (high and low) are identified. A third tone level (mid) is also noted but appears to be a variant of the low toneme.
2009
All praise is due to Allah almighty to whom I express my first and uppermost gratitude for the completion of this dissertation. This thesis could not have been completed without the assistance, constant support and guidance of my supervisor, Wyn Johnson, whose feedback and encouragement are invaluable. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to you, Wyn. Special thanks go to the members of my research committee, David Britain and Rebecca Clift. This work has been improved greatly by your questions and comments. I am also indebted to Enam Al-Wer for all the great discussion we had and for all the useful references she provided me. I am also indebted to the members of the weekly Phonology Workshop, Wyn Johnson, Nancy Kula, Hana Daana, Moris Al-Omar, Jennifer Amos, Catharine Carfoot and Verónica Villafaña, with whom I have interacted during the course of my
Alan H. Sommerstein, Modern phonology. London: Edward Arnold, 1977. Pp. x + 282
Journal of Linguistics, 1979
Besides the main parts of the analysis there are several other interesting observations-for example, a discussion of the special position of the number 12 and a collection of etymologies which go back, unexpectedly, to number words. However, errors and inconsistencies abound throughout the section. Consider first the Slavonic data. A transliteration scheme is proposed (vii, 98) which is eccentric and confusing. The author institutes e for Russian e (while it is normally reserved for %) but fails to use it consistently (15, 24, 98, 183). The Russian numerals 8, 10 and 2000 are given inaccurately (98) and there are further Russian errors on pp. 73 (units and tens are not reversed in Russian) 134 and 183. The transliteration given for Old Church Slavonic (93) is self-contradictory (inconsistencies on pp. 107, 126 and 190). Nor are the errors limited to Slavonic: Hetzron (1977: 197) found in the 1969 edition 'a great number of errors, inadequate transcriptions, wrong segmentation and incorrect etymology' in the Semitic and Hungarian data as well as in Slavonic. Furthermore, the Icelandic hundrad appears in two forms (95, 154) both incorrect, Danish (95), Welsh (97), French (99) and Romanian (99) data all contain inaccuracies, and so on. Clearly one could not use any of Menninger's data without prior checking. Yet this is not easy: first, there are only a handful of references in the entire book and there is no bibliography; secondly, it is difficult to check data from 'an African language spoken in the Sudan' (82) or 'an American Indian' (9). Certainly many of these inaccuracies do not seriously affect the argument, but in view of the optimistic claims made ('.. . profound glimpses into the early condition of the human mind' (151)) the reader is entitled to expect greater care. For the sake of the more valuable parts, the book deserved a fully corrected new edition rather than a new cover. As it is, there are rather too many misprints, (p. 78 'language' for languages', p. 89 'languages' for language', p. 216 'behooves', p. 271 'The first used' for 'The first method used', p. 333 'equpiment', p. 361 'the division 42 + 2', p. 411 'orignal') and, in one table (265), the glosses have still not been translated from the German. Until properly edited, this book will hardly deserve a place on the linguist's desk, though the second section, particularly the illustrations, may earn it a place on his coffee table.