Development of tones from vowel height?

Abstract

The development of contrastive tones on vowels due to the loss of a voicing distinction on obstruents in prevocalic position is widely attested and rather well understood. On the other hand intrinsic fundamental frequency variations caused by vowel height rarely, if at all, give rise to the development of phonological tones. Ten subjects were asked to compare the pitch of synthesized vowels different in quality but equal in fundamental frequency. The data indicate that the vowel [a] has a tendency to be judged higher in pitch than the high vowel [i] or [u]. Two possible origins of this effect are discussed. These results are taken as a partial explanation for the lack of tonal development from vowel height.