Grammatical functions of tone in San Maka

Abstract

The paper is an overview of the functions of tone in San Maka (Eastern Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo). In this language, tone has different grammatical functions in addition to distinguishing lexical meanings of words. The analysis of tone shows that its grammatical functions embrace different morpho-syntactic domains. Tonal oppositions are analyzed in the wide contexts of segmental morphology of the language. It is shown that tonal oppositions may distinguish paradigmatic word forms, which is primarily characteristic of a verb; tone is often the only distinctive feature that opposes neutral and perfective verbal forms. San Maka also displays verbal derivation by means of the tonal change. Tone oppositions are used in genitive constructions of the type N+N, where the tone of the second component rises. A special section is devoted to so-called floating tones. In San Maka, floating tones are allomorphs of segmental units: the 3sg pronoun à and the perfective predicative marker nə́, in certain contexts, are realized as tones.