Suprasegmental phonology

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines stress, tone, and intonation in western Austronesian languages. Apart from summarizing what is known about intonation in the area under scrutiny, the chapter is primarily concerned with stress systems. A four-way areal typology is proposed to account for the variation across the area. One major parameter of variation appears to be the regularities of the association between phrase-marking edge tone combinations – so far found in all languages investigated – and the segmental string. This association may be highly variable (as in the Java prototype), target the penultimate syllable (as in the Eastern prototype), or the final syllable (as in the Philippine and Western Rim prototypes). A second parameter in this regard appears to be the role played by syllable weight, with movable vowel length distinctions being an important aspect in Philippine prosodic systems and open syllables with schwa being weightless. A third parameter that comes into play in various systems is the distinction between lexical and functional items, the latter often showing slightly different regularities for association rules. The sporadic appearance of tone in some languages (including Chamic, Malagasy and West New Guinea) is notable for the variety of tonal systems found and the role of contact with non-Austronesian tonal languages.