Abstract

This paper describes the tone system of Poko-Rawo, a Skou language spoken in northwestern Papua New Guinea. The system displays a number of points of interest to tonal typology, including: a distinction between underlying specified Mid tones and M tones filled in by default; a dispreference for single-toned melodies; a preference for rising tones rather than falling tones; and strict alignment of Low and High tones, with L always initial and H always final in a melody. These alignment principles extend to floating tones, as floating L is always to the left of a stem and floating H always to the right. We provide a detailed description of underlying melodies, postlexical processes, and phonetic realization of tone in Poko in an effort to bring more Papuan data to bear on questions of tonal typology.

Highlights

  • 1 Introduction This paper provides the first description of the tone system of Poko-Rawo (: Poko), a Skou language spoken in northwestern Papua New Guinea (PNG)

  • The tone system is of interest to tonal typology for a number of reasons: First, while many languages with a Mid tone can be analyzed with this M as default (e.g. Fasu, May and Lowecke 1964; Yorùbá, Akinlabi 1985, Pulleyblank 1986; Buli, Akanlig-Pare and Kenstowicz 2002; Peñoles Mixtec, Daly and Hyman 2007 etc.), Poko displays a distinction between underlyingly specified M tones and underlyingly toneless syllables that receive a default M

  • Unlike Poko, which we show below to contrast three tonal primitives – L, M, and H – all other Skou languages for which tonal description is available are analyzed in terms of only two tonal primitives, H and L

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Summary

Introduction

This paper provides the first description of the tone system of Poko-Rawo (: Poko), a Skou language spoken in northwestern Papua New Guinea (PNG). While most languages with level-toned syllables display full level-toned words, the only such melody in Poko is /M/ – the melodies /L/ and /H/ are conspicuously absent Related to this point, L and H tones show strict alignment in the language, with L gravitating to the left and H to the right; these alignments even extend to floating tones, with floating L always on the left of a stem and floating H always on the right. L and H tones show strict alignment in the language, with L gravitating to the left and H to the right; these alignments even extend to floating tones, with floating L always on the left of a stem and floating H always on the right These alignments result in a preference in Poko for rising tones over falling tones, despite the fact that rising tones are crosslinguistically more marked than falling tones (Yip 2002, 2004; Zhang 2004; Morén and Zsiga 2006, etc.). Poko’s inventory of tone melodies, including contrasts such as /MH.∅/ vs. /M.H/ vs. /M.MH/, provides evidence against automatic association of tones as envisaged in the Universal Association Conventions (Goldsmith 1976; see Hyman and Ngunga 1994)

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