Tonal association in Tashlhiyt Berber: evidence from polar questions and contrastive statements

Abstract

The placement of F0 peaks in Tashlhiyt Berber is highly variable, both within and across speakers, even across repetitions of the same target sentence. We show that peak placement is determined by a number of competing factors: in addition to a general tendency for the peak to be placed on the rightmost syllable – a tendency that is stronger in questions than in statements – the peak is attracted to the syllable with the most sonorous nucleus and preferentially to heavy syllables. Moreover, in words consisting entirely of obstruents, there are three possible intonation patterns: no F0 peak at all, an anticipated peak (before the target word) or a peak on a vocoid between two obstruents. The F0 peak is analysed phonologically as a H tone that is either associated with a postlexically determined syllable or, if the syllable is not tone-bearing, aligned with the edge of the larger domain.