Tonal System Research Articles

Sistem Penadaan Musik Tradisi Sasak Rebana Lima

The purpose of this research is to describe the funding system used by Tambourine Lima. This type of research uses a qualitative descriptive method. Data collection techniques with data triangulation techniques, namely observation, interviews, and data collection with documents. The data analysis used consisted of four stages, namely data collection, data reduction, data presentation, and data verification. The results of the study show that the Tambourine Lima tuning system uses a pentatonic scale, namely the tone 2-3-5-6-2. In the Rebana Lima marking system, it starts from a low 2 tone and ends with a high 2 tone and does not use a 1 tone. The conclusion of the research is that in Tambourine Lima to produce the notes in each musical instrument, the player must adjust his left hand to produce the right tone and according to his tuning. each player holds a musical instrument, and is beaten according to the song being played to produce harmony.
 
 Keywords: Rebana lima, Tone system, Traditional Music

Phonological description of Naba

Naba, also known as Bilala, is a Nilo-Saharan (Sara-Bagirmi) language of Chad with about 410,000 speakers from three ethnic groups. This paper gives a basic description of the Naba phonological system, using segmental phonology and lexical phonology approaches. Topics covered include the phonemic inventory, syllable structure and phonotactic restrictions, the tone system and its interaction with other phonological processes, and the main lexical and post-lexical processes. A special focus is given to the important role of sonority hierarchy in Naba phonological structure and processes. This hierarchy groups affricates and non-sibilant fricatives with stops in a single obstruent category, while nasals, liquids, and approximants comprise the sonorant category. The distinction is key for syllable structure, phonotactic restrictions, tone sandhi, and a number of both lexical and post-lexical processes. It is proposed that the two sibilant fricatives /s/ and /z/ exist as a separate sonority level in between obstruent and sonorant, and evidence is given as to why they cannot be classed with either group.

Modernist features of B. Lyatoshynsky’s romances: difficulties of interpretation

Statement of the problem. Borys Lyatoshinsky’s works marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of Ukrainian music. Thanks to the composer, European musical modernism penetrated Ukrainian musical culture and gave it a powerful impetus for the creative pursuits by a whole constellation of artists. However, Lyatoshinsky’s profound work, which was not infected by the artificial and deceptive optimism of socialist realism, often drew unfair criticism from the ruling strata of the USSR. It was only during Ukraine’s independence that Lyatoshinsky’s music finally gained proper recognition both in our country and abroad. The composer’s works, from piano preludes to symphonies, have become a permanent part of orchestras, ensembles, individual performers repertoire. But the proliferation of the prominent composer’s music inevitably raises questions about the interpretation of his works. After all, even the smallest works by Lyatoshinsky always have a clear and meaningful idea, are full of deep psychological meanings, and are created with the help of complex expressive means. Therefore, working with the composer’s music, even a hundred years after its creation, requires a performer to be very well prepared. The scientific novelty of the study is justified by the almost complete lack of research on modernist features of the composer’s romances and their influence on the interpretation of these works. The purpose of the study is to identify the difficulties of interpretation that a vocalist must overcome in order to perform Lyatoshinsky’s romances in a vivid and artistically convincing manner. Research methods. Musicological, comparative, figurative-semantic analyses helped to achieve the chosen goal. Results and conclusion. The study concluded that in order to perform the studied solo parts in an aesthetically pleasing manner, a singer, in addition to a thorough acting training, needs to be confidently competent in the various pitch systems of the twentieth-century music. Since only knowledge of the specifics of those tonal systems that differ from the major-minor system will help a singer to properly train their ears and voice to overcome performance difficulties and convincingly interpret Lyatoshinsky’s romances. Also, in this context, the issue of the special coherence between vocalist and pianist is extremely relevant, since the piano takes an equal place in Lyatoshinsky’s chamber-vocal works.

Segmental and suprasegmental encoding of speaker confidence in Wuxi dialect vowels.

Wuxi dialect is a variation of Wu dialect spoken in eastern China and is characterized by a rich tonal system. Compared with standard Mandarin speakers, those of Wuxi dialect as their mother tongue can be more efficient in varying vocal cues to encode communicative meanings in speech communication. While literature has demonstrated that speakers encode high vs. low confidence in global prosodic cues at the sentence level, it is unknown how speakers' intended confidence is encoded at a more local, phonetic level. This study aimed to explore the effects of speakers' intended confidence on both prosodic and formant features of vowels in two lexical tones (the flat tone and the contour tone) of Wuxi dialect. Words of a single vowel were spoken in confident, unconfident, or neutral tone of voice by native Wuxi dialect speakers using a standard elicitation procedure. Linear-mixed effects modeling and parametric bootstrapping testing were performed. The results showed that (1) the speakers raised both F1 and F2 in the confident level (compared with the neutral-intending expression). Additionally, F1 can distinguish between the confident and unconfident expressions; (2) Compared with the neutral-intending expression, the speakers raised mean f0, had a greater variation of f0 and prolonged pronunciation time in the unconfident level while they raised mean intensity, had a greater variation of intensity and prolonged pronunciation time in the confident level. (3) The speakers modulated mean f0 and mean intensity to a larger extent on the flat tone than the contour tone to differentiate between levels of confidence in the voice, while they modulated f0 and intensity range more only on the contour tone. These findings shed new light on the mechanisms of segmental and suprasegmental encoding of speaker confidence and lack of confidence at the vowel level, highlighting the interplay of lexical tone and vocal expression in speech communication.

Mind the subtle f0 modifications: The interaction of tone and intonation in Sinitic varieties

Sinitic varieties are well known for their complex lexical tone systems. Lesser known is that these varieties also employ intonation for multiple communicative functions, ranging from indexing a speaker’s socio-cognitive information (such as emotions and attitudes) to signaling various linguistic information (such as asking questions, marking focus, and encoding prosodic structure). This paper reviews the multiplexing of lexical tone and intonation into the same melodic f0 signal. The main empirical focus is on Standard Chinese; whenever possible, comparisons are made across Sinitic varieties (such as Shanghai Wu Chinese and Cantonese). I will show that lexical tone constrains the changes of f0 for intonation. How tone and intonation interact, however, varies across communicative contexts and language varieties, which is also reflected in how listeners utilize the f0 information to decode the melodic pitch signal during speech processing. From a cross-linguistic viewpoint, findings on intonation in Sinitic varieties suggest 1) the need for detailed acoustic and perceptual studies to understand the subtle f0 modifications for intonation in tone languages, and 2) the importance of a comparative approach to understanding the similarities and differences of intonation in tone languages.

Is Cantonese lexical tone information important for sentence recognition accuracy in quiet and in noise?

In Chinese languages, tones are used to express the lexical meaning of words. It is therefore important to analyze the role of lexical tone in Chinese sentence recognition accuracy. There is a lack of research on the role of Cantonese lexical tones in sentence recognition accuracy. Therefore, this study examined the contribution of lexical tone information to Cantonese sentence recognition accuracy and its cognitive correlates in adults with normal hearing (NH). A text-to-speech synthesis engine was used to synthesize Cantonese daily-use sentences with each word carrying an original or a flat lexical tone, which were then presented to 97 participants in quiet, in speech-shaped noise (SSN), and in two-talker babble (TTB) noise conditions. Both target sentences and noises were presented at 65 dB binaurally via insert headphones. It was found that listeners with NH can almost perfectly recognize a daily-use Cantonese sentence with mismatched lexical tone information in quiet, while their sentence recognition decreases substantially in noise. The same finding was reported for Mandarin, which has a relatively simple tonal system, suggesting that the current results may be applicable to other tonal languages. In addition, working memory (WM) was significantly related to decline in sentence recognition score in the TTB but not in the SSN, when the lexical tones were mismatched. This finding can be explained using the Ease of Language Understanding model and suggests that those with higher WM are less likely to be affected by the degraded lexical information for perceiving daily-use sentences in the TTB.

The Search for Medieval Music in Africa and Germany, 1891–1961: Scholars, Singers, Missionaries

The Search for Medieval Music in Africa and Germany, 1891–1961: Scholars, Singers, Missionaries

The tonal system of Hengyang Xiang

Hengyang belongs to the Hengzhou branch of Xiang Chinese; it contrasts six tones: high rising (45), falling-rising (213), low-rising (24), low level (11), mid level (33), and low-mid (22). Liu (2010) found that the falling-rising (213) and the low-rising (24) tones have merged to become a distinct low-dipping tone (214), as in Mandarin. This merger is attributed to language contact and influence from Mandarin, because it is mostly observed in frequent words and has a stronger tendency among younger populations (Liu, 2010). However, it is unclear whether this tone merger is complete, because previous reports conflict as to the number of tones in the tonal system of Hengyang (Zhong, 2011; Li, 1986; Huang, 2013). This study investigates the tonal system in Hengyang using acoustic analyses to capture the tonal differences in pitch and voice quality characteristics including spectral tilt and periodicity measures. We recorded ten participants reading monosyllabic words. The participants were from four age groups ranging from 21 to 60 years old (21–30, 31–40, 41–50, and 51–60 years old). We hypothesize that the tone merger occurs more often in frequently used words and for younger speakers. The findings will depict the acoustic spaces of Hengyang tones and show whether the merged tonal patterns are associated with particular words and/or age groups. The discussion will emphasize how language contact gives rise to tonal neutralization and sound change.

Chinese Piano Music: the Role of Composer Chu Wanghua in the Evolution of Modern Piano Traditions in China (the Case of the ‘Sounds of the Temple’ Capriccio Suite)

Chinese piano music is based on folk songs, Chinese poetry, and the ethnic style, which contribute to the expressiveness of the sound and refinement of the intonation and tonal system. The paper addresses the Chinese piano music and the role of composer Chu Wanghua in shaping contemporary piano traditions, using the ‘Sounds of the Temple’ capriccio suite as an example. Based on the direct method of standardization, the paper determined the significance of the parts of the ‘Sounds of the Temple’ suite. The second part (0.93) is most significant for displaying the piano music, because it involves the use of polyphonic sounds, imitating other instruments. The first part of the suite (0.87) is based on a linear representation of sounds, imitating the sounds of bells. The third part (0.69) centers around the use of slow tempo as well as major tone deviations. Significant elements of the suite (mirror reprise, rhythmic transformation, monotonous repetition of phrases and sounds, application of guó huà techniques, texture elements) were determined on the basis of the measured complexity and harmony of performance, as well as their influence on national traditions. A comparison of performance using standard deviation suggested that the differences were based on monotonous repetition of phrases and sounds (1.07), which is attributed to a greater emphasis on the difficulty of performance than on other parameters. The paper’s practical implications involve the possibility of preserving expressiveness and ethnic elements while playing the piano, based on Chu Wanghua’s ‘Sounds of the Temple’ suite. Further studies might compare the elements that contribute to the expressiveness of performance in the ‘Sounds of the Temple’ suite by Chu Wanghua and ‘Flower Drum’ by Qu Wei.

Serdam Sebagai Alat Musik Tiup Bambu Lampung Barat: Kajian Organologi

Serdam is an artistic product in the form of a wind instrument, the only one in West Lampung and made of bamboo. Serdam is usually used to accompany oral literary vocals such as muayak, hahadoh, hahiwang and dance music along with other traditional Lampung musical instruments. The bamboo used for the manufacture of Serdam is bamboo of the type of bamban and is often found in the plantations of the people of West Lampung. The purpose of this study is to describe the physical form, tools and materials, the process of making Serdam, sound source and tone system and how to play the Serdam. Serdam has many physical similarities to bamboo wind instruments from other regions, but Serdam has a distinctive blowing technique and tone. The research method used is the descriptive qualitative research method. The data obtained from this study with data collection methods by observation, interviews and documentation studies. The results of this study indicate that the Serdam wind instrument is made of bamboo bamban which is often found in the plantations of the people of West Lampung. Serdam has a shape like a long tube that has four melody holes and one blow hole. This musical instrument still uses a traditional manufacturing process to this day. Serdam as the only wind instrument originating from West Lampung has many organological peculiarities that are not yet known by the supporting community.

GRAMMATICAL TONE- H TOMORPH, A MARKER OF ATTRIBUTION IN IKHIN, AN EDOID LANGUAGE

The typology of Ikhin tone system is ‘two tones plus a downstep’, that is, the lowering of the pitch level of the second high tone in a high [H], low [L], high [H] tone sequence. This paper, therefore, examines the behavior of these tones in the attributive constructions in Ikhin, an Edoid language in South-South, Nigeria. The study observes that in Ikhin, the attribute of a noun (N) is indicated by post posing a modifier (M) after the noun. The normal order between a noun (N) and its modifier is therefore that the noun precedes its modifier. On the one hand, there is a construction marker ísὲ [ ̱̄ ]. At morpheme boundary in noun- noun construction, the high toned initial vowel of ísὲ is deleted but its tone remains to perform a grammatical function. On the other hand, other kind of the construction in which the modifying element is not a noun, only a H tomorph is used as the construction marker. This H tomorph marks the relationship between a noun and its modifier. The paper also describes the role of L tomorph in the dynamics of downstep in the language.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0558/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Subtonal features in a three-tone language: Evidence from Laal

In this paper, I provide arguments in favor of subtonal features, with data from Laal, an endangered, three-tone isolate language of southern Chad. I show that a system using the two features [upper] and [raised] (Yip 1980, Pulleyblank 1986) offers a straightforward account of properties of the Mid tone that are otherwise impossible to account for using the three tonal primitives H, M, L. I show that Laal provides evidence for parallels between tonal and segmental behavior which justify a featural analysis of tone. In particular, Laal displays a tonal assimilation process involving natural classes of subtonal features, which works just like vowel harmony, and could be described as a form of tone harmony. This goes against arguments frequently put forward against subtonal features (e.g. Hyman 2010, Patin et al. 2010). Additionally, the Laal case shows that the featural specification of the M tone in three-height tone systems is not necessarily ambiguous, making subtonal features potentially well-suited for the analysis of tone systems of all shapes.

Identical Tones and the OCP in Èwùlù: An Optimality Account

The Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) potentially acts as a constraint on adjacent identical tones. This is why, in tone languages, underlying /HHL/ and /LLH/ may surface as [HL] and [LH] respectively. Èwùlù (Igboid: West-Benue Congo, Nigeria), a relatively unknown small dialect, exhibits such OCP-motivated adjustments on adjacent identical tone structures. Adopting the Optimality Theory, this study accounts for the tonal modifications in order to complement the earlier findings in the literature that advance our understanding of how the OCP shops for adjacent identical tones in representations but may fail to do so due to attested structural exceptions in its tonology. Therefore, the study examines tonal patterns such as, juncture tone deletion, consecutive high and low tones, tonal affix, downstep and final high tone displacement. The findings showed that the OCP can be dominated by some higher-ranked constraints in the Èwùlù tonal grammar, like is the case in some languages,. This study draws some theoretical implication. The Èwùlù tonal system provides further evidence that suggests the OCP is not universal; it is violable just like other constraints active in Universal Grammar.

The phonology of Guébie

AbstractGuébie is an Eastern Kru language spoken by about 7000 people in the Gagnoa prefecture of Côte d’Ivoire. This paper provides an overview of the phonology of Guébie, including the complex tone system with four contrastive pitch heights, multiple types of vowel harmony, reduplication in multiple morphosyntactic contexts, CVCV/CCV alternations, and the phonotactic behaviour of implosives as sonorant‐like rather than obstruent‐like. Comparisons with other Kru and West African languages are made along the way.

The Sequence Recall Task and Lexicality of Tone: Exploring Tone "Deafness".

Many perception and processing effects of the lexical status of tone have been found in behavioral, psycholinguistic, and neuroscientific research, often pitting varieties of tonal Chinese against non-tonal Germanic languages. While the linguistic and cognitive evidence for lexical tone is therefore beyond dispute, the word prosodic systems of many languages continue to escape the categorizations of typologists. One controversy concerns the existence of a typological class of “pitch accent languages,” another the underlying phonological nature of surface tone contrasts, which in some cases have been claimed to be metrical rather than tonal. We address the question whether the Sequence Recall Task (SRT), which has been shown to discriminate between languages with and without word stress, can distinguish languages with and without lexical tone. Using participants from non-tonal Indonesian, semi-tonal Swedish, and two varieties of tonal Mandarin, we ran SRTs with monosyllabic tonal contrasts to test the hypothesis that high performance in a tonal SRT indicates the lexical status of tone. An additional question concerned the extent to which accuracy scores depended on phonological and phonetic properties of a language’s tone system, like its complexity, the existence of an experimental contrast in a language’s phonology, and the phonetic salience of a contrast. The results suggest that a tonal SRT is not likely to discriminate between tonal and non-tonal languages within a typologically varied group, because of the effects of specific properties of their tone systems. Future research should therefore address the first hypothesis with participants from otherwise similar tonal and non-tonal varieties of the same language, where results from a tonal SRT may make a useful contribution to the typological debate on word prosody.

The evolution of tonally conditioned allomorphy in Triqui: evidence from spontaneous speech corpora

Abstract One of the defining characteristics of tonal systems in phonological theory is the notion of tonal stability (Goldsmith, John. 1990. Autosegmental and metrical phonology. Oxford: Blackwell; Yip, Moira. 2002. Tone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Tones remain stable even if their tone-bearing unit changes or is deleted. In the context of historical sound change, tones may either persist as floating tones (from an autosegmental-metrical perspective) or fuse with adjacent syllables and give rise to more complex tonal inventories. However, the process of segmental loss which ultimately conditions historical tonal change is gradual in nature. Tone-bearing units may lenite or they may be optionally realized, leading listeners to rely on coarticulatory cues or phonetic information on adjacent syllables. In the current paper, I examine how variation in the realization of clitic pronouns is conditioned by adjacent tonal cues in Itunyoso Triqui (Otomanguean) within a corpus of spontaneous speech recordings. This research examines and provides evidence for the hypothesis that tonally conditioned allomorphy arises specifically when two conditions are met: (a) there is a morphological context where prosodic units are likely to lenite (highly redundant contexts); and (b) adjacent tonal cues are most informative at this morphophonological boundary. The findings shed light not only on how phonologically conditioned allomorphy arises but also on how variable deletion is sensitive to patterns of multiple exponence during language use.

The Use of Laras in Contemporary Gamelan Music

Gamelan instruments, which have a distinctive tone system (scale) or are called laras, are a challenge for contemporary composers in their working techniques. In contrast to Western music which uses a “well-tempered” system, gamelan music has a distinctive phenomenon in its tone system, including the absence of standardization of basic notes and tone intervals. This article aims to analyze the concept of garap and the phenomenon of the use of laras) in contemporary gamelan music. The method used is content analysis, by taking four contemporary gamelan works that use the concept of garap on the use of a new scale, which is auditorily difficult to identify the scales in conventional musical knowledge. The content used is in the form of audio recordings and notations, which are then analyzed by various parametric musical aspects. The results show that there were two directions of garap on the tone systems (scale) in contemporary gamelan music. First, the direction of the garap is done by limiting the tones of the tone systems used in constructing the sound both vertically and horizontally. As in Supanggah’s “Thongkleng,” only five of the seven notes are used in the laras pelog. Meanwhile, in Mack’s “Crosscurrent,” only four tones are used out of the five notes in the laras degung. The direction of the second interpretation is to expand the tone by mixing other tones to build the impression of a new tone. In O’Neil’s “Lesson of Garden” and Gunawan’s “Noname and Nothing,” there is a chromatic approach to melodic contours to obscure the impression of conventional tone. O’Neil focuses more on melodic tone processing, while in Gunawan’s work, the tone processing is more rhythmic and random.

Moraic tone-bearing units in Kabiye

This article provides evidence that the mora, rather than the syllable, is the tone-bearing unit in Kabiye, an Eastern Gurunsi Gur language of Togo. After presenting the phoneme inventory and a brief overview of the tone system, the concept of phonological weight is introduced in order to precisely characterise the mora and the syllable in this language, as well as the relationship between them. Two observations provide evidence in favour of the mora as the tone-bearing unit: first, contour tones are licenced on heavy syllables but not on light ones; second, tonal processes are sensitive to a unit smaller than the syllable, such that the second constituent of a heavy syllable operates with a degree of independence relative to the first. These observations are explored in four phonological domains: association of the LHL tone pattern, association of two-tone patterns, L tone spreading, and vocalic elision. Two post-lexical processes — contour realignment and HLH plateauing — provide putative evidence of the syllable as tone-bearing unit, but even in these cases, a moraic account is ultimately judged to be preferable.

Reconstruction of Ryukyuan tone classes of Middle Japanese Class 2.4 and 2.5 nouns

Abstract It is generally accepted that of the five tone classes reconstructed for disyllabic nouns in Middle Japanese (MJ), Classes 2.4 and 2.5 exhibit a split correspondence with proto-Ryukyuan (pR) tone Classes B and C. This split correspondence is of tremendous importance for the reconstruction of the proto-Japonic (pJ) tone system, because, in the absence of a conditioning factor accounting for the split, it has led to the reconstruction of additional tone classes at the pJ level. However, of the approximately 100 nouns belonging to these classes, the tone class of only half of them has been reconstructed for pR. Before embarking on the reconstruction of the pJ tone system, we must therefore first reconstruct the pR tone class of the nouns belonging to MJ Classes 2.4 and 2.5. This study provides a reconstruction of the tone classes in pR for 75 cognates using the latest comparative data of Northern and Southern Ryukyuan dialects. The results confirmed the existence of a split correspondence, where Class 2.4 and 2.5 nouns are found to be roughly split in half between pR Classes B and C, demonstrating that it is not a merely sporadic irregularity.

Effects of Familiarity and Dialect Experience on the Description of Tonal Variant.

This study investigates the tonal variant description of the official dialect in China (Putonghua) as a factor in the coevolution of dialects. Three sociophonetic factors, target tone familiarity, tonal variant familiarity, and tonal inventory size, are included in order to raise interesting theoretical questions concerning the role of familiarity and dialect experience in sound change. Standard Putonghua tones are manipulated in height and shape in order to create systematically varying stimuli. Speakers from three Chinese dialect groups, Beijing Mandarin, Shanghai Wu, and Guangzhou Cantonese, are invited to rate the applicability of a description of pitch contour and height to the stimuli. The three dialects have different tonal inventory size, and their native speakers have different levels of familiarity with Putonghua tone or Putonghua tonal variants. The above three sociophonetic factors make different predictions about listeners' performances. The findings of the experimental analysis of data confirm the role of tonal variant familiarity in predicting participants' descriptive decisions on tone height variants. Tonal variant familiarity is also combined with tone inventory size to explain the assignment of descriptions of tone shape variations. This suggests that when variations still follow the phonetic pattern of the tone distribution of the Putonghua tonal system, listeners give phonetic patterns the primary role in acoustic decisions but still benefit from their dialect experiences in making more precise acoustic decisions. It also suggests that when variations violate the phonetic features of the target tonal system, they may depend on familiarity with the individual variant. This study applies an innovative sociophonetic method by conducting a perception experiment online with a self-paced procedure. The findings here are crucial for examining the relationship between sociophonetic factors and listeners' acoustic decisions and the cultural coevolution of cross-dialect tonal variation. The findings here also give support to the validity of the current web-based crowd perception experiment design and are also needed to facilitate research under restricted conditions, such as a pandemic situation.