The typology of tone and Cushitic

Mous, M.P.G.M. (2021)

Article / Letter to editor

The current dimensions in the typology of tone are not insightful for understanding the properties of tone in  Cushitic languages. Some Cushitic languages are characterised as “pitch-accent” and these cannot be considered stress languages because the criterion of obligatoriness of every word having a stressed unit is not valid for them. In Hyman’s (2006) typology these languages are (restricted) tone languages. Pitch as prominence marker does show stress-like tendencies of culminativity and demarcation in these languages which is why a label pitch-accent has been suggested. The tone properties are better explained by another dimension, namely the fact that the distinctive function of tone hardly plays a role at the lexical level but does play a role at the grammatical level

• tone, typology, Cushitic,

• All authors: Mous, M.P.G.M.
• Date: 2021-08-25
• Journal: Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus
• Volume: 62
• Pages: 91 - 106
• DOI: doi:10.5842/62-0-898
• Link: https://spilplus.journals.ac.za/pub/issue/view/99