Assignment 5 (Week 13) Tones
Introductory remarks
Phola has four basic tones and three secondary tones as per the following table:
| Numbers | Tonal letters | |
| Primary tones | 55 | ˥ |
| 33 | ˧ | |
| 22 | ˨ | |
| 31 | ˧˩ | |
| Secondary tones | 52 | ˥˨ |
| 32 | ˧˨ | |
| 312 | ˧˩˧ |
Table 1: Phola tones.
- The primary tones appear in all kinds of syllables whereas the secondary tones are lexically restricted to syllables with diphthongs ending in æ.
- Phola has contrastive phonation types, opposing modal voice to creaky/tense voice, e.g., nɑ³¹ ‘many’ vs nɑ̰³¹ ‘deep’.
- In some cases, syllables may coalesce, resulting in various degrees of fusion involving both segmental and suprasegmental (tonal and phonation) features.
Instructions
In the module for Week 13 you will find 9 sound files containing Phola recordings.
Recording 1 contains the following phrase (only segments provided; | indicates pause):
[ŋɑ=pɔ næ̰ | ŋɑ kɑ tʰeæ=ji] ‘this is something that my father told me’
Recordings 2-5 correspond respectively to the following phonemic transcriptions of Phola phrases (phonemic tones provided):
/u³³ i⁵⁵pɔ³³/ ‘his/her father’
/ɬɑ²²ʐu⁵⁵mɔ³³ næ̰³¹/ ‘by the bee’
/sɨ⁵⁵ næ̰³¹/ ‘by others’
/ɑ²²kḭ³³ xi⁵⁵ tʰi³³ kʰɨ⁵⁵/ ‘One that is downhill; the next one’
Recordings 6-8 all correspond to the following phonemic transcription:
/qʰɑ⁵⁵mɔ³³qɔ²² ʑe³¹ le⁵⁵ xi⁵⁵/ ‘One that runs very fast’
Based on the preceding phonological analysis of the Phola tonal system and on the Phola dataset provided above answer the following questions:
- Provide a phonemic transcription for recording 1. Make sure to provide the inferred phonological tone for each syllable. Justify your choices in less than 100 words. (30/100)
- Provide a narrow phonetic transcription for recordings 2-5 trying to provide as much detail in terms of both segmental and suprasegmental features (20/100). Use autosegmental notation to capture the difference between the underlying representations and the surface forms for these four recordings. Justify your transcription and notation in less than 100 words. (20/100).
- In less than 200 words, analyse the three possible surface forms of the phrase ‘One that runs very fast’ (recordings 6-8) discussing the nature of UR → SR changes in both phonetic and phonological terms. What kind of processes are active here? Why do you think this is? Make sure to include a succinct discussion of segmental and suprasegmental aspects (including tonal and prosodic considerations) and their mutual interactions. (30/100)
Note 1: Word counts will be enforced very strictly. No marking past the word count limit.
Note 2: Whilst doing your analysis, you may find it useful to refer to the following Phola wordlist:
tʰi³³ ‘one, a’
kʰɨ⁵⁵ ‘general nominal classifier’
qʰɑ⁵⁵mɔ³³qɔ²² ‘extremely’
sɨ⁵⁵ ‘they; others; someone unknown’
ʑe³¹ ‘run’
=xi⁵⁵ ‘the one that; -ing; relative marker; associative marker; nominaliser’
næ̰³¹ ‘by, through; agentive marker’
ŋɑ³³ ‘I, my’
le⁵⁵ ‘fast’
ɬɑ²²ʐu⁵⁵mɔ³³ ‘bee’
ɑ²²kḭ³³ ‘downhill’
i⁵⁵pɔ³³ ‘father’
u³³ ‘(s)he, his/her’
Bonus question (up to +20 points):
Consider the following phonetic and phonemic renditions of recording 9 and explain how and why the surface realisation of suprasegmental features differs from the underlying representation and how they may or may not be linked to segmental features.
/ ŋɑ³³=næ̰³¹ ŋɔ³³ ɲi⁵⁵=xi⁵⁵ kʰḭ²² ke⁵⁵ tʰi³³ kʰɨ⁵⁵ le³³ | nu³³ kʰḭ²² me³³=xḛ³¹ || nu³³ ʐɨ²²pɑ̰³¹ | ke⁵⁵ tʰi³³ nɑ²² kʰḭ²² || /
[ ŋɑ̰³¹ ŋɔ³³ ꜛɲiːː⁵⁶ kʰḭ²² ke⁵⁵ tʽi³³ kʰɨ⁵⁵ le³³ | nɯ³³ kʰḭ²² me³³=xḛ³¹ʔ nɯ³³ ʐɨ²²pɑ̰²¹ʔ ke⁵⁵ ꜜtʽi³³ nɑ²² ꜜkʰḭ²²ʔ ]
I=by see spot=rel dog that one clf top you dog neg=is you neighbour that one clf.household dog
‘The dog that I saw is not your dog. It’s your neighbour’s dog.’
Note 3: ꜜ stands for a downstep (tone realised slightly lower than its usual phonetic value)
ꜛ stands for “upstep” (tone that is realised slightly higher than its usual phonetic value)
