miya-english-hausa dictionary - UCLA Department of Linguistics

Citation tone
(Lexical tone)
‘Nile monitor’ gz”m (L)
[ _ _ ]
‘castrated goat‘ m” (H)
[ _ _ ]
‘jackal’ lh” (T)
[ – – ]
Following high pitch
ákyar ‘back (of …)’
kyar gz”m
[ – – _ _ ]
kyar m”
[ – – – – ]
kyar lh”
[ – – – – ]
v
Following low pitch
vna ‘mouth (of …)’
vna guz”m
[ _ _ _ _ ]
vna m”
[ _ _ – – ]
vna lh”
[ _ _ _ _ ]
Lexical tone indications: Every entry is followed by its lexical tones in parentheses,
as in the second column from the left in the table above. Note that although the words
have two syllables each, there is only one tone marking. Miya very strictly follows what
linguists call (for better or worse), the OBLIGATORY CONTOUR PRINCIPLE (OCP). This
principle says that a single tone is associated with the entire domain that bears the same
pitch. 3 In the table above the domains for the tones of the respective citation forms are
two syllables, but it is possible for a single tone to be associated with fewer or more
syllables, e.g. the monosyllabic word ’íy (T) ‘dog’ and the trisyllabic word lábadi (T)
‘basket’, like lh” (T) ‘jackal’, are marked simply as T (“toneless”) because in contexts
like those above, they would continue the preceding tone throughout. Paralleling the
single tone indication in parentheses, head words are tone marked only on the first
syllable or when there is a change in pitch. Tone marking uses the standard diacritics for
African languages: grave accent (à) = L tone, acute accent (á) = H tone. Only the first
syllable of a domain is marked for tone; a new tone mark indicates a change in pitch.
Here are some examples of entries with more than one tone:
gwágúm (TH) [ – –] ‘dove’: initial T syllable has high pitch, H is downstepped
g˙r (TL) [ – _ ] ‘kola’: initial T syllable has high pitch, L has low pitch
ttelw (TH) [ – – –] ‘corstalk flute’
srth” (TH) [ – – –] ‘lake’
bl”nky (TL) [ – – _ ] ‘hyena’
tkusm (THL) [ – – – _] ‘hedgehog’
vìyayúw (HH) [ _ _ – ] ‘fireplace’: initial H syllable has low pitch, second H raised
Note that no words other than those that have low pitch throughout, e.g. gz”m (L)
‘Nile monitor’, begin with L. All words like vìyayúw (HH) ‘fireplace’ that are cited with
initial low pitch and rise later in the word, begin on lexical H tone (cf. nákn víyayúw
[ – – – – _ ] ‘this fireplace’ with downstepped H on víya- following H). There are also
no lexical HL words, which is understandable. Initial /H/ would be cited on low pitch,
and the L would also be on low pitch. A putative “HL” word would thus be cited with
low pitch throughout and thus be indistinguishable from simple L and H words!
TONES ARE NOT MARKED ON HEADWORDS OF VERBAL ENTRIES SINCE VERBAL TONES
ARE DETERMINED BY CONTEXT. THERE IS NO “CITATION” TONE.
3 The OCP was first formulated in William R. Leben (1973), Suprasegmental Phonology, PhD dissertation,
MIT (distributed by Indiana University Linguistics Club). “Contour” in this context means “change in
pitch”. For there to be a change in tone there must be a change in pitch. Otherwise, obligatorily, there is a
single tone.