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Article published In:
Concentric
Vol. 45:1 (2019) ► pp.44–81

Indirect tone-prominence interaction in Kunming tone sandhi

| National Taiwan Normal University

Kunming exhibits a special kind of interaction between tone and prominence whereby the prosodic headedness is shown to play an indirect role in tone sandhi. Due to higher-ranked tonal faithfulness constraints, lower tones, which are universally unfavored in the head position, do not change to higher tones, and higher tones, which are universally unfavored in the non-head position, do not change to lower tones. Nonetheless, though the unfavored tone-(non-)head correlation does not directly trigger tone sandhi, it indirectly decides whether tone sandhi will take place. Falling tones, inter-syllabic tone segment disagreement, and tonal combinations with identical contours are marked tonal structures in the language. But not all these structures result in tone sandhi. The penalization of these structures is tied to an unfavored tone-(non-)head correlation; only when an undesired tone-(non-)head correlation is involved are the marked tonal structures penalized. The indirect tone-(non-)head interaction observed in Kunming is special but not unique to the language as a similar correlation is found in the Chinese dialects of Dongshi Hakka and Beijing Mandarin.

Keywords: Kunming tone sandhi, prosodic head, tone-(non-)head correlation, Optimality Theory
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Tonal facts and previous studies
    • 2.1Tonal facts
    • 2.2Previous analysis of Kunming tone sandhi
  • 3.Generalizations and OT analysis
    • 3.1The internal structure of tone
    • 3.2Right-headedness of Kunming
    • 3.3Triggers of yinping and shangsheng tone sandhi
    • 3.4Indirect tone-(non-)head interaction in yinping and shangsheng tone sandhi
      • 3.4.1Indirect tone-non-head interaction
      • 3.4.2Indirect tone-head interaction
      • 3.4.3Interim summary
      • 3.4.4OT analyses of the indirect tone-(non-)head interaction
    • 3.5Indirect tone-head interactions in other Chinese dialects
      • 3.5.1Dongshi Hakka tone sandhi
      • 3.5.2Beijing Mandarin third tone sandhi
    • 3.6Final constraint ranking
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 31 May 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/consl.00003.li
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