Tone in grammar: What we already know and what we still don’t?

In this paper, I provide an overview of tone encoding grammatical meanings, a phenomenon which to date has not been sufficiently studied either by typologists, or by theoretical morphologists. A starting point for the present discussion is the newly published volume “Tone and inflection” edited by Enrique L. Palancar and Jean Léo Léonard, a collection of papers focusing on inflectional tone in various languages, mainly Oto-Manguean. I discuss basic formal and semantic properties of tone in grammar, illustrating my claims with examples from “Tone and inflection” as well as with cases from various African languages. I propose and justify several implicational hypotheses concerning typological patterning of grammatical tones; these generalizations should be tested in a balanced survey in the future.

Keywords

derivation, implicational universals, inflection, morphology, morphosyntax, number, person, phonology, tone, typology

Acknowledgment

This paper is written with financial support from the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation, project 15-34-01237 «Morphosyntax of Kwa languages in areal context».

Received

14.08.2017

Publication date

14.08.2017

Number of characters

861

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GOST	Konoshenko M. Tone in grammar: What we already know and what we still don’t? // Voprosy Jazykoznanija – 2017. – Issue 4 C. 101-114 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/vopjaz/s207987840000159-3-2-en (circulation date: 04.05.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S0373658X0001023-4
MLA	Konoshenko, Maria "Tone in grammar: What we already know and what we still don’t?." Voprosy Jazykoznanija 4 (2017):101-114. DOI: 10.31857/S0373658X0001023-4
APA	Konoshenko M. (2017). Tone in grammar: What we already know and what we still don’t?. Voprosy Jazykoznanija (4), pp.101-114 DOI: 10.31857/S0373658X0001023-4


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