LING 712: Phonology of Tone
Michael Marlo
MW 4:00 – 5:15, SY 006

The study of tone has played an important role in several
developments in generative linguistics. Tonal patterns of African
languages inspired the development of the theory of Autosegmental
Phonology and have often been brought to bear, along with tone
sandhi data in East Asian languages, in classic studies of the
phonology-syntax interface. In this seminar, we will investigate
several aspects of the phonology of tone, with the precise topics to
be determined by student and instructor interest. The majority of
the world’s languages are tonal, and there are a number of important
studies of tone in African and Asian languages and, to a lesser
extent, in Native American and European languages. Potential
discussion topics include the various functions of tone (lexical,
grammatical, etc.); typological differences among tonal systems;
phonological, morphological, and syntactic influences on tone;
issues in the representation of tone (autosegmental representations;
tone features, privative features and underspecification,
the tone-bearing unit, contour tone units, interactions of tone and
segmental features); tone sandhi; aspects of the phonetics of tone
realization (the interaction of tone and intonation, the timing of
tonal gestures, etc.); tone vs. stress vs. pitch accent; and
tonal analysis within rule-based vs. constraint-based theories.
Students will be responsible for the readings, class participation,
two in-class presentations, and a term project.