ROA: | 382 |
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Title: | The lexical tone contrast of Roermond Dutch in Optimality Theory |
Authors: | Carlos Gussenhoven |
Comment: | |
Length: | 27 |
Abstract: | The lexical tone contrast of Roermond Dutch in Optimality Theory Carlos Gussenhoven University of Nijmegen The dialect of Roermond is one of a number of Dutch and German dialects with a lexical tone contrast, comparable to the opposition between Accent 1 and Accent 2 in the Scandinavian languages. In the Roermond dialect, there is a monovalent opposition between toneless words (Accent 1) and words that have a H-tone on the second mora of the stressed syllable (Accent 2). There are about 50 tonal minimal pairs. The interest in the dialect is in the clearly moraic character of tonal associations, and in the ordering of the intonational and lexical tones. First, unlike Swedish, the focus marking tone appears before, rather than after, the lexical tone in the stressed syllable, where it occupies the first mora. Second, when an Accent-2 word with final stress occurs finally in the intonational phrase, the lexical tone is ordered after the final boundary tones of the intonational phrase, which occupy the first (in the case of declarative boundary L) or both (in the case of interrogative boundary HL) moras of that syllable, leaving the lexical tone to associate in final position to the second mora. A judicious ranking of a number of alignment constraints can solve the unorthodox tonal orderings, and also account for a striking pattern of leftward spreading of final boundary tones to IP-internal stressed syllables, when these have an otherwise free mora. The constraint NoRise, finally, appears to have two distinct effects: it forces assimilation of LH to LL if H has no other association, but prevents the association of H to the right of L in a bimoraic syllable if it H has an association elsewhere. The paper is to be published in Merle Horne (ed.) Intonation: Theory and Experiment. Amsterdam: Kluwer. |
Type: | Paper/tech report |
Area/Keywords: | |
Article: | Version 1 |