TAPS Proceedings Urua The tone system of Ibibio Eno-Abasi Urua University of Uyo, Nigeria/Universität Bielefeld, Germany [email protected] 1. Introduction tones (in addition to other tonological processes), underscore the autonomy of A fair amount of attention has been tones from the units that anchor them. devoted to the study of Ibibio tone, the Some of the tonal processes to be first serious one being that of Kaufman discussed in this paper include spreading, (1968). Other descriptions of the Ibibio replacement, simplification and deletion tone system or aspects of it, include Boys with the Ibibio tone rules appearing to (1979), Essien (1983, 1990), Essien operate from left to right. Grammatically, (1992), Umoh (1985), Urua (1987, 1990, the function of tone in Ibibio is varied and 1995, 2000), Akinlabi & Urua (2000), etc. very complex and we hope to discuss a Ibibio is a Lower Cross language few of the salient ones. To some extent, spoken in the South-Eastern part of word classes may be distinguished tonally. Nigeria, specifically in Akwa Ibom State Disyllabic verbs, for instance, have a and some parts of Cross River State and predictable final High tone in the basic has been described as having two form while nouns and other word classes contrastive level pitches, High and Low, a are more varied in size and tone patterns contrastive downstepped High tone, in and therefore are not so tonally addition to the contour pitches, High-Low constrained. First, we introduce the Ibibio and Low-High. Having said that, tonal tone system and the work done previously alternation also occurs as a result of in this area in section 2, then we discuss dialect variation in Ibibio. This alternation the phonetic and phonological is generally between a level Low tone and characteristic features of Ibibio tones in a High-Low contour tone in nouns and in section 3. Section 4 presents the functions certain verb constructions. of tone in Ibibio, particularly the Given the types of tones attested in grammatical aspect, while section 5 Ibibio, it is classified as a classical terrace examines the Ibibio tone system vis-à-vis system. Features of terrace tone system phonological theory and in section 6, the manifested in Ibibio include both concluding remarks are presented. downdrift and downstep. There is instrumental evidence to show that both High and Low tones downdrift in this 2. Ibibio tone system language. Ibibio, a Lower Cross language is spoken In this paper we present a predominantly in Akwa Ibom State and comprehensive description of the Ibibio parts of Cross River State. According to tone system with particular attention to Faraclas (1989), Ibibio belongs to the contour tones, terracing, floating tones, Eastern branch of Lower Cross, although tonological processes and then assess the Connell (1994) classifies it as belonging to implication of some of these for the Central branch of Lower Cross. We phonological theory. shall not go into a debate over this since it Floating tones are postulated for the bears no immediate relevance to the language and there is both synchronic and present work. The Ibibio tone system has diachronic support for this position been described by Simmons (1957), (Winston 1960, Cook 1985, Urua 1995, Kaufman (1968), Boys (1979), Essien 2000, etc.). Floating tones also perform (1983, 1990), Umoh (1985), Urua (1987, various grammatical functions in the 1990, 1996/1997, 2000) amongst others. language and the presence of floating Typology of African Prosodic Systems Workshop Bielefeld University, Germany May 18-20, 2001 TAPS Proceedings Urua Simmons (1957) is a description of the even though he admits to the very limited Ibibio verb system but he first introduces distribution of the contour tones High and the tone system observing that pitch is Low. Essien (1983, 1990), like Boys phonemic in Ibibio and goes on to provide (1979), also argues for a phonemic five numerical notation marks for eight tones tone system for Ibibio, i.e. High, Low, !H, as follows: the contour tones, HL and LH. His argument is based on apparent surface (1) contrastive pairs in the language. Umoh Low – no notation (1985) and Urua (1987, 1990, 2000), High – 1 argue for three contrastive pitches, i.e., H, Midhigh (a tone between mid and high L, and !H; the contour tones HL and LH tones) – 2 are considered by both as combinations of Mid – 3 the level tones, H and L. Rising – 4 In this study, we distinguish between Falling – 5 the phonemic tones and the surface Midhigh-one (a tone halfway between phonetic ones. We also maintain that the midhigh and high tones) – 6 phonemic tones are High, Low and High-one (a tone slightly higher than high downstepped High tone while the surface tone) – 7 phonetic tones are High, Low, Low-one (a tone halfway between low and downstepped High, in addition to the mid tones) – 8 contour tones, Low-High and High-Low. Although the downstepped High tone has The explanations in parenthesis are a restricted distribution, occurring only provided by Simmons. Clearly, the eight after a preceding High tone and never in levels must include tonal alternations, the initial position, we argue that it is modifications and sandhi as it is not contrastive because it contrasts with Low possible to have eight distinctive pitch and High tones in the stem as we show in levels. Some of the actual Ibibio language (3). Tone marks used are as provided in examples that Simmons provides reflect (2). Examples of Ibibio contrastive pitches such alternations. Kaufman (1968), a are presented in (3). Ph.D. dissertation on Ibibio grammar, is the first in-depth study of the Ibibio tone (2) H = system. Kaufman succeeded in capturing DS = ! the insights into the Ibibio tone system. L = ¡ She correctly identified two basic pitches, ¢ HL = High and Low, a modified High pitch £ which she refers to as the drop pitch, i.e., LH = the downstepped High tone, !H, and the § contour tones, HL and LH. She treats (3) ¤¦¥ ‘be surplus/cheap’ ¡ § contour tones as combinations of the level ¤¦¥ ‘be early’ pitches and not contrastive, having §©¨ ‘dish out (food)’ ¡ exhaustively explored the limited §©¨ distribution of the contour tones plus the ‘lock’ ¨ ¤ ¨ fact that in some instances they even occur ‘mosquito’ ¤ ¨ ¡ in free variation with level pitches. In ¨ ‘cane/acne’ ¤ ¨ ¨ Kaufman’s work, the idea that the drop ¨ ‘king’ ¡ ¤ ¨ ¡ ¨ ¡ tone, also known as downstepped High ¨ ‘place name’ ¤ ¨ § tone, !H, may have a historical origin, is also hinted at. In addition, she explored in ‘wrestling (noun)’ ¤ ¨ § detail the intricate question of grammatical ‘please’ tone in Ibibio, which she refers to as ‘construction tones’. Boys (1979) Observe that a downstepped high tone is proposes a phonemic five tone system for generally preceded by a High tone as in Ibibio, i.e., High, Low, downstepped High, the item for ‘king’ and ‘please’. Notice High-Low and Low-High contour tones, TAPS Proceedings Urua also in (3) that the downstepped High tone shuffled to reduce the incidence of contrasts with Low and therefore cannot repetition effect. Five repetitions of each be another Low tone. We have mentioned of the prompts were recorded. that Ibibio exhibits downdrift, implying Segmentation, labelling and F0 that subsequent level pitches are measurements were made using the speech progressively lowered. Both High and analysis software, Praat, developed by Low pitches in Ibibio are affected by Paul Boersma and co in Holland. The downdrift. This fact is also reported for prompts were labelled in three tiers of Efik (Cook 1985:101), but see contra sentence, syllable and tone. Labelling and position in Welmers (1966) cited in Cook taking the F0 measurements involved a (1985); it would be of interest to find out synchronisation of auditory and visual whether downdrift is widespread in the observation of the speech wave forms, other members of the Lower Cross spectrograms and pitch tracings. The F0 language group. Downdrift will be was taken at the mid point of the vowels. discussed further under the phonetic We begin However, there is a problem characterisation of Ibibio tones in section when taking the F0 values for a Low tone 3. preceding by a High at the mid point. Since the Low is falling from the level of 3. Methodology a High tone, a midpoint F0 value for the Low tone would be much higher than In this section, we present a phonetic expected. Also, in addition to taking the characterisation of Ibibio tones following midpoint value of a final Low tone, the instrumental work done in the past year final fall of the final Low tone is also and before. Two Ibibio female speakers taken at approximately the last 25ms to were recorded using an enlarged Ibibio 35ms. database. One of the speakers is an adult speaker who has lived all of her life in Ibibioland, with occasional sojourns of not 4. Phonetic Characteristics of Ibibio more than two years at a time in Scotland tones and Germany; the other has also lived 4.1 High Tone most of her adult life in Ibibioland but has In Ibibio, a High tone is found in all lived in England for the past nine years. positions in a phrase, initial – medial and The prompts used for the study consisted final. A High tone on a monosyllabic word of one-hundred-and-fifty-two (152) is fairly steady. So also is a sequence of utterances with all possible tonal patterns High tones in Ibibio, with pitch ranges of varying syllable lengths. Mono- and remaining more or less the same. disyllabic verbs were read in isolation as Differences in F0 values are quite well as within a carrier sentence.