University of North Dakota UND Scholarly Commons Theses and Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, and Senior Projects January 2014 The honetP ics And Phonology Of Bora Tone Amy Beth Roe Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/theses Recommended Citation Roe, Amy Beth, "The honeP tics And Phonology Of Bora Tone" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 1703. https://commons.und.edu/theses/1703 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, and Senior Projects at UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF BORA TONE by Amy Roe Bachelor of Arts, University of Minnesota Duluth, 2006 Bachelor of Applied Arts, University of Minnesota Duluth, 2006 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of North Dakota in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Grand Forks, North Dakota August 2014 © 2014 Amy Roe ii This thesis, submitted by Amy Roe in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts from the University of North Dakota, has been read by the Faculty Advisory Committee under whom the work has been done and is hereby approved. ___________________________________________________________________ Keith L. Snider ___________________________________________________________________ John M. Clifton ___________________________________________________________________ Gene W. DuBois This thesis is being submitted by the appointed advisory committee as having met all of the requirements of the School of Graduate Studies at the University of North Dakota and is hereby approved. _________________________________________________________ Wayne Swisher Dean of the School of Graduate Studies _________________________________________________________ Date iii PERMISSION Title The Phonetics and Phonology of Bora Tone Department Linguistics Degree Master of Arts In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a graduate degree from the University of North Dakota, I agree that the library of this University shall make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for extensive copying for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor who supervised my thesis work or, in his absence, by the chairperson of the department or the dean of the Graduate School. It is understood that any copying or publication or other use of this thesis or part thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of North Dakota in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis. Signature ________________________________________ Amy Roe Date July 24, 2014 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES viii LIST OF TABLES x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xii ABBREVIATIONS xiv ABSTRACT xv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Research Methodology and Practices 4 1.2 An Overview of the Bora Language 6 1.2.1 Vowel Inventory 6 1.2.2 Syllable Profiles 9 1.2.3 Morphology of Bora Nouns 12 1.2.4 Morphology of Bora Verbs 15 1.2.5 Introduction to Bora Tone 20 1.3 History of the Bora People 22 1.3.1 Current Situation of the Bora People 24 1.3.2 State of Bora Language Usage 26 1.4 Literature Review 30 CHAPTER 2 ACOUSTIC ANALYSIS 34 2.1 Working with Research Subjects 34 2.2 Methods for Audio Recording 37 2.2.1 Challenges During Data Analysis 40 v 2.3 Acoustic Analysis of Male Speakers 42 2.3.1 Fundamental Frequency 42 2.3.2 Duration 50 2.3.3 Intensity 53 2.4 Acoustic Analysis of Female Speakers 57 2.4.1 Fundamental Frequency of Female Speakers 58 2.5 Creaky Voice vs. Modal Voice 62 2.6 Conclusions 64 CHAPTER 3 NOMINAL TONE 65 3.1 Overview of Bora Tone 65 3.1.1 Marked and Unmarked Tone 71 3.2 Underlying Tone Patterns of Noun Roots 75 3.3 Stem Suffixes and Stress 79 3.3.1 OCP Conflicts 82 3.3.2 Stem Suffixes with Underlying Low Tones 86 3.3.3 Animate and Inanimate Number Suffixes 89 3.3.4 The Case Marker –ma 91 3.4 Genitive Prefix 93 3.5 Conclusion 94 CHAPTER 4 VERBAL TONE 96 4.1 The Structure of Verb Stems 96 4.1.1 Free Roots 100 4.1.2 Verbal Stress 100 4.2 Derivation I Suffixes 102 4.3 Derivation II Suffixes 106 4.3.1 Derivation II Suffixes with Underlying Low Tones 110 4.3.2 Irregular Derivation II Suffixes 112 vi 4.3.3 Derivation II Suffixes that Cause Lengthening 114 4.3.4 (C)V(C)Vː Verb Roots 116 4.4 Monosyllabic Verb Roots 118 4.5 Summary of Verbal Tone 123 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 124 5.1 Comparison to Previous Analyses 126 5.1.1 Words with Underlying High Tones 128 5.1.2 Floating Low Tones 130 5.1.3 Word-Level vs. Syllable-Level Approach 131 5.2 Reading and Writing Tone 132 5.2.1 Recommendations for Teaching Literacy 134 5.3 Questions for Future Research 135 APPENDICES 138 REFERENCES 168 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Map of Research Area in Peru ...................................................................................... 2 2. Manguaré drums at the Milwaukee Public Museum ................................................... 22 3. Vowel Length Measurement ....................................................................................... 40 4. Mean F0 Values of Short Low-Toned Vowels (male speakers) .................................... 43 5. Mean F0 Values of Long Low-Toned Vowels (male speakers) ..................................... 43 6. Mean F0 Values of Short High-Toned Vowels (Male Speakers) ................................... 44 7 Mean F0 Values of Long High-Toned Vowels (Male Speakers) .................................... 44 8. F0 Range of M1 (age 20) ............................................................................................. 46 9. F0 Range of M6 (age 60) ............................................................................................. 46 10. Mean F0 Values of LH Contour Tones ....................................................................... 49 11. Mean Length of Low-Toned Short Vowels (in seconds) ............................................ 50 12. Mean Length of High-Toned Short Vowels (in seconds) ........................................... 51 13. Mean Length of Low-Toned Long Vowels (in seconds) ............................................. 51 14. Mean Length of High-Toned Long Vowels (in seconds) ............................................ 52 15. Intensity of Low-Toned Short Vowels (in dB) ........................................................... 54 16. Intensity of High-Toned Short Vowels (in dB) .......................................................... 55 17. Intensity of Low-Toned Long Vowels (in dB) ........................................................... 55 18. Intensity of High-Toned Long Vowels ...................................................................... 56 19. Mean F0 Values of Low-Toned Vowels (female speakers) ......................................... 59 20. Mean F0 Values of High-Toned Vowels (female speakers) ........................................ 60 21. F0 Range of F3 (age 48) ............................................................................................ 61 viii 22. F0 Range of F4 (age 68) ............................................................................................ 61 23. Creaky voice on the final two syllables of áːtʰàʔɛ̀ ‘stinging nettle’ ............................ 63 ix LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Vowel Inventory ........................................................................................................... 6 2. Consonant Inventory .................................................................................................... 8 3. Noun Class Markers .................................................................................................... 13 4. Animate Number Suffixes ........................................................................................... 14 5. Inanimate Number Suffixes ........................................................................................ 15 6. Stem Suffixes .............................................................................................................. 15 7. Derivation I Suffixes (Verbs) ...................................................................................... 17 8. Derivation II Suffixes .................................................................................................. 19 9. Tone and Stress in Witotoan Languages ..................................................................... 28 10. Male Research Participants ...................................................................................... 35 11. Words with High Tone ............................................................................................. 38 12. Words with Low Tone .............................................................................................. 38 13. Words with Contour Tones ....................................................................................... 39 14. Mean F0 for male speakers (in Hz) ........................................................................... 42 15. t-test Comparing Low-Toned Short and Long Vowels ............................................... 45 16. t-test Comparing High-Toned Short and Long Vowels .............................................. 45 17. t-test Comparing the F0 of Short Vowels with Level Tone .......................................