A SYSTEM OF TONE FEATURES AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE REPRESENTATION OF TONE Baoning Fu B.A. Shandong University. China 1982 M.A. Shandong University, China 1985 THESIS SUBh4ITED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQtJHWWW'S FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of Linguistics O Baoning Fu SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY December, 1995 All rights reserved. This work may not be reprduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other mans, without permission of the author. 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ISBN 0-612-16880-8 Approval Name: Baoning Fu Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Title of Thesis: A System of Tone Features and Its Implications for the Representation of Tone Dr. Ross Saunders Chair Dr. Thomas A. Perry Senior Supervisor Dr.- Padl ~c$etri& supervisor Dr. Zita NcRubbie Supervisor PARTIAL CBPPIUGHT LICENSE 1 hereby grant to Simon Fraser Universi the right to lend my thesis, pro-ect or extended essay (ifie title oF which is shown below) to users ot' the Simon Fraser Uaversity Library, and to make partial or single co ies on1 for such users or in response to a request from the lig ray o? any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. it is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be dowed without my written pemission. Title of Thesis/Project/Exi:ended Essay Author:- (signature) The construction of a new system of tone features is the principal focus of this study. This system is intended to account for the following observations: i). Tonogenetic studies suggest that three types of syllable endings give rise to three tone heights. ii). Tonal split studies show that three types of syllable initials can induce tonal tripanition, i.t. the split of an original tone in three ways. iii). Historical studies show that register overlapping frequently m-ses as a resuit of register split. iv). Typological studies shcw that the maximum number of tone heights any language can distinguish is five. v). Phonetic studies show that tone spact: varies with the number of tone heights within a system. While previously proposed systems of tone features can capture some of these observations, none can capture all. In particular, tonal tripartition has never before formally incorporated in a system of tone features. The major contributions of the present study are the incorporation of tonal tripartifion and a rtnified account of all the above observations in a simple, historically motivated and pbnetically verified system of tone fearures. Data in support of the pioped sysrem are drawn from synchronic and diachronic studies of' Chinese, Tai, Kam-Sui, Vietnamese, Miao-Yao, and some other Southeast Asian languages. with special reference to tonogenesis and tonat tripartition, and the interactions between tone and consonants. Evidence from phonetic and typological studies are also brought in to further strengthen new feature system. The implications of the new feature system to the representation of tone in general are discussed in tfie fast chapter of this dissertation. The main aspects of this issue to be addressed include: i) the tone-bearing unit (i-e. whether the tone-bearing unit should be the syllable, the rhyme, or the mora); ii) tZre nature of tone features fi-e. whether they are defined perceptually, acoustically, or %-!ato~Jy); md iii) &be vdce oftme fa%m@e. w&!er they a-c binary or ;tnvafive). It is concluded that an optimal system of tone features should consists of two perceptually defined, privative features, with the function of specifying up to five degrees of tone height and three tonal registers, and &e optimal tone-bearing unit is the mora. This work is dedicated to my parents Fu Langhuan Cao Xiutian Acknowledgement The successful completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the help and guidance of many people. I am indebted to many friends and coiieagues in the Linguistics Department of SFU and the university community at large. My appreciation first goes to the members of the phonetic research group from whom I have benefited greatly: Arthur Ling, Dr. 2. McRobbie, Dr. M. Munro, Dr. E.W. Roberts, Susan Russell, and Dr. J.M. Sosa. My appreciation also goes to the many other professors, staff and graduate colleagues for their generous help and great friendship, particularly Cliff Burgess, Dr. R.C. DeArmond, Dr. H. Hammerly, Dr. N. Hedberg, Gertrud Heift, Carol Jackson, Siok Hua Lee, Wei Li, Dr. N.J. Lincoln, Peter Muntigl, Rita Parmar, Dr. Ross Saunders, Nathalie Schapansky, Janine Toole, Xinchun Wang, Dr. Ping Xue and Aleksandra Zielinski. Most of all, I wish to express my deep gratitude to the members of my thesis committee whose contributions have been indispensable to the work of this thesis: to Dr. Paul McFetridge for his critical comments and valuable insights, to Dr. Zita McRobbie for her encouragement, her careful and detailed scrutiny of the manuscript as well as her teaching in acoustic phonetics, to Dr. Tom Perry for his guidance in phonological theories and his organization of the committee which finally made this thesis possible, to Dr. Jerold Edmondson for sharing with me his wealth of knowledge and expertise on the history and phonetics of numerous tonal languages in Southeast Asia and around the world, and to Dr. Jan Walls for delightful and scholarly conversations. Finally, I would like to thank the Linguistics Department and the University for grants and financial assistance. Table of Contents Approval ........................................................................................... ii... Abstract ............................................................................................. 111 Acknow1edgernent ................................................................................ vi .. Table of Contents ................................................................................. vli Chapter One: Introduction ........................................................................ 1 1.1. The scope of the study ................................................................. I 1.2. The development of rone features ..................................................... (7 1.2.1. Jakobson and Halie (1956) ..................................................... tt 1.2.2. Wang (1967) ..................................................................... 7 1.2.3. Sampson (1969) ................................................................ 10 1.2.4. Woo (1969) ....................................................................... il 1.2.5. Maddieson (1970) ............................................................... 12 1.2.6. Maran (1971) ..................................................................... 13 1.2.7. Halle and Stevens (1971) ....................................................... 14 1.2.8. Fromkin (1972) .................................................................. 14 1.2.9. Goldsmith (1976) ................................................................ 16 1.2.10. Yip (1980) ....................................................................... 17 1.2.11 . Clements (l98lb) .............................................................. 18 1.2.12. Pulleyblank (1986) ............................................................. 19 1.2.13. Hyman (I 986) .................................................................. 21 3 3 1.2.14. Shih (1986) ..................................................................... uM 12.15. Bao (1990) ...................................................................... - 9 1.2.16. Duanmu (1990) ................................................................. 23 1.2.17. Hyman (1992) .................................................................. 24 1.2.18. Peng (1992) ..................................................................... 25 1.2.19. Chang (1992) ...................................................................27 1.2.20. McHugh (1993b) ............................................................... 27 1.3. Summary ............................................................................... 28 Chapter Two: Register and Tone ................................................................ 30 2.1. The notion of register ................................................................... 30 2.2. Register-tone relationships ............................................................ 32 2.3. Yip (1980) ..............................................................................