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contour.
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The contour tones themselves are also involved in progressive perturbation which will be discussed in the next section.
2.2.2 Change Caused by Contour Tones
In this section, I discuss the second section of Pike’s paper which details the sandhi caused by contour tones. She includes sandhi caused by three different rising tones: the Mid-high to High rise
˦˥, the Mid to Mid-high rise
˧˦, and the Low to Mid-high rise ˩˦. She indicates that the Mid to High rising tone ˧˥ does not participate in contour type sandhi, and she does not address the Low to Mid rise ˩˧ at all. In
order to make generalizations, I do not maintain Pike’s order or her groupings. Instead, I first demonstrate the most straightforward cases of contour tone splitting with endpoint shift in
§2.2.2.1, followed by a discussion of the unusual behavior of the Mid-high to High rise in
§2.2.2.2.
2.2.2.1 Contour Tone Split with Endpoint Shift
The sandhi caused by the rising tones ending in a Mid-high tone i.e., Mid to Mid-high rising tone and the Low to Mid-high rising tone
˧˦ and ˩˦ are both cases of contour simplification in which the contour splits and the endpoint shifts. In this section, I describe and give examples of this type of sandhi.
Although Pike separates the processes that she discusses into two different groups depending on if the sandhi occurs within a grammatical word or across a word boundary, the result is tonally identical, so I
discuss them together. Pike describes the sandhi as progressive perturbation with a reciprocal effect. In other words,
change can be seen on two syllables, both the trigger syllable and the following target syllable. The process can be described as a separation of the contour tone with the initial tone remaining attached to the original
syllable and the second tone attaching to the syllable directly to the right of its origin. The examples below
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These linguists were not the first modern linguists to propose that contour tones are actually sequences of level tones that was done by Woo 1969; however, the formation of contour tones from level tones is
demonstrated by these linguists, with Soyaltepec Mazatec as a primary example.
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demonstrate the tone split and shift involving these contour tones: M
2
-M
1
in 6 and L-M
1
in 7. To the left of the arrow appear the words as they occur in isolation. The first word is the trigger of change. The second
word is the target. To the right of the arrow, the result demonstrates the words after tone sandhi has occurred. Notice that in the result, the morpheme that was the trigger word and had a contour now has a
level tone and the tone of the targeted word now begins with a M
1
which is either level or the first member of a falling contour. In 6a-c and 7a-b, the target syllable has a Mid tone and the result after the sandhi is
a Mid-high tone. In 6d-e and 7d-e the target has a Low tone and the result of the sandhi is a Mid-high to Low falling tone. Examples 6a, b and d and 7a-c show contour split and endpoint shift across a word
boundary while 6c and e and 7d show the process within a grammatical word. 6
Examples of split and shift involving M
2
-M
1
˧˦ contour tone 1956:61-62 Trigger
Target Result
a. n ku˧˦
+ ts︢ha˧ →
nku˧ ts︢ha˦ ‘one’
‘hand’ ‘one hand’
b. hĩ˧˦
+ ni˧sĩ˧ →
hĩ˧ ni˦sĩ˧ ‘eight’
‘rats’ ‘eight rats’
c. tu˧˦
+ ʔa˧ʃi˧˦ →
tu˧ʔa˦ʃi˧˦ ‘fruit’
‘sweet’ ‘candy’
d. te˧nku˧˦
+ ti˩
→ te˧nku˧ ti˦˩
‘eleven’ ‘fish’
‘eleven fish’ e.
tki˧˦ +
- hni˩ →
tki˧hni˦˩ ‘medicine’
‘our exc.’ ‘our exc. medicine’
7 Examples of split and shift involving L-M
1
˩˦ contour tone 1956:62 Trigger
Target Result
a. t ʃ︢ʔei˩˦
+ ts︢e˧ →
t ʃ︢ei˩ ts︢e˦
‘takeǃ’ ‘guavas’
‘buy guavasǃ’
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b. nt ʃ︢e˩˦
+ ts︢ʔa˧ts︢e˧ →
nt ʃ︢e˩ tʃ︢e˦ts︢e˧
‘cooked corn’ ‘she bought’
‘she bought cooked corn’ c. t
ʃ︢ʔei˩˦ +
ts︢hu˩ → t
ʃ︢ʔei˩ ts︢hu˦˩ ‘takeǃ’
‘onions’ ‘buy onionsǃ’
d. t ᶘ︢hũ˩˦
+ -
hni˩ → t
ᶘ︢hũ˩hni˦˩ ‘woman’
‘our exc.’ ‘our exc. women’
In 6 the trigger syllable is a Mid to Mid-high rising tone, while in 7 the trigger is a Low to Mid-high rising tone. In 6a-c and 7a-b, the Mid-high that shifts from the trigger syllable completely
replaces the tone that was previously on the target syllable. In 6d-e and 7d-e the tone that shifts joins the already existing tone on the syllable, creating a contour tone. In each case, the original trigger syllable takes
on the level tone that was the initial member of the contour: in 6 a level Mid and in 7 a level Low. It is not significant whether or not the trigger and target syllables become part of the same grammatical word
6c, e and 7d or not 6a, b, d and 7a-c. The perturbation caused by the shift only affects the syllable that is directly adjacent to the trigger syllable; if the target syllable is part of a longer word the remainder of the
word is unaffected. I have summarized the basic contour tone split and endpoint shift process that involves contour
tones ending in a Mid-high tone. Following Pike, I have not attempted to write rules, but merely given examples as they occur.
2.2.2.2 Sandhi Surrounding the Mid-high to High Contour
