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changing the previous tone to a Mid-high tone. If the previous tone is: a High f it lowers it, a Mid g it raises it or a Mid-high to Low contour h it simplifies it. The contour that is affected in h, i.e., M
1
-L, could be seen as splitting with the second member of the contour, the Low, spreading to the following
syllable and merging with the low that is the trigger, leaving the first member of the contour unaffected. Recall that the Trigger tone is not changed in any of these processes.
While Pike claims that these changes are very regular in that they always occur given the correct environment; they are not easily described in terms of logical mechanisms or expected tone rules. The
raising and lowering that are provoked by the low tone are especially challenging.
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It is probable that these effects are actually phonetic realizations and not truly phonological changes.
Since I am focusing on phonological tone behavior, I will not revisit these types of alternations.
I have listed the effects produced within grammatical words caused by level tones that are described in Pike’s article. These are all regressive perturbations, i.e., the tone on a suffix changes the tone
on the stem. The effects produced by level tones in separate words are always progressive as will be seen in the next section.
2.2.1.2 Progressive Perturbation
Pike uses the term progressive perturbation to refer to an effect produced by the tone in one word or morpheme on the following word or morpheme. In this case, progressive perturbation is always caused
by a word final High tone, whether level or the final member of a contour. She describes two separate changes caused by a word final H: the first change is on the final syllable of the following word if that
syllable has a High tone; the second change is on a Mid-high tone on the first syllable of the following word.
The first change caused by a word final High tone which is addressed by Pike involves a change in the final syllable of the following word, regardless of the number of syllables in that word. After a word
with a final High, an underlying High tone at the end of the following word becomes a falling High to Mid-
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One potential explanation using the features described below by Snider is a spreading of the low register l from the low tone L l for both the change in H H h and M
2
L h which produces the desired change in H to H l; however, the M
2
would then become identical to L L l thus necessitating subsequent dissimilation of the tonal melody of the original M
2
to maintain tonal distinction producing H l.
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high contour. Consider the examples in 2. In 2a two high-toned monosyllabic words come together to form a phrase. In context, the High tone on the second word changes to a High to Mid-high falling contour.
In 2b, the same effect is realized even though the target morpheme is disyllabic and therefore not adjacent to the trigger. The syllable in focus is underlined i.e., the trigger syllable, the targeted syllable, and the
resultant syllable and the tones on those syllables are listed above the data. 2
Creation of a H-M
1
˥˦ falling tone Pike 1956:60 Trigger
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Target Result
H H
H-M
1
a. h
o˥ +
tʃ︢ʔa˥ →
ho˥ tʃ︢ʔa˥˦ ‘two’
‘father-in-law’ ‘two father-in-laws’
b. ho˥
+ thi˥ts︢u˥
→ ho˥ thi˥ts︢u˥˦
‘two’ ‘is saying’
‘is saying two’ The example in 2a is the simplest scenario in which this perturbation occurs. As is demonstrated in 2b,
the influence of the word final High tone on the final syllable of the following word is not affected by the presence of intervening syllables. The High tone which causes the change does not need to be level; it can
also be the final member of a rising contour. Consider the example in 3 in which the trigger syllable has a word final rising contour from Mid-high to High. According to Pike, the presence of this High tone, even
though it is part of a contour tone provokes the change in the following word. In this case, the following word again is multisyllabic, but ends in a High tone.
3 Creation of a H-M
1
˥˦ falling tone Pike 1956:60 Trigger
Target Result
M
1
-H H
H-M
1
khi˧nti˦˥ +
ki˧te˥ →
khi˧nti˦˥ ki˧te˥˦ ‘baby’
‘danced’ ‘the baby danced’
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As opposed to 1 above which exemplified regressive perturbation, the trigger in 2 comes first and targets the following morpheme, hence exemplifying progressive perturbation.
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The targeted word may be monosyllabic or multisyllabic; the only requirement is that the final syllable is high-toned. Because both the trigger and target must be specified as High tones for this fall to occur, it is
unlikely that the motivation for this newly formed falling tone is a phrasal effect which would occur at the end of a phrase regardless of the tones that are already present. Pike does not offer any motivation or any
mechanism for the described change; she simply states that it occurs regularly. The only exception, according to Pike, involves two syllable words that begin with a low tone and end in a high tone. Words
with this tone pattern, she says, are never perturbed. In the second instance of progressive perturbation caused by a word final High tone, the initial
syllable of the disyllabic word following the High tone is targeted. In this case, a Mid-high tone is lowered to a Mid tone when the second syllable of the targeted word is Low as in 4 i.e., it only targets the word
pattern M
1
L. Again, the syllable with the tone in focus is underlined, and the tones on those syllables are listed overtly above the data.
4 Mid-high tone lowering Pike 1956:60
Trigger Target
Result H
M
1
M
2
hwa ˧hwe˥
+ Re
˦su˩ →
hwa˧hwe˥ Re˧su˩ ‘sleep’
‘Lorenzo’ ‘Lorenzo sleeps’
The data in 4 shows the change from a M
1
on the targeted morpheme to M
2
on the resultant word which is provoked by the H of the trigger word. The example in 4 involves a trigger word with a level High tone.
The change is also motivated by words which end in rising contour tones as long as the final member of the contour is a High tone. Additionally, the targeted word may have a derived tone. Notice that the targeted
environment M
1
L can occur as a result of the regressive perturbation caused by a Low tone as described above in
§2.2.1.1. The example in 5 contains both of these complications: a rising trigger syllable and a derived target syllable. The formation of the target word is illustrated in 5b.
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5 Lowering of a derived Mid-high tone by a contour tone
a. Mid-high tone lowering Pike 1956:60 Trigger
Target Result
M
2
-H M
1
M
2
nta˧˥ +
tʃ︢ʔa˦ʔna˩ →
nta˧˥ tʃ︢ʔa˧ʔna˩ ‘good’
‘my father-in-law’ ‘my father-in-law is good’
b. The formation of tʃʔa˦ʔna˩ ‘my father-in-law’
Target Trigger
Result H
L M
1
tʃ︢ʔa˥ +
- ʔna˩
→ tʃ︢ʔa˦ʔna˩
‘father-in-law’ ‘my’
‘my father-in-law’ From 5b we see that ‘father-in-law’ started as a high-toned single syllable word which, when modified by
the low toned ‘my,’ became a two syllable word with the word tone pattern M
1
L. When this new word is placed in the context of ‘good’ a word with a rising tone which ends in a High tone, as demonstrated in
5a, the targeted syllable which began lexically with a High tone i.e., the target in 5b is expressed with a Mid tone i.e., the result in 5a. Again, Pike does not hint at the motivation for the lowering of the Mid-
high to Mid. It is possible that it is a dissimilation process; however, it is more likely that this effect is purely phonetic since it can be explained through a phonetic transition between the High and Low tones
and there is no straightforward structural explanation for the process that would make it a phonological change.
While the changes Pike describes in this section that involve progressive perturbation can involve either level High or rising tones, it is clear that the effect is caused by the word final presence of the High
tone. These types of perturbations have given linguists such as Biber 1981 and Goldsmith 1990 fodder for their arguments concerning the sequential nature of tones, i.e., the High tone behaves as a High tone
whether it is the constituent of a contour or an individual level tone; therefore, they claim, the contours must be the concatenation of level tones which maintain their identity and influences even when within a
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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
