Discussion eBook 53 Beal Soyaltepec Mazatec

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5.3.3 Summary of right floating tones

The above discussion and examples have demonstrated the behavior of two floating tones in six types of environments. Several unifying characteristics are evident. First, concerning the floating tones themselves, they: • are members of underlying clusters which usually are unlinked in the UR • preferentially attach to the right • have a H tonal melody feature • in isolation form a rising contour on the sponsor syllable Second, concerning the results of the floating tones linkages on the following syllable, the linkages result in: • a level tone equivalent to the floating tone when the lexical tones can be shifted to accommodate the added tone • a level tone equivalent to the floating tone when the floating tone can merge with the tone on the target syllable • a level tone lower than both the floating tone and the level tone originally on the targeted morpheme when the melody merges and the register spreads • a falling contour tone when the following morpheme is monosyllabic and has a L tonal melody Finally, the influence of the floating tone’s melody feature is limited to the following syllable, but the influence of the floating tone’s register feature is dependent on the quality of the feature: the h-register feature can influence only the following syllable, the l-register feature can extend influence to the end of the phonological domain.

5.4 Discussion

Tones in Soyaltepec Mazatec are best understood to behave in an autosegmental fashion but with the expanded geometry of RTT described in Snider 1999. Using this geometry the fundamental areas of tonal behavior are easily described using autosegmental techniques. First, mobility, the tones in Soyaltepec Mazatec are not always expressed on the morpheme which sponsors them lexically. Second, it was shown that the tones of Soyaltepec Mazatec can remain even after the segmental information has been deleted 295 from a morpheme. The tones can be expressed either on other syllables of the same morpheme or they can attach to a neighboring morpheme. Third, examples of several different types of tonal plateaus were shown, including the sharing of tonal root nodes, the sharing of tonal melody features and the sharing of tonal register features. Fourth, TBUs of Soyaltepec Mazatec were shown to be able to host up to three separate tones. Finally, several morphemes were discussed that contain no segmental information in the lexicon. These tones function like clitics and can attach either to the right or left edge of a morpheme or the domain that they modify. The direction of their attachment is part of their lexical specification as it does not adhere to the UAC. The floating tones discussed in §5.3 were members of tonal clusters with H tonal melodies. The tonal processes described relied heavily on the UAC; however, several processes that were more briefly described show that the UAC is not strictly adhered to in Soyaltepec Mazatec. For example, the floating tones with a L tonal melody that occur at the left edge of bound morphemes which were described in §5.2.2 and §5.2.4 defied both the typical left-to-right directionality of the UAC in Soyaltepec Mazatec and the expected one-to-one nature of attachments as contour tones formed within the word rather than at the edge. This unusual behavior is completely different from the right floating tones described above in §5.3. To begin with the left floating tone never links to its host morpheme to form a contour tone. Second, the floating tone always attaches to the syllable to its left forming a falling contour which ends at a Low level on that syllable. There were also several exceptions to the UAC in which tones were shown to be pre-linked in the lexicon. Morphemes demonstrated an affinity for their own lexically prescribed tones over tones supplied by the environment which was especially true of the tonal melody feature. Despite the several examples which contradict the expected direction of the UAC, necessitate pre-linking in the lexicon or disallow the expected tone shifting of the UAC, the tonal system of Soyaltepec Mazatec in general follows the UAC. Tones can be considered to be unmarked in the lexicon and then linked to the available TBUs in a one-to-one, left-to-right manner. Morphemes from Soyaltepec Mazatec were shown to surface with tones that differed from those specified in the lexicon. Aside from the expected shifting of tones to the next TBU in line when there are 296 more tones than TBUs, some morphemes in Soyaltepec Mazatec were demonstrated to cause a raising of the next syllable while at the same time lowering the entire phonological domain that followed the disruptive morpheme. Employing the multi-tiered geometry of RTT allows a straight forward explanation of this lowering which is caused by the Mid-High tone in certain environments. The independent spreading of the l-register from the M 1 tone to a H tone creates a representation which is phonologically equivalent to a M 1 . Similarly, spreading the l-register to a M 2 creates a representation which is phonologically equivalent to a L. No other geometry explains this type of lowering in which a tone is lowered by one phonetic step, and the lowering is reflected exactly as such in the phonological representation. 297 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION

6.1 Overview