The Tone Pattern of Japanese: An Autosegmental Theory of Tonology
S. Haraguchi, 1975
This dissertation analyzes the tonal characteristics of a large number of Japanese dialects in the light of a version of the autosegmental theory propounded by J. Goldsmith. Among the significant results of the work are: i) tonal rules may be dependent on phonological information; ii) tonal rules are at least partially ordered; iii) there are only four basic tone melodies High-Low (HL), Low-High-Low (LHL), Low-High (LH), and Mid (M), which characterize all Japanese dialects; and no dialects, with minor exceptions, have more than two of these basic tone melodies: iv) the tone association rules in all accentual systems assign H to a particular V. Accentual systems can have words with a specially marked mora with which H is associated, as well as words without such a mora; vi) there are dialects in which all words are accentually unmarked (these dialects resemble accentless languages such as Mende, Kikuyu, etc.).
Certain alternative tonological theories are analyzed and compared with the present autosegmental theory. Some arguments in favor of the present theory are given.
Thesis Supervisor: Morris Halle
Title: Professor of Linguistics
Table of Contents
Part I
Chapter 1 The Tone System of the Tokyo Dialect 21
1.1 Introduction An autosegmental treatment of Tokyo nouns 21
1.2 On the basic tone melody for unaccented nouns 35
1.2.1 O-phrases in women’s speech 36
1.2.2 De-starring of “no”-phrases 38
Excursus 41
1.3 On the initial lowering rule 46
1.4 On the so-called accent slide in Tokyo 57
1.4.1 Some of the facts 57
1.4.2 Some additional facts 61
1.4.3 The autosegmental theory vs. the segmental theory 62
1.4.4 On the ordering of rules 70
1.4.5 Summary of section 1.4 71
1.5 Contour tones in Tokyo 71
1.6 Summary 75
Footnotes to Chapter 1 79
Chapter 2 Remarks on Initial Lowering Dialects 83
2.0 Introductory remarks 83
2.1 The Nagoya dialect 84
2.2 The Matsue dialect 87
2.3 Concluding remarks 96
Footnotes to Chapter 2 99
Chapter 3 The Tone System of the Hirosaki Dialect 100
3.0 Introductory remarks 100
3.1 The tone system of Hirosaki nouns 100
3.2 On the star shift rule 109
3.3 Summary 115
Footnotes to Chapter 3 116
Chapter 4 The Tone System of the Osaka Dialect 117
4.0 Introductory remarks 117
4.1 The tone system of the nouns in Osaka 118
4.1.1 Some factual observations 118
4.1.2 The system of tonological rules for nouns 122
4.1.3 Some supporting arguments for the preceding analysis 127
4.1.4 Compound noun formation in Osaka 131
4.1.5 The de-starring rule before the enclitic “no” 136
4.1.6 On the nature of a star-bearing unit 138
4.1.7 An argument against the star assignment approach for
unaccented words 143
4.1.8 Summary 145
4.2 The tone system of Osaka verbs 146
4.2.1 The present form of verbs in Osaka 146
4.2.2 The past forms of verbs in Osaka 148
4.3 The tone system of Osaka adjectives 157
4.3.1 The present forms 157
4.3.2 The past forms and other conjugational forms 162
4.4 Some miscellaneous tonological processes in Osaka 164
4.4.1 The compound verb formation rule 164
4.4.2 On phrases prefixed with polite “o” 167
4.4.3 Collocatinal H deletion 170
4.5 Summary of the tone system of the Osaka dialect 174
Footnotes to Chapter 4 177
Chapter 5 The Tone System of the Kameyama Dialect 180
Footnotes to Chapter 5 207
Chapter 6 The Tone System of the Koti Dialect 208
Footnotes to Chapter 6 219
Chapter 7 The Tone Systems of the Dialects of Marugame and Takamatsu 220
7.0 Introductory remarks 220
7.1 The tone system of the Marugame dialect 221
7.2 The tone system of the Takamatsu dialect 228
7.3 Some theoretical implications of the Takamatsu system 248
Footnotes to Chapter 7 257
Chapter 8 The Tone System of the Kagoshima Dialect 262
Footnotes to Chapter 8 277
Chapter 9 Remarks on Initial Raising Dialects 278
9.0 Introductory remarks 278
9.1 The tone system of the Nakamura dialect 280
9.2 The tone system of the Ogachogamitsu dialect 285
9.3 On the tone system of a couple of the Koshikizima dialect 290
9.4 Conclusion 297
Footnotes to Chapter 9 298
Chapter 10 Remarks on the So-called Accentless Dialects 299
10.0 Introductory remarks 299
10.1 The Miyakonozyo dialect 300
10.2 The Shimagawa Dialect, the Izumi Dialect and the Uchinoura
Dialect 304
10.3 The Sendai dialect, and the Uchiko dialect 308
10.4 Concluding remarks 312
Footnotes to Chapter 10 314
Chapter 11 The Tone System of the Kumi Dialect 315
11.0 Introductory remarks 315
11.1 On the tonal system in Kumi 316
11.2 On star shift in Kumi 323
11.3 On gaps in 3 and 4 mora words 327
11.4 Summary 332
11.5 Some theoretical implications 335
11.6 Comparison of the autosegmental description and Hattori’s
prosodic description 337
Footnotes to Chapter 11 342
Chapter 12 The Tone System of the Narada Dialect 345
12.1 Introductory remarks 345
12.2 The autosegmental analysis of the Narada dialect 346
12.3 Some alternative analysis 361
12.4 Remarks on previous analysis 363
12.4.1 Hirayama’s ghost accent analysis 364
12.4.2 Hattori’s two melody analysis 369
12.4.3 Okuda’s generative analysis 372
12.5 Concluding remarks 375
Footnotes to Chapter 12 377
Chapter 13 Summary of Rules 378
13.0 Introduction 378
13.1 Universal conventions 380
13.2 Typology of Japanese dialects 382
13.3 Summary of tonal rules 386
Footnotes to Chapter 13 401
Part II 403
Chapter 14 On Three Tonological Theories 404
14.0 Introductory remarks 404
14.1 Hattori’s prosodic analysis 404
14.2 McCawley’s boundary accent theory 408
14.3 Shibatani’s surface phonetic constraint theory 410
Footnotes to Chapter 14 413
Chapter 15 On Tone Association Processes 415
15.0 Introductory remarks 415
15.1 Language-particular tone association processes 416
15.2 The universal tone association conventions 422
15.3 The *-to-T association rule 428
15.4 On starred melody 433
15.5 On star-bearing phonological units and tone-bearing units 439
15.6 On the predictions of the universal tone association conventions 443
Footnotes to Chapter 15 448
Conclusion 450
Footnotes to Conclusion 453