The typology of downstep

Winter Semester 2023/24 • Modul 1009 • Thursday 9:15-10:45 • NSG, S 228

Papers | Books and Dissertations | Moodle | Contact

Downstep is a global lowering process which does not just affect single tones or tone bearing units, but the register of virtually all involved tones following its trigger. Downstep is found in a big variety of tone languages, but also in many intonational systems such as English and German. This course will focus on the extreme diversity of downstep systems in the languages of the world, differing in the types of trigger (Low tones, High tones, prosodic boundaries, or morphological constructions), its phonetic implementation (often substantially differing even among speakers of the same language), and its interaction with other phonological processes (e.g., tone deletion, phrasing, plateauing or upstep). The practical goal is to jointly compile a typological database of downstep phenomena encoding these factors, and to evaluate the collected data patterns against different theoretical approaches to downstep.Readings:

Papers

• Andersen, T. (1988). Downstep in Päri: the tone system of a Western Nilotic language. Studies in African linguistics, 19(3):261-315.
• Beckman, M. and Pierrehumbert, J. (1986). Intonational structure in Japanese and English. Phonology Yearbook, 3:15-70.
• Bickmore, L. (2000). Downstep and fusion in Namwanga. Phonology, 17:297-331.
• Carlson, R. (1983). Downstep in Supyire. Studies in African Linguistics, 14:35-45.
• Clark, M. M. (1980). On the treatment of syntactically distributed downstep. Studies in African linguistics, 11:101-137.
• Clements, G. N. and Ford, K. C. (1981). On the phonological status of downstep in Kikuyu. In Goyvaerts, D. L., editor, Phonology in the 1980s, 309-357. Story-Scientia, Ghent.
• Connell, B. (2011). Downstep. In: van Oorstendorp, M., Ewen, C. J., and Rice, K. D. (eds.) The Blackwell Companion to Phonology, 824-847. Wiley Blackwell, London.
• Das, K. & Mahanta, S., (2019) Intonational phonology of Boro, Glossa 4(1): 103. doi: https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.758
• Susanne Genzel (2013) Lexical and post-lexical tones in Akan. PhD thesis.
• Susanne Genzel & Frank Kügler (2011) Phonetic realization of automatic (downdrift) and non-automatic downstep in Akan. Proceedings of ICPhS XVII.
• Gjersoe, S. M. (2015). Downstep and phonological phrases in Kikuyu. MA thesis, Humboldt-Universiät zu Berlin.
• Martine Grice (1995). Leading tones and downstep in English. Phonology 12:183-233 doi:10.1017/S0952675700002475
• Martine Grice, Stefan Baumann & Nils Jagdfeld (2009) Tonal association and derived nuclear accents - The case of downstepping contours in German Lingua 119:881–905.
• Fatima Hamlaoui & Emmanuel-Moselly Makasso. 2019. Downstep and recursive phonological phrases in Basaa (Bantu A43). In Emily Clem, Peter Jenks & Hannah Sande (eds.), Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 155-175. Berlin: Language Science Press.
• Hyman, L. (1979). A reanalysis of tonal downstep. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, 1:9-29.
• Hyman, L. M. (1985). Word domains and downstep in Bamileke-Dschang. Phonology Year- book, 2:47-83.
• Hyman, L. M. (2007). Kuki-Thaadow: An African tone system in Southeast Asia. UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2007).
• Inkelas, S. and Leben, W. R. (1990). Where phonology and phonetics intersect: the case of hausa intonation. In Clements, G. N., Kingston, J., and Beckman, M., editors, Papers in Laboratory phonology I: Between the grammar and physics of speech, pages 17-34. Cambridge University Press.
• Kisseberth, C. W. (2017). Chimiini intonation. In: Downing, L. J. and Rialland, A. (eds.) Intonation in African Tone Languages, 225-284. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.
• Frank Kügler (2017) Tone and intonation in Akan. In: Downing, L. J. and Rialland, A. (eds.) Intonation in African Tone Languages, 89-130. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.
• Laniran, Y. and Clements, G. (2003). Downstep and high tone raising: interacting factors in Yoruba tone production. Journal of Phonetics, 31(2):203-250.
• Florian Lionnet (2022) Tone and downstep in Paici (Oceanic, New Caledonia). Phonological Data and Analysis Volume 4, Article 1: 1–47 (2022) https://doi.org/10.3765/pda.v4art1.45
• Paster, M. (2003). Floating tones in Ga. Studies in African Linguistics, 32(1):17-39.
• Paster, M. (2010). The verbal morphology and phonology of Asante Twi. Studies in African Linguistics, 39(1):77-120.
• Paster, M. and Kim, Y. (2011). Downstep in Tiriki. Linguistic Discovery, 9(1):71-104.
• Annie Rialland & and Martial Embanga Aborobongui (2017) How intonations interact with tones in Embosi (Bantu C25), a two-tone language without downdrift. In: Downing, L. J. and Rialland, A. (eds.) Intonation in African Tone Languages, 195-224. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.
• Snider, K. L. (1998). Phonetic realisation of downstep in Bimoba. Phonology, 15:77-101.
• Snider, K. L. (1990). Tonal upstep in Krachi: Evidence for a register tier. Language 66(3):453-474.
• Tebay, S. (2019). Register circumfixes overwrite downstep in Hausa and Chimiini. Talk at the Accent Workshop, Leipzig, January 29, 2019.
• Truckenbrodt, Hubert (2002) Upstep and embedded register levels. Phonology 19:77-120. DOI: 10.1017S095267570200427X
• Hubert Truckenbrodt & Caroline Fery (2015) Hierarchical organisation and tonal scaling. Phonology 32(1):19-47.
• Tucker, A. and Creider, C. A. (1975). Downstep and downdrift in luo. In herbert, R. K., editor, Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics, Proceedings of the 6th Conference on African Linguistics, pages 125–134.

Books and Dissertations

• Ahland, M. B. (2012). A Grammar of Northern Mao. PhD thesis, University of Oregon.
• Beavon-Ham, V.R. (2016) Tone in Saxwe. PhD thesis, Leiden.
• Clark, M. M. (1990). The tonal system of Igbo. Foris, Dordrecht.
• Creider, C. A. and Creider, J. T. (1989). A Grammar of Nandi. Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg.
• Esther Grabe (1998) Intonational Phonology: English and German. Intonational Phonology: English and German. PhD thesis, Nijmegen.
• Gussenhoven, C. (2004). The Phonology of Tone and Intonation. Cambridge University Press.
• Ladd, R. (2012). Intonational Phonology. Cambridge University Press.
• Pulleyblank, D. (1986). Tone in Lexical Phonology. Reidel, Dordrecht.
• Snider, K. L. (1999). The Geometry and Features of Tone. SIL and The University of Texas at Arlington, Dallas.
• van de Velde, M. L. O. (2008). A Grammar of Eton. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.
• Yip, M. (2002). Tone. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Contact

jtrommer [æt] uni-leipzig.de

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