The role of place and manner of articulation in Kurtöp tonogenesis: refining the model

Abstract

Abstract While the general acoustic mechanisms that explain the development of tone in language have been understood since at least Maspero (1912. Étude Sur La Phonétique Historique de La Langue Annamite: Les Initiales. Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 12. 1–126), we are still far from having a predictive theory of tonogenesis. Kurtöp, a Tibeto-Burman language of Bhutan shown to be undergoing tonogenesis, provides a rare opportunity to advance our understanding of how and why languages develop lexical tone. This study examines the role that sonority and place of articulation have in the spread of tone from voicing contrasts on preceding consonants in Kurtöp. First, we find that tone is more likely to be produced following fricatives than when following stops. Second, we see that within the stops, tone phonologises more readily following some places of articulation over others. Taken as a whole, this shows us that tone is moving through Kurtöp, following the most sonorous segments first and moving to the least sonorous segments. These findings thus help us refine our theory of tonogenesis and show that functional pressures have strong influences in this particular pathway of sound change.