Sentence-Level Effects on Alaskan Athabaskan Tone

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Sentence-Level Effects on Alaskan Athabaskan Tone

• Siri G. Tuttle, University of Alaska
• Symposium in Honor of Gösta Bruce
• University of Lund, Sweden
• January 2007

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Athabaskan Languages

• The Athabaskan family is the largest indigenous
  language family in North America. It includes
  languages spoken in Alaska, western Canada, on
  the Oregon and California coasts, and in Arizona
  and New Mexico.

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Another View
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Athabaskan tonogenesis

• While many of the languages have lexical tonal
  systems from the same proto-Athabaskan source
  (loss of syllable-final glottalic consonants
  Leer 1979, Krauss 1978, 2005), these vary in
  reflex some languages have high tone, some low,
  and some no tone at all. This is true within
  Alaska as within the whole language family.

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Tone map in color
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Athabaskan languages in Alaska
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Tonal distribution in Alaska
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Typology of Athabaskan prosodies

• ? Tone languages may or may not have lexical
  tone from proto-Athabaskan laryngealization
• Tonal reflex some languages have high tone,
  some low, from the same historical source
• ? Saturation languages may or may not exhibit
  tonal saturation many systems monovalent

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Non-tonal (Ahtna)
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Low-toned (Lower Tanana)
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High tone from historical source
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Low tone from historical source
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Saturated

• Navajo and Apache, with low tone from historic
  glottalization, have developed lexical high and
  mid tones on nearly all other prominent
  syllables (those with light vowels fall in with
  the low-toned), leaving few unmarked these
  languages can be considered well-saturated.
• Tanacross (high tone from historical source) is
  also well-saturated, with both high and low tones
  specified (Holton 2005).

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Saturated San Carlos Apache
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-Saturated

• In some of the eleven Alaskan Athabaskan
  languages, the majority of syllables are
  non-tonal, with only those reflecting
  proto-Athabaskan glottalization being marked,
  and the rest unmarked, to use terminology
  employed by Krauss and Leer. These languages can
  best be described as having sparse tonal systems.

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Unsaturated Minto, Lower Tanana
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High tone spread in Tanacross
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Minto spreading, with antitone
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More Minto Spreading
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No rightward spreading - Minto
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Sentence type question marker
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Sentence type Minto negative
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Edge effects final lowering
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Summary

• Athabaskan languages in Alaska may have high, low
  or no tone from historic laryngealization.
• Tone may be sparse or saturated.
• Tone sandhi is found in both high and low toned
  languages
• Intonation interacts with tone in all languages
  surveyed.
• Saturation may affect the relationship with
  intonation.

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Masi ChwxThank you for listening
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Selected references

• Krauss, Michael E. (2005). Athabaskan Tone. in
  Hargus, etc. pp. 55-136.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1978, 2005) Athabaskan
  Tone. In Hargus, Sharon and Keren Rice,
  Editors, Athabaskan Prosody. Amsterdam John
  Benjamins. Pp. 51-136.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1982) Notes on Salcha
  Athabaskan. Ms., Fairbanks Alaska Native
  Language Center.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1982) Report on field session
  with Ellen Frank, March 17, 1996, and tentative
  conclusions about Minto tone. Ms., Fairbanks
  Alaska Native Language Center.
• Jeff (1979) Proto-Athabaskan verb stem variation.
  Part 1 phonology. Alaska Native Language Center
  Research Papers No. 3. Fairbanks Alaska Native
  Language Center.
• Tuttle, Siri G. (1998a) Metrical and tonal
  structures in Tanana Athabaskan. Doctoral
  dissertation, University of Washington.
• Tuttle, Siri G. (1998b) Acoustic realizations of
  laryngeal contrasts in Minto Athabaskan
  obstruents. Journal of the Acoustical Society of
  America 1033086 (Abstract).
• Tuttle, Siri G. (2003) Archival Phonetics Stress
  and Tone in Tanana Athabaskan. Anthropological
  Linguistics 453, pp. 316-336.
• Tuttle, Siri G. (2005) Coronal ejectives in Ahtna
  Athabaskan. Journal of the Acoustical Society of
  America 117, 2489 (2005)
• Tuttle, Siri G. and Ellen Kaisse (1996) Tone
  loss in Minto (Lower Tanana) Athabaskan. CLS 32.