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Sound change and tonogenesis in Sylheti

  • Priti Raychoudhury EMAIL logo and Shakuntala Mahanta
Published/Copyright: June 27, 2022
Linguistics Vanguard
From the journal Linguistics Vanguard Volume 8 Issue s5

Abstract

Our study investigates the nature of tonogenesis in Sylheti, which was triggered by the merger of aspirated and unaspirated consonants in the language. We propose that the tonogenetic factors contributed by the four-way laryngeal contrast condition a three-way tonal contrast in Sylheti depending on the voicing and syllabic position of the sound. We take into consideration both monosyllabic and disyllabic sets of words and claim that Sylheti has three lexical level tones: high, mid, and low. We have built linear mixed-effect models of f0 and duration to examine the acoustic correlates of tone contrast in the language. We conclude that Sylheti has a three-way tonal contrast distinctively affecting pitch.

Keywords: aspiration; tone; tonogenesis; voiceless consonants
Corresponding author: Priti Raychoudhury, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, Assam, India, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all seven speakers of Sylheti for participating in eliciting the tone data and for providing the speech data with patience.

  1. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The first author belongs to the speech community and informal consent was available from the speakers.

Appendix A: Fixed effects of normalized f0 interval contrast between the three tones for monosyllables

Interval Fixed effects Estimate Standard error t χ 2 df p
Interval 10 Intercept 0.40757 0.19691 2.07
High tone 0.01086 0.35566 0.031 5.0669 1 0.024387
Low tone −0.89706 0.22944 −3.91
Interval 20 Intercept 0.38775 0.19404 1.998
High tone 0.09456 0.3434 0.275 11.876 1 0.000569
Low tone −1.04429 0.23202 −4.501
Interval 30 Intercept 0.415 0.1876 2.212
High tone 0.2025 0.3461 0.585 16.826 1 0.000041
Low tone −1.2038 0.2202 −5.467
Interval 40 Intercept 0.4396 0.1766 2.49
High tone 0.1603 0.3394 0.472 18.082 1 0.000021
Low tone −1.2879 0.2101 −6.131
Interval 50 Intercept 0.4575 0.1707 2.68
High tone 0.1601 0.3364 0.476 16.575 1 0.000047
Low tone −1.3145 0.2131 −6.169
Interval 60 Intercept 0.4941 0.1695 2.915
High tone 0.1372 0.3275 0.419 16.197 1 0.000057
Low tone −1.3331 0.2165 −6.158
Interval 70 Intercept 0.51836 0.17096 3.032
High tone 0.09841 0.33019 0.298 15.835 1 0.000069
Low tone −1.30772 0.22225 −5.884
Interval 80 Intercept 0.52222 0.16375 3.189
High tone 0.03617 0.32985 0.11 26.894 1 <0.00001
Low tone −1.24067 0.22179 −5.594
Interval 90 Intercept 0.46058 0.17648 2.61
High tone 0.07038 0.34554 0.204 14.405 1 0.000147
Low tone −1.11528 0.22443 −4.969
Interval 100 Intercept 0.3945 0.163 2.421
High tone 0.2021 0.3497 0.578 23.98 1 <0.00001
Low tone −1.0319 0.2118 −4.871

Appendix B: Fixed effects of normalized f0 interval contrast between the three tones for disyllables

Table B1:

Fixed effects of normalized f0 interval contrast between the three tones for the first syllable of disyllables.

Interval Fixed effects Estimate Standard error t χ 2 df p
Interval 10 Intercept 0.54561 0.07325 7.449
High tone 0.90458 0.20602 4.391 17.014 1 0.000037
Low tone −0.85158 0.15796 −5.391
Interval 20 Intercept 0.40182 0.06505 6.177
High tone 0.95797 0.20512 4.670 17.497 1 0.000029
Low tone −0.81449 0.14983 −5.436
Interval 30 Intercept 0.30088 0.06288 4.785
High tone 0.95865 0.20636 4.645 8.6051 1 0.003352
Low tone −0.81680 0.14902 −5.481
Interval 40 Intercept 0.23875 0.06205 3.848
High tone 0.95423 0.21004 4.543 18.559 1 0.000016
Low tone −0.84587 0.14985 −5.645
Interval 50 Intercept 0.17978 0.06356 2.828
High tone 0.95850 0.20112 4.766 18.595 1 0.000016
Low tone −0.87533 0.14939 −5.859
Interval 60 Intercept 0.11750 0.06446 1.823
High tone 0.93856 0.18887 4.969 19.215 1 0.000012
Low tone −0.89898 0.14715 −6.109
Interval 70 Intercept 0.05503 0.06590 0.835
High tone 0.90413 0.17839 5.068 19.273 1 0.000011
Low tone −0.92003 0.14622 −6.292
Interval 80 Intercept −0.00597 0.07034 −0.085
High tone 0.96409 0.17660 5.459 26.894 1 <0.00001
Low tone −0.94118 0.14017 −6.715
Interval 90 Intercept −0.04224 0.07147 −0.591
High tone 0.82451 0.20964 3.933 20.941 1 <0.00001
Low tone −0.97899 0.12821 −7.636
Interval 100 Intercept −0.05345 0.07053 −0.758
High tone 0.83607 0.20896 4.001 22.627 1 <0.00001
Low tone −1.03045 0.11852 −8.694
Table B2:

Fixed effects of normalized f0 interval contrast between the three tones for the second syllable of disyllables.

Interval Fixed effects Estimate Standard error t χ 2 df p
Interval 10 Intercept 0.38626 0.07964 4.850
High tone 0.98351 0.23944 4.108 27.416 1 0.000037
Low tone −1.36955 0.13871 −9.874
Interval 20 Intercept 0.38572 0.06502 5.933
High tone 0.88610 0.20690 4.283 26.152 1 0.000029
Low tone −1.35932 0.13982 −9.722
Interval 30 Intercept 0.3913 0.0524 7.468
High tone 0.7848 0.1657 4.737 25.338 1 0.003352
Low tone −1.3534 0.1425 −9.495
Interval 40 Intercept 0.39452 0.04742 7.737
High tone 0.63345 0.14848 3.276 23.934 1 0.000016
Low tone −1.34360 0.14642 −8.896
Interval 50 Intercept 0.40367 0.05217 2.828
High tone 0.45290 0.13827 4.766 23.738 1 0.000016
Low tone −1.33896 0.15051 −5.859
Interval 60 Intercept 0.41503 0.05278 7.864
High tone 0.27450 0.13695 2.004 23.288 1 0.000012
Low tone −1.31613 0.15376 −8.560
Interval 70 Intercept 0.41452 0.05511 7.522
High tone 0.11043 0.1418 0.779 21.773 1 0.000011
Low tone −1.25830 0.1507 −8.352
Interval 80 Intercept 0.26509 0.0861 3.079
High tone 0.11837 0.0979 1.209 18.334 1 <0.00001
Low tone −1.06568 0.1644 −6.482
Interval 90 Intercept 0.1207 0.1558 0.775
High tone 0.1794 0.1313 1.367 12.312 1 <0.00001
Low tone −0.8993 0.2029 −4.431
Interval 100 Intercept −0.08418 0.1837 −0.458
High tone 0.23961 0.1368 1.752 9.8738 1 <0.00001
Low tone −0.73748 0.2021 −3.649

Appendix C: Predictions for the speaker-wise slope of the effect of tone on pitch

Figure C1: Speaker-wise effect of tone on f0 in disyllables.
Figure C1:

Speaker-wise effect of tone on f0 in disyllables.

Figure C2: Speaker-wise effect of tone on f0 in monosyllables.
Figure C2:

Speaker-wise effect of tone on f0 in monosyllables.

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Received: 2021-07-05
Accepted: 2021-07-09
Published Online: 2022-06-27

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Introduction to sound change in endangered or small speech communities
  4. Where have all the sound changes gone? Phonological stability and mechanisms of sound change
  5. Where have all the sound changes gone? Examining the scarcity of evidence for regular sound change in Australian languages
  6. Cross-dialectal synchronic variation of a diachronic conditioned merger in Tlingit
  7. Vowel harmony in Laz Turkish: a case study in language contact and language change
  8. The evolution of tonally conditioned allomorphy in Triqui: evidence from spontaneous speech corpora
  9. Sound change and gender-based differences in isolated regions: acoustic analysis of intervocalic phonemic stops by Bora-Spanish bilinguals
  10. Place uniformity and drift in the Suzhounese fricative and apical vowels
  11. Flexibility and evolution of cue weighting after a tonal split: an experimental field study on Tamang
  12. The emergence of bunched vowels from retroflex approximants in endangered Dardic languages
  13. The expanding influence of Thai and its effects on cue redistribution in Kuy
  14. Speech style variation in an endangered language
  15. Sound change in Aboriginal Australia: word-initial engma deletion in Kunwok
  16. The dental-alveolar contrast in Mapudungun: loss, preservation, and extension
  17. Sound change or community change? The speech community in sound change studies: a case study of Scottish Gaelic
  18. Phonetic transfer in Diné Bizaad (Navajo)
  19. The evolution of flap-nasalization in Hoocąk
  20. Sound change and tonogenesis in Sylheti
  21. Exploring variation and change in a small-scale Indigenous society: the case of (s) in Pirahã
  22. Rhotics, /uː/, and diphthongization in New Braunfels German
  23. Generational differences in the low tones of Black Lahu
https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2021-0098
Keywords for this article
aspiration; tone; tonogenesis; voiceless consonants

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Introduction to sound change in endangered or small speech communities
  4. Where have all the sound changes gone? Phonological stability and mechanisms of sound change
  5. Where have all the sound changes gone? Examining the scarcity of evidence for regular sound change in Australian languages
  6. Cross-dialectal synchronic variation of a diachronic conditioned merger in Tlingit
  7. Vowel harmony in Laz Turkish: a case study in language contact and language change
  8. The evolution of tonally conditioned allomorphy in Triqui: evidence from spontaneous speech corpora
  9. Sound change and gender-based differences in isolated regions: acoustic analysis of intervocalic phonemic stops by Bora-Spanish bilinguals
  10. Place uniformity and drift in the Suzhounese fricative and apical vowels
  11. Flexibility and evolution of cue weighting after a tonal split: an experimental field study on Tamang
  12. The emergence of bunched vowels from retroflex approximants in endangered Dardic languages
  13. The expanding influence of Thai and its effects on cue redistribution in Kuy
  14. Speech style variation in an endangered language
  15. Sound change in Aboriginal Australia: word-initial engma deletion in Kunwok
  16. The dental-alveolar contrast in Mapudungun: loss, preservation, and extension
  17. Sound change or community change? The speech community in sound change studies: a case study of Scottish Gaelic
  18. Phonetic transfer in Diné Bizaad (Navajo)
  19. The evolution of flap-nasalization in Hoocąk
  20. Sound change and tonogenesis in Sylheti
  21. Exploring variation and change in a small-scale Indigenous society: the case of (s) in Pirahã
  22. Rhotics, /uː/, and diphthongization in New Braunfels German
  23. Generational differences in the low tones of Black Lahu
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