The Complex Tones of East/Southeast Asian Languages: Current Challenges for Typology and Modelling

Alexis Michaud (1, 2)

1 CEFC - Centre d'études français sur la Chine contemporaine
2 LACITO - Langues et civilisations à tradition orale

In some of the tone systems of East and Southeast Asian languages, linguistic tone cannot simply be equated with pitch; some tones have phonation-type characteristics as part of their phonological definition; and there is no compelling evidence for analyzing tonal contours into sequences of levels. Salient findings are reviewed, first from a synchronic perspective, then from a diachronic one, to bring out facts that are relevant for tonal typology and for evolutionary approaches to phonology.

Mots clés: tonal typology; Asian tones; phonation-type characteristics; tonogenesis; registrogenesis; diachrony of tone systems; level tones; complex tones

Domaines: Linguistique

Alexis Michaud. The Complex Tones of East/Southeast Asian Languages: Current Challenges for Typology and Modelling. Third International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages (TAL 2012), Nanjing, China (2012), 2012, China. pp.1-7. ⟨halshs-00676251⟩