The purpose of this beginning text in Ewe is to provide the student with an introduction to the structure of the Ewe language and "reasonable practice" in speaking. It is intended to be taught with the assistance of a native speaker of Ewe. Linguistic terminology is minimal. Suggested teaching time ranges from two semesters of class meetings of…

Bini, a language spoken by a million horticulturists in and around Benin City, Nigeria, belongs genealogically to the Edo branch of the Kwa family of the Niger-Congo phylum. Bini dialects differ in their tonemic inventory, which ranges from four to six tonemes per dialect. But all dialects exhibit two morphotonemes--high and low--which perhaps…

Explores the semantic distinctions and tonal behaviors of four types of "lai" in Taiwanese. It is concluded that some types cannot be fully understood without reference to the underlying structure, the surface structure being often insufficient for determining the tonal shape of the syllable in utterance. (CLK)

Presents the phonological system of the Zhangpu dialect and the characteristics that differentiate it from the other Southern Min dialects. Notes that the phonological system of the Zhangpu dialect is close to the Zhangzhou dialect but that the aspirated affricate /+s'-/ in Zhangzhou is the voiceless fricative /s-/in Zhangpu. (SED)

Critical analysis of Fan-Kuei Li's article which appeared in "Journal of Chinese Linguistics", v1 n1 p1-13 Jan 1973. (DD)

Illustrates how the separate economic and political development and the ensuing lack of contact between Hong Kong and Guangzhou over the last 50 years have resulted in quantifiable tonal differences in the Cantonese spoken in these two cities. (16 references) (Author/CK)

The difficulty in learning Mandarin Chinese is often attributed to the fact that it is a tonal language. This article reviews the tonal spelling approach of Gwoyeu Romatzyh ("G. R.") and Pinyin, the national romanization system of mainland China. (seven references) (LB)

Examination of the perceptibility of carryover coarticulatory perturbations occurring at syllabic vowels in Mandarin Chinese suggests that, in connected speech, a portion of fundamental frequency at intertonemic onset is perturbed, including initial voiced consonants and vowels, and that the perturbations result from preservative as well as…

Examined through slips of the tongue how tones are represented and processed when speaking Mandarin Chinese. With regard to sound movement errors, it was found that, although errors of segmental phonemes were fairly common, errors of tones were rare. Suggests that lexical tones in Mandarin Chinese are represented and processed differently from…

The present study investigated 3-year-old children's perception and production of Mandarin lexical tones in monosyllabic words. Thirteen 3-year-old, Mandarin-speaking children participated in the study. Tone perception was examined by a picture-pointing task, and tone production was investigated by picture naming. To compare children's productions…

Tone-based classification rules for Igbo nouns need modification because: (1) class 1 nouns (monosyllables with high tones) do not, as claimed, operate differently from other terminal high-tone nouns; and (2) class 6 nouns (di-syllabic with downstep tones) can be accounted for within class 2 and class 3 nouns known as HH and LH nouns). The proper…

In a tone language, tonal distinctions between words in sequence can often be analyzed using the same devices that are applied within the word (e.g., downdrift or downstep). However, it is proposed here that Sandawe is a tone language in which the tonal relationships between constituents in clause structure, and between constituents in phrase…

As an example leading toward a social grammar of language, three emotions are analyzed in English and Yoruba. Certain communication features in English that lie in intonation and stress require a change of grammar in Yoruba and that these changes are subject to further categorization through status and solidarity. (Author/RM)

Suggests an alternative to the traditional presentation of the tonal system in Chinese. Tones could be presented high-low (1,3) and rising-falling (2,4) instead of successively, since students have particular difficulty in this area. An acoustic and a statistical analysis is presented; the latter shows tonal distribution and frequency of…

The Mhong Language Council's 1982 conference had as its objectives: (1) a compromise spelling system to accommodate both White and Blue Mhong pronunciation; (2) simplification of the current Mhong spelling system; (3) review of approaches to the expression of foreign concepts in Mhong; and (4) adoption of capitalization and punctuation conventions…