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The tone system of the Luanyjang dialect of Dinka1
BERT REMIJSEN AND D. ROBERT LADD

Abstract
This paper presents a descriptive analysis of tone in the Luanyjang variety ofDinka, a Nilotic language spoken in Southern Sudan. We show that Luanyjang
Dinka has four tonemes, High (H), Low (L), Rising (LH) and Falling (HL). We
also describe how underlying tone sequences are often substantially modified
in utterances by a number of context-sensitive phonological processes suchas dissimilatory lowering of High tones. Given our standard autosegmental
description, the phonological categories and processes we posit are broadly
familiar from other African languages. However, our analysis requires a typologically less usual understanding of (1) the surface phonetic categories of tone
– in particular, what we call “Low” toneme is realized under some conditions
as a fairly steep fall; and (2) the relation between the tonal phonology andthe quantity system – in particular, we show that each morpheme is underlyingly associated with one and only one toneme, regardless of vowel length. We

1. We are very grateful to our colleague and reference speaker Caguor Adong Manyang. The
exploratory sessions with him led us to our initial hypotheses, and he assisted with data collection in Khartoum. In addition, he provided some of the background information on Luanyjang summarised in Section 1.2. We thank our speakers, in particular Caguor and the otherthree main speakers: Acuil Malou Choth, Gum Dak Mabior, and Makol Jongkuc Athian. We
are indebted to the Institute of African and Asian Studies (University of Khartoum), and inparticular to its director, Prof. Al-Amin Abu-Manga, for hospitality at his institute.
We presented a preliminary version at the 36th Conference on African Languages and Linguistics (Leiden, August 2006) and at the 2nd Conference on the Typology of Tone and Intonation (Berlin, September 2006). Torben Andersen, Yiya Chen, Laura Downing, Leoma
Gilley, Larry Hyman, Constance Kutsch Lojenga, Mary Pearce, Alice Turk, and two anonymous reviewers provided valuable feedback. We gratefully acknowledge their input.
Our research on Dinka is sponsored primarily by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Research Grant no. MRG-AN11781/APN19394). The involvement of Caguor Adong
Manyang is supported by the British Academy (Small Grant no. 39265). We gratefully acknowledge their support.
JALL 29 (2008), 173–213
DOI 10.1515/JALL.2008.009

0167–6164/08/029-00173©Walter de Gruyter

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therefore present a range of acoustic data in support of the basic phonologicaldescription.
1. Introduction
1.1. Motivation
Dinka is known for its complex set of suprasegmental contrasts, which includes
phonemic distinctions of tone, voice quality, and quantity, that are fairly freely
combinable with each other and with different vowel phonemes (Andersen1987). As in most tone languages, tone in Dinka serves to distinguish unrelated
lexical items, but in many respects its more important role is in signalling morphosyntactic distinctions, especially in verb paradigms (cf. Andersen 1993). A
detailed understanding of the tone system is therefore of great importance tothe study of Dinka grammar. However, the lexically or morphologically specified tonemes of words often cannot be easily observed, because these patterns
are modified as a result of phonological tone sandhi and tonal allophony, somecases of which neutralise tonal distinctions.
The co-existence of tonal morphology with phonologically conditioned tonal
alternations and neutralisations makes the analysis of the tone system moredifficult than in a language where the primary function of tonal distinctions is
lexical. In languages with only lexical tone, if we observe a known lexical itemwith an unexpected tonal pattern, we can confidently attribute the tonal change
to the workings of the phonology. In languages with extensive morphosyntactic
use of tone, we must always determine whether an observed tonal difference
on a known lexical item is morphosyntactically meaningful or phonologically
predictable.
For example, the minimal pairs in (1) provide apparently firm evidence of afour-way tone contrast. As seen from these examples, tonemes are specific forparticular inflections of the stem.
(1)

kôoot
wÊEErdè¨el¨
gjĚEErkòk¨‘acacia tree:s’2‘cow dung:s’‘kind of stubble:p’‘storm:s’‘arm:p’kǒootwÉEErdê¨el¨
gjÉEErkók¨‘care for:pstpass’‘river:s’‘skin:p’‘kind of tree:s’‘hole in tree:s’

2. Dinka forms are given as phonemic transcriptions showing the lexically or grammaticallyspecified toneme on each syllable, unless indicated otherwise. We explicitly mark transcriptions as phonetic (i.e. showing the effects of sandhi rules) by means of square brackets. The
transcription follows the IPA conventions. The Low (L), Falling (HL), High (H), and Rising(LH) tonemes are transcribed `, ˆ, ´, ˇ, respectively. While we will argue that the two con-

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However, in many cases it can be difficult to decide whether we are dealing
with a genuine morphological distinction or simply a phonologically conditioned sandhi change (cf. Tucker 1981). For example, for the different tonemeson [tiiim] ‘tree:p’ in (2), we might imagine a morphological explanation – thetoneme changes in (2b) as a grammatical marker that the noun is modified by
an attributive adjective – or a phonological explanation – it changes in (2b) because of the following low tone, or it changes in (2a) because it is in sentencefinal position.
(2)

a.

b.

[Acóol à-tìN¨Acolagrs-see:zero‘Acol sees trees.’[Acóol à-tìN¨Acolagrs-see:zero‘Acol sees red trees.’tîiim]tree:ptíiim ”tìt]tree:p red:pSince we do not know in advance what morphological distinctions we willencounter, the availability of both morphological and phonological explanations for observed differences makes the analysis more laborious and potentially more controversial.
The most detailed analysis of Dinka tone available so far is the phonologicaldescription of tone in the Agar dialect by Andersen (1987). Andersen postulates three lexical tonemes, High (H), Low (L) and Falling (HL), and a numberof processes that affect the realisation of these tonemes, mainly as a function ofpreceding tones. In Andersen (1993), he also extensively discusses the modifications that form part of the verbal morphology. The dialect under study here,
Luanyjang, appears to have a fourth toneme, namely Rising (LH), but our observations are otherwise broadly consistent with Andersen’s. One of our goals
in covering some of the same ground as Andersen’s paper is to help establish
the parameters of variation in Dinka word prosodic features, and more generally to contribute to the understanding of tonal variability.
Another goal is to demonstrate the essential correctness of Andersen’s autosegmental approach to Dinka tonal phonology by considering acoustic evitours (HL and LH) can be analysed as a sequence of two constituents, we consider them asphonemes, in the same way as diphthongs are often interpreted as phonemic units. We willconsistently use ‘toneme’ in relation to the four possible patterns on individual words and‘tone’ to refer to the phonological primitives H and L. Following Andersen (1987), diacritics
for tone and voice quality appear on the first vowel character. The following abbreviations areused: 2s 2nd person singular; agrs Number agreement with singular subject; agrp Number
agreement with plural subject; aux Auxiliary; bct Colour term prefix (for bull); dem Demonstrative; exist Existential; neg Negation; nts Non-topical subject; p Plural; obl Oblique case;pass Passive present; prp Preposition; pst Active past; pstpass Passive past; s Singular; zero
Present.

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dence, and by explicitly addressing some doubts about the basic phonetic categorisation of our Dinka surface tone data that have been raised by specialists
on African tone systems. We will show that these doubts arise from the way
in which Dinka tone interacts – or, rather, fails to interact – with the quantity system: Dinka has a three-level vowel length distinction (Andersen 1987,
Remijsen and Gilley 2008), but tonemes associate with syllables irrespectiveof vowel length, rather than with moras as in many other African languages. As
a result, the phonetic realisations of tonemes can vary considerably, dependingon the segmental material with which they are associated.
1.2. Background information on (Luanyjang) Dinka
Dinka is a Nilo-Saharan language,3 reportedly spoken by over 2 million people (Gordon 2005), although the actual number may be considerably higher.
The Dinkas are spread over much of Southern Sudan, predominantly along thetributaries of the White Nile. As a result of ongoing civil war, there are also
communities elsewhere within Sudan, in particular in the capital Khartoum,
and abroad. Cattle play a key role in the Dinka economy, and also in the sociocultural system.
Four major dialect areas are commonly distinguished: Padang, Rek, Agar,and Bor. The variety of Dinka represented here – Luanyjang or Luac, as it isreferred to in Roettger and Roettger (1989) – is part of the Rek dialect group,
and immediately borders Agar territory. The term Luanyjang (/lwañjaN/) ‘people of Luac’, refers in the first place to a section within the Dinka ethnic group,and by extension also to their variety of the Dinka language. The main town
in Luanyjang territory is Wuncuei, which is located about 170 kilometres eastof the city of Wau. Luanyjang has around 15000 speakers according to Ethnologue (Gordon 2005). Here again, it is likely that the actual number is muchhigher.
Dinka phonology other than tone can be summarized as follows. Parallel setsof voiced and voiceless stops and nasals are found at five places of articulation(/p, ”t, t, c, k/, /b, d”, d, é, g/, /m, n”, n, ñ, N/). The voicing contrast in stops isdistinctive in syllable onsets, but not in codas. In addition, there are /l/ and /r/,and the semivowels /w, j, î/. There are no fricative consonant phonemes.
There are seven phonemic vowel categories: /i, e, E, a, O, o, u/. In addition,
like most other dialects of Dinka, the Luanyjang dialect has a voice quality
distinction involving breathy vs. modal or creaky. This distinction is almost
completely orthogonal to vowel quality except that /u/ only ever occurs with

3. The complete genetic path according to Ethnologue (Gordon 2005) is: Nilo-Saharan, Eastern
Sudanic, Nilotic, Western Nilotic, Dinka-Nuer.

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breathy voice. Luanyjang Dinka also has a quantity contrast involving threelevels of vowel length (/V/ vs. /VV/ vs. /VVV/ – referred to as short, mid, andlong, respectively). The same distinction is found in the neighbouring Agar dialect (Andersen 1987). Functionally, the three-way vowel length contrast maps
onto four levels of lexical / morphological quantity. That is, stems are either
lexically short or lexically long. Most of these occur both in a short and in along grade, with this morphological grade distinction marking several inflections. The phonologically short vowel length is found in the short grade of shortstems, and the phonologically long vowel length is found in the long grade ofthe long stems. The phonologically mid vowel length corresponds to the long
grade of a short stem and to the short grade of a long stem alike. In this way, theDinka quantity system reminds us of Estonian, where, in the words of Lehiste(1997: 25) “[. . .] there is a morphologically determined two-way opposition
between weak and strong degrees, and a three-way phonological opposition
between word-level prosodic patterns”. A detailed analysis of the Dinka quantity system can be found in Remijsen and Gilley (2008).
It is a defining characteristic of the Western Nilotic languages that inflected
stems are mostly monosyllabic, like the corresponding lexical roots (Andersen
1990: 6, Tucker 1981: 311). Both typically have the form CV(V)(V)C. Insteadof being marked by affixes, nominal and verbal inflections are predominantly
marked by segmental changes in the nucleus and the coda, and by changes invowel length, tone and voice quality (cf. Andersen 1993, 1992–1994, 2002). In
particular in the verb system, tone plays a key role in distinguishing a rich setof inflections. A few of these are illustrated in (3).
(3)

a.

b.

c.

d.

Acóol à-màaan
Acol agrs-hate:1s‘I hate Acol.’Acóol à-mǎaan
Acol agrs-hate:pstpass‘Acol has been hated.’
Acóol à-máan
Acol agrs-hate:2s‘You hate Acol.’Acóol à-mâan
Acol agrs-hate:pass‘Acol is hated.’

These examples show that the stem meaning ‘to hate’ can appear with each of
the four tonemes, as a function of verb morphology. In (3a, b) the 1st singularand past passive forms differ solely in terms of tone: the 1st singular form has
the L toneme, the past passive the LH toneme. Both have the long grade of
the stem. In (3c, d), we see another minimal contrast involving the same verb,

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now in the short grade of the stem: the 2nd singular form has the H, while
the passive has the HL. The important role of tone in the Dinka transitive verb
system has been studied in detail by Andersen (1993:8), who focused on theAgar dialect. His analysis reveals that while certain inflections are marked bya particular toneme for all verbs alike, other inflections are specific to particular classes of verbs. In the Luanyjang dialect, for example, while něeem ‘tocheck:pst’ and máaan ‘to hate:pst’ have different tonemes in the active past
infinitive, they have the same toneme in the passive past inflection – něeem ‘tocheck:pstpass’ and mǎaan ‘to hate: pstpass’, respectively. Tone also plays arole in nominal morphology, especially in the marking of number. But while
tone patterns of (transitive) verbs are predictable given their inflection and theirverb class, they are generally not predictable in noun paradigms. The only consistent generalisation about the marking of number is that, most often, one levelof the number distinction appears in the short grade of the stem, while the otherappears in the long grade. The combined modifications of quantity and tone canbe seen in (4). Other phonological parameters that are sometimes involved in
the marking of number are vowel quality and diphthongisation, voice quality,
and the nature of the coda phoneme.
(4)

a.
c.

cǒok / cók¨¨
‘foot:s/p’añikǒol / añikòool
‘story:s/p’b.
d.

nòoon / nóon
‘grass:s/p’báñ / bâañ¨¨‘chief:s/p’

As seen from (4), there is no fixed relationship between nominal number on
the one hand and the grades of the stem. That is, while in (4a, b) the singular
is in the long grade of the stem, in (4c, d) the singular appears in the shortgrade. As reported by Dimmendaal (2000), it is a general characteristic of the
Nilo-Saharan languages that the conceptual nature of a noun determines whichlevel of the number distinction is unmarked. Nouns referring to concepts thatare inherently plural or collective such as those in (4a, b) are unmarked in
the plural, and nouns referring to concepts that are inherently singular such as
those in (4c, d) are unmarked in the singular. In Dinka, the morphologicallyunmarked form of the stem is in the short grade.
1.3. Data and Methods
We started our investigations with exploratory elicitation sessions with a single
speaker referred to here as our reference speaker. These sessions took placein Edinburgh, about twice a week over a period of three months. They werecomplemented with a weekly session to record audio data, which allowed us
to verify auditory impressions. At the end of this three-month period, we had

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hypotheses about the number of tonemes, several tone sandhi phenomena, andwe had some knowledge about the role of tone in the verb morphology.
We then proceeded to evaluate our hypotheses through a systematic analysis of tone patterns on the basis of noun data from several speakers. The data
were collected in Khartoum. In order to study tone sandhi phenomena, nouns
are more suitable than verbs, because they can be relatively freely embedded
in a range of sentence contexts. By contrast, inflected verb forms can only
appear in particular positions in the sentence. We aimed to record 32 nouns,
8 for each of the 4 tonemes. This set of 8 cases for each toneme includes
a range of structural patterns. There are monosyllabic, disyllabic, and trisyllabic words; words with a diphthong vowel; short, mid, and long vowels; somewith a voiced coda (nasals, /l/, /r/), others with an unvoiced coda (stop). Several more lexical items ended up in the dataset, as we retained cases in which
speakers uttered nouns and noun inflections other than the ones we intended
to collect. To gain insight into tonal variation as a function of context, each of
the 32 nouns was elicited twice in 11 contexts. The selection of contexts was
motivated by our findings in the exploratory investigations with our reference
speaker. Together, the exploratory investigations and the recordings make up
the empirical basis of the description of Luanyjang Dinka tone that we reportin Section 2.
The complete set of materials was elicited from three male speakers, one ofwhom is the reference speaker of the exploratory sessions. Dinka is their native
language, and they use it every day. They speak English as a second language.
All three are long-time residents of Khartoum, having left the Luanyjang area
as teenagers. Importantly, they use Dinka on a daily basis, often with otherspeakers of the Luanyjang dialect. The data were recorded over several sessions. In each session, four nouns – one for each of the four tonemes – waselicited in all contexts. The contexts were presented on paper, with the slotof the target noun marked by X, and the first author provided instructions inEnglish when necessary. Because the four nouns were the same within eachsession, and because the same 11 contexts were used in all sessions, little
prompting was needed and the speakers only considered the contexts on paper
at the start of the first session. Given these characteristics, the dataset represents elicited – but not read – speech. In addition, one eighth of the dataset wasrecorded with a fourth Luanyjang speaker, who had recently arrived in Khartoum, and who did not speak English. His data were collected in the same way,
but with the assistance of our reference speaker.
Between-speaker variation is very limited, and, crucially, we noted no consistent difference whatsoever between the recently arrived speaker and the others. In total, we recorded 2349 sentences, reflecting 48 lexical items, 11 contexts and 4 speakers. This dataset is available as an electronic resource (Remijsen and Macmartin 2007).

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In addition to this large dataset based on the speech of four speakers, werecorded a total of 10 speakers producing the minimal set in (5), in which all
four proposed tonemes occur on the same segmental sequence. The membersof the minimal set are followed by the contexts in which they were elicited.
(5)a.

kôoot > [kôoot] ‘acacia tree:s’ in[Acóol à-tìNkôoot]¨
Acolagrs-see:zeroacacia_tree:s‘Acol sees an acacia tree.’b.

c.

kǒoot > [kǒoot] ‘care for:pstpass’ in[kóoc à-cí
kǒoot]¨people agrs-aux:pst
care_for:pstpass‘The people have been cared for.’kóoot > [kóoot] ‘care for:pst’ (following L or HL) in[DéeN à-cí
bàajkóoot]¨
Deng agrs-aux:pst
house:s care_for:pst‘Deng has cared for the household.’d.

kóoot > [kòoot] ‘care for:pst’ (following H or LH)[DéeN à-cíkòoc kòoot]4¨
Deng agrs-aux:pst
people care_for:pst‘Deng has cared for people.’

The speakers with whom we recorded the minimal set were three women andseven men, including the 4 male speakers of the main dataset. Three of the 10
speakers had recently arrived in Khartoum, while the others had been living
there for several years. These minimal-set data are also included in Remijsen
and Macmartin (2007). We used the minimal set data as the basis of a statisticalanalysis of the acoustic detail underlying the proposed four-way tonal contrast.
That analysis is reported in Section 3.
2. Qualitative autosegmental analysis of Luanyjang tone
2.1. Initial description of the realisation of the four tonemes
Almost the first thing that becomes apparent in working with Dinka tone is thatthe same word can have markedly different tonal realisations in different contexts, and that some of the contextually induced changes in phonetic realisation
lead to neutralisation or near-neutralisation of tonal contrasts. This contextual

4. The tone on [kòoc] ‘people’ is superficially low, but it has a high tone underlyingly. This
underlying high tone triggers the lowering of the following verb kóoot ‘care_for:pst’.

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variation in the realisation of the Dinka tonemes is not limited to the Luanyjang dialect. Table 2 in Andersen (1987: 20) documents similar variation in
Agar Dinka. However, as already noted in the introduction, with verb forms it
is not clear a priori whether a given tonal variation is morphologically meaningful or phonologically predictable from the context. We therefore focusedon the tonal patterns of nouns, eliciting a large number of nouns in a range ofdifferent contexts, and established that the tonal variation can be reduced toa set of four patterns of alternation – differing slightly between monosyllabic
and disyllabic nouns – which are summarised in Table 1. This led us to assume
that we were dealing with four distinct tonemes, and we then set about trying
to establish an appropriate phonological representation for each of the four andto establish the contextual factors that bring about the patterns of alternation.
Although the transcriptions in Table 1 show the surface phonetic detail of thepatterns of alternation as we now understand it, we cannot emphasise enoughthat several of the pairs of surface tonemes that we show as distinct are actually
very difficult to distinguish auditorily, and that the patterns of alternation were
therefore essential for developing the analysis. This applies particularly to thefollowing cases:(a) The distinction between the citation forms of what we transcribe as the
Low (L) and Falling (HL) tonemes is difficult to hear on short vowels.
Both appear to have falling pitch.
(b) Following any L tone (e.g., in Context 4 of Table 1), both the High andRising tonemes sound like rising pitch.
(c) When the Rising toneme is uttered in the citation forms, its realisation –transcribed as mid tone – sounds very similar to that of the High toneme.
(d) In Context 2, the tone pattern of disyllabic words that have the Falling (HL)and High (H) tonemes in the citation form is identical to that of words with
Low toneme.
In part because of the uncertainty about the phonetic nature of what we were
hearing, we took instrumental analyses of the pitch contours into account fromthe very beginning of our project.
On the basis of the preliminary classification in Table 1, we identified twocontexts in which there were four clearly distinct realisations of the four putative tonemes on monosyllables. These contexts are the citation form and what
we will refer to as “existential yes/no questions (YNQ)”, e.g.:(6)

dě
akÔOOn¨
exist elephant:s‘Is there an elephant?’

Except for the Rising toneme, the realisations of the four tonemes are very
similar in the two contexts, and we took these realisations as the tonemes’ prototypical manifestation. Importantly, YNQs in the Luanyjang dialect do not

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[aNìiic] ‘k.o. ant:s’[akÔOOn] ‘elephant:s’¨[añáaar]‘buffalo:s’[agōoor] ‘mongoose:s’Disyllabic
Low (L)
Falling (HL)High (H)
Rising (LH)[aNìiic][akÒOOn]¨[añàaar][agōoor][nòoon][tîiim][léeN][lāaaN]2.
à-/àa-dě X‘There is/are X.’[aNìiic][akÔOOn]¨[añáaar][agǒoor][nòoon][tîiim][léeN][lǎaaN]3.
dě X‘Is/Are there X?’[aNìiic][akÔOOn]¨[añáaar][agǒoor][nòoon][tîiim][léeN][lǎaaN]

4.
Acól à-tiìN X è-tÉne¨ X there.’¨ ¨‘Acol sees[aNìiic máaan][akÒOOn máaan]¨[añàaarmàaan][agǒoor màaan][nòoon máaan][tîiim máaan]¨ màaan][lèeN[lǎaaN màaan]5.
Acól à-cí X máaan¨‘A. has hatedX.’

a The HL toneme on monosyllabic words is represented by tîiim ‘tree:p’ in Figures 3 and 6, but by mâal ‘meat on hide:s’ in other figures.

[nòoon] ‘grass:s’[tîiim] ‘tree:p’[léeN] ‘k.o. drum:s’[lāaaN] ‘slave:s’Monosyllabic
Low (L)
Falling (HL)High (H)
Rising (LH)1.
Citation form (X)Context

182

TonemeTable 1. Context-sensitive tone alternations in mono- and disyllabic words, illustrated in five contexts. In the case of the rightmost context,
the tonal realisation of the final word varies as a function of the tone pattern on the target noun. The nouns that are included inthis Table are also the words that are used in Figures 1 to 6 below.a Morpheme glosses appear further on in the paper: existential
statement in (19); existential question in (6); between Low tones in (8a); between High tones in (8b).

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appear to be marked by a sentence-final high tone – instead, they are characterised by an increase in f0 range; as a result, this is a context in which tonemes
tend to be realised with maximal salience.
Figure 1 shows f0 traces of each of the four tonemes in both citation form andexistential YNQ contexts. These f0 traces helped us to determine that the phonetic differences transcribed in Table 1 are genuine even though we found themhard to hear. For example, consider point (a) above, the distinction between thecitation forms of the Low and Falling tonemes. The f0 traces confirm that bothare phonetically manifested by a fall in pitch. However, we can also readily seethat there is a phonetic difference between them. In the toneme we analyse as
Low (L), the fall sets in at the beginning of the syllable nucleus (marked by thevertical line in Figure 1) and continues throughout the syllable (Figure 1, dotted traces). In the toneme we analyse as Falling (HL), the fall invariably occurs
later in the syllable, starting well into the vowel (Figure 1, solid traces). It issometimes preceded within the syllable by a slight rise; if so, the peak involvedin the realisation of the HL may be higher than the f0 value found at the startof the L, other factors being equal. The most consistent difference between the
two tonemes in these and other cases appears to lie in the alignment of the f0
contour relative to the segments that make up the syllable. Alignment as a relevant phonetic feature in the description of f0 patterns is by now well studied inEuropean intonation systems (Bruce 1977; Arvaniti, Ladd and Mennen 1998;
Ladd 2006), and in a somewhat different way in Chinese (Xu 1999), but it isstill relatively unfamiliar as a phonetic dimension in descriptions of most tone
languages. In any case, the acoustic data make it clear that the two tonemes
are different. It is not self-evident to infer a Low toneme from the falling f0
contour of the first toneme – we return to this point below (cf. Section 2.4).
The distinction between the High and Rising tonemes (point (b) above) issimilarly confirmed by the f0 traces, and similarly depends on the alignmentof the f0 contour with the segmental string. The toneme we analyse as High(H) is characterised by high f0 throughout most or all of the syllable (Figure 1,
dash-dotted traces). From a preceding Low target, f0 starts rising steeply rightfrom the onset of the syllable, and remains high once it has reached a certain
level. It may continue to rise somewhat, remain level, or drop off somewhat,
without altering the impressionistic perception of high pitch. In the existential
YNQs with their characteristically wide f0 range, the rise carries on throughout
the syllable, as can be clearly seen in Figure 1. By contrast, the pitch rise of
the toneme we analyse as Rising is a low-then-rising f0 pattern, which canbe seen clearly in the existential YNQ context (Figure 1C, D, dashed traces).
This realisation is also found in non-phrase-final contexts generally, as we shallsee below (cf. Figure 2). The key phonetic property of this variant of the Rising
toneme is that f0 remains low well into the vowel and then starts going up. This
contrasts with the very early rise followed by level pitch in the High toneme.

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F0 (Hz)F0 (Hz)Citation form

F0 (Hz)F0 (Hz)Final position in existential yes/no question

Figure 1. The four tonemes on monosyllabic words with a mid or long vowel and asonorant coda in two sentence-final contexts. The nouns in question are presented in Table 1. Two speakers (identified by their initials) are represented foreach context. High (H): dash-dotted; Rising (LH): dashed; Low (L): dotted;
Falling (HL): solid. The f0 traces are aligned on the start of the vowel of thetarget word, which is marked by a dotted vertical line. To achieve this alignment, the irrelevant initial sections have been truncated to a variable extent.
These conventions hold for all following Figures unless indicated otherwise.

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185

Just as in the case of the distinction between the Low and Falling tonemes, inother words, the alignment of the f0 contour with the segments is the crucial
characteristic that differentiates High from Rising.
The Rising toneme is of particular interest because it is not found in theneighbouring Agar dialect (Andersen 1987). It is also more variable in its phonetic realisation than the other tonemes are, being the only toneme whose realisation on monosyllabic nouns differs markedly between the citation form andthe YNQ context. In citation form (or more generally, in final position in any
declarative sentence), it is realised with level f0 in the middle of the speaker’s
tone space (Figure 1A, B, dashed traces). Impressionistically, this sounds likemoderately high level pitch, and as noted above (point (c)) it can be difficult
to distinguish this level realisation from that of the High. That is, because thesyllable contour shape is the same as that of the High toneme in this context,
and because the f0 height is not very different, the Rising and High tonemes
are easily confused in citation form or declarative sentence-final context (Figure 1A-B, dashed vs. dash-dotted traces). It will thus be important to present
further evidence for the existence of the distinction between them; we return tothis point repeatedly below.
2.2. Tonal processes and the motivation for an autosegmental analysis
Having established a basic phonetic description of the four tonemes, we next
proceed to describe three processes of contextual variation. As we shall see,these processes provide the main motivation for the autosegmental analysisof the four tonemes as L, HL, H and LH. The form of the argument is one
familiar to anyone with experience in African tonal phonology (e.g., Goldsmith
1990: 39 ff): (a) a process that is triggered by a preceding High toneme is also
triggered by a preceding Rising toneme; (b) a process that affects a following
High toneme also affects a following Falling toneme; (c) therefore it makes
sense to reject a holistic interpretation of the contour tonemes as Rising andFalling, and to interpret them phonologically as being made up of L and H
tone components, as in (7).
(7)

léeN

nòoon

lǎaaN

mâal

σ

σ

σ

σ

H

L

L

H

H

L

If we do this, the descriptions of the processes need to refer only to H tones,
not to High and Rising or High and Falling tonemes: the H tone component of
the contour tonemes is accessible to phonological processes.

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2.2.1. Dissimilatory Lowering. The most important sandhi process is thedissimilation of sequences of H tones. Specifically, H tone turns into L whenpreceded by another H. In keeping with the observations just made about thecomposite nature of the contour tonemes, this dissimilation process also applies
to a High toneme preceded by a Rising (LH) toneme, and to a Falling (HL)
toneme preceded by either High (H) or Rising (LH) tonemes; more detail isgiven below.
Figure 2 shows f0 traces illustrating the tonemes on the same monosyllabic words that are represented in Figure 1. Now they are embedded in threesentence-medial contexts differing crucially in their tonal specification. The
sentence structures are illustrated in the examples in (8).
(8)

a.

b.

c.

Acóol à-tìN
akÔOOnè-tÉne¨¨¨¨prp-there
Acol agrs-see:zeroelephant:s‘Acol sees an elephant there.’
Acóol à-cí
akÔOOnmáaan¨¨
Acol agrs-aux:pst
elephant:s
hate:pst‘Acol has hated an elephant.’
Acóol à-cìiakÔOOntíN¨¨¨Acol agrs-aux:neg
elephant:s
see:neg‘Acol does not see an elephant.’(L __ L)

(H __ H)

(L __ H)

Panels A, B of Figure 2 present the target words preceded and followed
by Low tonemes. This context can be considered as a baseline for comparison: when embedded in this context, the tonemes are realised in the prototypical way found in existential YNQs described in the preceding section.5 The
other two contexts – represented in Figure 2C, D and in Figure 2E, F – involve
H tones in the immediate context. Panels C, D display f0 traces of the four
tonemes with H tones both before and after the target word. In panels E, F, thetarget words are preceded by L and followed by H.
We can determine the effect of a preceding H tone by comparing the tonal
realisation of the target words in the different contexts. When preceded by a
L tone, the traces of both H and HL show high or rising f0 (Figure 2A, B, E,
F, dash-dotted and solid traces). When they follow H tone, however, both arefalling right from the beginning of the vowel (Figure 2C, D), with the resultthat they are indistinguishable in tonal shape from the L. This indicates that H
tone targets dissimilate to L when preceded by another H tone.
There are several other instances of this phenomenon elsewhere in Figure 2. In panels 2E, F, we can observe it on the H-toned negative infinitive

5. The only exception is the realisation of the HL-toned noun by speaker CAM – we will returnto this issue in section 2.2.2.

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187(tíN ‘see:neg’) that follows the target words (i.e., the portion of the f0 traces
to¨the right of the dot). The underlying H of this infinitive is evident when it ispreceded by the L or the HL tonemes (dotted and solid traces). When precededby the LH or H tonemes, though, the f0 pattern on the infinitive is a fall (dashedand dash-dotted traces). Something similar happens with the infinitive máaan‘to hate-pst’, which follows the target word in Figure 2C, D (i.e., after the dot).
Here again, the underlying H toneme can be observed when it follows the HL
and L tonemes. The H on máaan dissimilates to L when preceded by either the
H or the LH tonemes.
Of particular interest is what happens when the infinitive is preceded by anunderlyingly H-toned noun (Figure 2C, D, dash-dotted traces). Here we havea sequence of three H tonemes: cí léeN máaan. The H on the target noun, the¨ dissimilated to L, due to the H toneme on
second H in this sequence, has itself
the preceding auxiliary. Nonetheless, the third H also dissimilates to L, eventhough the underlying H of the preceding noun is not evident from the surface
realisation. The crucial contrast here is between the traces for Low- and Hightoned nouns (Figure 2C, D, dotted vs. dash-dotted traces). Both nouns have the
Low toneme on the surface, one because it has the Low toneme underlyingly,
the other as a result of the dissimilation process. Crucially, the following infinitive máaan has high f0 when it follows the underlying L, but it shows a falling
pattern when the preceding L is actually a dissimilated H. We can infer that the
H on máaan dissimilates to L after another H, even when this H has itself dissimilated to L. This phenomenon presents compelling support for a distinction
between underlying and surface representations in the description of tone, andraises a variety of formal issues, which we return to only briefly below.
The traces in Figure 2 also provide confirmation of our analysis of the Rising
toneme. As we saw in the previous section, in citation form and in sentencefinal position in declarative utterances, this toneme is difficult to distinguishfrom the High toneme. However, in existential YNQs it is realised as a lowthen-rising contour, which provides a phonetic basis for analysing it as involving an initial L component, and this phonetic form appears again in all the
non-final contexts shown in Figure 2. Moreover, the initial phonological interpretation on the basis of phonetic form is corroborated by its behaviour whenpreceded by H tone (Figure 2C, D, dashed traces). Unlike the High toneme, theRising toneme does not dissimilate to L, which supports the suggestions that it
contains an initial L component that protects the following H component fromthe dissimilation process. The low-then-rising contour is also present when theword is followed by a L (Figure 2A, B, dashed traces), indicating that the hightarget must be accounted for in terms of the underlying phonological representation.
The dissimilation process itself can be represented autosegmentally using
the formula in (9), where the square bracket symbolises a morpheme boundary.

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Medial context: H __ H

Bert Remijsen and D. Robert Ladd

F0 (Hz)188

F0 (Hz)

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F0 (Hz)Figure 2. The four tonemes on monosyllabic words with a mid or long vowel and a sonorant coda, embedded in three sentence-medial
contexts. H: dash-dotted; LH: dashed; L: dotted; HL: solid. The f0 traces are aligned on the start of the vowel of the target word,
which is marked by a dotted vertical line. The end of the target syllable is marked by a dot.

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The tone system of the Luanyjang dialect of Dinka
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(9)

Dissimilatory Lowering (preliminary version)
⎤
σ
σ
⎦
H
H
L

As seen from Figure 2C, D, Dissimilatory Lowering can apply twice in a row.
This is illustrated in (10), where cí triggers dissimilation on léeN, and léeN itself
triggers dissimilation of máaan. ¨(10)Acóol à-cí
léeN
máaan
[Acóol à-c¨í
lèeN
màaan
¨
Acol agrs-aux:pst
drum-s hate:pst‘Acol has hated a drum there.’è-tÉne¨è-tÉ¨ne]¨¨prp-there

Because a L tone resulting from dissimilation of H can trigger Dissimilatory
Lowering, we need to ensure that its underlying H is somehow accessible to thesecond application of Dissimilatory Lowering in a sequence. This motivates
the reformulation of Dissimilatory Lowering in (11), where we specify thata L tone that results from dissimilation can itself trigger the application of
Dissimiltory Lowering, on a par with a non-dissimilated H.
(11)

Dissimilatory Lowering
⎤
σ
σ
⎦
H
H/L[ex-H]
L[ex-H]We do not of course regard the notation L[ex-H] as anything other than an ad
hoc descriptive device, and we note that the phenomenon it expresses actuallyposes an interesting problem for any formalisation of phonological theory. In a
rule-based derivational description, the application of Dissimilatory Lowering(as stated in its preliminary version in (9) above) should bleed its application
to a following H tone, yet it does not. Here we report the facts as we haveobserved them, and do not attempt to resolve this theoretical issue.
In our dataset, we find a small number of exceptions to the iterated application of Dissimilatory Lowering to strings of underlying High tonemes. Specifically, we find cases structurally identical to (10) in which Dissimilatory Lowering applies between the auxiliary and the noun, but not between the noun
and the infinitive. These exceptions appear more often in slower speech, and in

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initial sessions with particular speakers. Although such realisations are atypical in the dataset they suggest that Dissimilatory Lowering scans the stringin left-to-right fashion, and that the process requires some degree of cohesionin terms prosodic constituent structure. As we will see below, Dissimilatory
Lowering is not the only tone sandhi process that requires the constituents to
be closely connected. Presumably, any influence between adjacent tones can be
disrupted if the words at issue are uttered with insufficient prosodic cohesion.
Similar phenomena are of course known in other languages, perhaps the best
known case being that of Tone 3 sandhi in Mandarin Chinese (e.g., Chen 2000:
Chapter 9).
Finally, we note that when Dissimilatory Lowering affects the initial tone
component of a HL contour toneme, the resulting surface pattern is indistinguishable from a L toneme. There is no support, then, for postulating a LL
toneme, for which there is no evidence in terms of minimal distinctions anyway. Given this, we invoke the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP), whichsays that a sequence of two adjacent, identical tones within a morpheme is reduced to one (cf. Goldsmith 1990: 23). The rule in (12) deletes the second of
any identical tones within the same morpheme.
(12)

Obligatory Contour Principle
Tx

Tx
Ø

2.2.2. Low Absorption. Figure 2 presents evidence of a second tone sandhi
process. If we consider the realisation of the HL toneme between two L tones(Figure 2A, B, solid traces), we find that speaker CAM, in panel 2A, produces
the word with high level f0. We can describe this phenomenon as Low Absorption: the Low component of the HL contour toneme is lost or absorbed
by a following L tone. The latter term – Low Absorption – is adopted from
Andersen (1987), who postulates such a process for the Agar dialect. An autosegmental representation of Low Absorption is presented in (13), which canbe paraphrased as follows: the Low component of the HL is deleted when it isfollowed by another Low, associated with a following morpheme.

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(13)

Low Absorption
⎤
σ
σ
⎦
H

L

L
Ø

Going back to Figure 2, we find that the same HL-toned noun in the samecontext uttered by speaker MAJ is unaffected by Low Absorption. That is,there is a late fall in the target word, albeit associated somewhat later in therhyme than in the utterance-final contexts. In order to understand the source of
this variability we need to consider additional data.
Figure 3 shows the realisation of the HL-toned noun tîiim in two different
contexts, identical in terms of tonal specification (L __ L). In one context, the
HL is followed by a L-toned adjective (solid trace); in the other, it is followed
by a L-toned adverb (dash-dotted trace) – the same tonal context as in Figure
2A, B. The syntactic structures are illustrated in (14). Separate panels represent
different speakers. As in Figure 2, the dot marks the end of the syllable. Whenthe underlyingly HL-toned noun is followed by the adjective, all three speakers
realise it as high f0, indicating that Low Absorption has taken place. But when
it is followed by the adverb, the speakers differ in their behaviour. Speakers
MAJ and CAM realize HL prototypically, with a fall setting in well after the
onset of the vowel. In panel 3C (speaker GDM), by contrast, f0 remains high
up to the end of the syllable, indicating that Low Absorption has taken place.
(14)

a.

b.

Acóol à-tìNtîiim è-tÉne¨¨
Acol agrs-see:zero
tree:p ¨prp-there‘Acol sees a tree there.’
Acóol à-tìNtîim ”tìt¨
Acol agrs-see:zero
tree:p red:p6‘Acol sees red trees.’(L __ L [adverb])(L __ L [adjective])

How can this state of affairs be explained? The noun phrase made up of nounplus adjective is a cohesive syntactic domain, much more so than the sequenceof a noun phrase followed by an adverb. It appears that Low Absorption only
takes place when the morphemes at issue are within the same phrase-levelprosodic domain. The units of the syntactic noun phrase tend to be part ofthe same prosodic phrase. The sequence of noun phrase plus adverb, on the
6. The adjective agrees with the head noun in quantity. That is, it appears in the long grade when
it modifies a singular noun and in the short grade when it modifies a non-singular noun – asin (14b). Attributive adjectives invariably have the Low toneme.

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F0 (Hz)F0 (Hz)F0 (Hz)

HL in L __ L (adjective vs. adverb)

Figure 3. F0 traces illustrating variation in the realisation of HL-toned tîiim, in two different contexts, namely with the target noun followed by an adjective (solid)
or by an adverb (dash-dotted). Different speakers are represented in separate
panels. The f0 traces are aligned on the start of the vowel of the target word,
which is marked by a dotted vertical line. The end of the target syllable ismarked by a dot.

other hand, may or may not be broken up by a prosodic phrase boundary, and
Low Absorption only takes place if no such prosodic boundary is present.

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Recall that in Figure 2, we found similar between-speaker variability in theapplication of Low Absorption in the case of a sequence of noun followed byinfinitive. Moreover, we noted in Section 2.2.1 that Dissimilatory Lowering
may fail to apply recursively, in particular in sentences that are not utteredfluently. All of these cases of variability in the application of sandhi processes
indicate that the domain in which they apply is not strictly of a syntactic nature,and suggest that it is more appropriate to characterise it as a prosodic one. The
question of prosodic domain structure in Luanyjang Dinka is beyond the scopeof the current paper.
2.2.3. LH levelling. Our autosegmental account has now almost caught up
with the data considered so far, but we have yet to comment explicitly on the
allophonic variation in the LH. As we saw in Figure 1, in a prepausal declarative context this toneme is realised with level f0 in the middle of speakers’ tonal
space. This f0 pattern is distinct in form from the prototypical low-then-risingcontour which characterises the realisation of the LH when it is not in phrasefinal position. Because of the salient difference in realisation, it may be considered appropriate to incorporate this allotonic variation into the phonologicalrepresentation. An autosegmental rule that does this is presented in (15), where# stands for a declarative phrase boundary. This allophonic implementation
rule is ordered after rules that could make reference to the tone components of
the LH toneme.
(15)

LH Levelling
σ
#
L

H
M

Rule (15) treats the level realisation of the Rising toneme as a surface mid tone.
Importantly, there is no evidence for mid tone as a distinctive pattern at the underlying level. It may be instead that this allophony should be treated in termsof language specific phonetic realisation rules that somehow merge or overlap the pitch-lowering and pitch-raising gestures in the sentence-final context.
Note that, although the H and LH tonemes are difficult to distinguish impressionistically in citation form or sentence-final context, they do not appear to betruly neutralised (see further Section 3). We leave this matter unresolved forthe present, and note only that the two impressionistically distinct realisationsof the LH toneme must be accounted for somewhere in a complete descriptionof Luanyjang Dinka tone.

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2.3. Polysyllabic words and the sensitivity of tone processes to morphosyntax
The great majority of Dinka morphemes are monosyllabic (Andersen 1987,
Storch 2005). The same goes for inflected word forms, because, as we haveseen, inflections modify the prosodic and segmental features of the stem rather
than adding affixes. To the best of our knowledge, verbs are strictly monosyllabic in Dinka. Nouns, by contrast, can consist of more than one syllable. In an
overview of Dinka noun morphology, Storch (2005:168) states that, excluding
loanwords and compound nouns, the word pattern /aCV(V)(V)C/ is the only
polysyllabic noun template. In some cases, this initial /a-/ can be analysed asa prefix that derives nouns from verbs, or that marks feminine gender on cattle
colour terms. But, as Storch (2005: 171) writes, “there is also a large group of
primary [i.e., underived] nouns that exhibits [the initial /a-/]”. The discussionof polysyllabic words in this section is limited to the /aCV(V)(V)C/ class ofwords, since other disyllabic word forms are marginal, either because they aremorphologically complex or because they are loanwords.
The most striking thing about the tone patterns of these disyllabic morphemes is that they are mostly the same as those of monosyllabic forms. Thatis, there are four tonemes (H, L, HL, LH), and a morpheme carries one and only
one of these patterns, irrespective of its number of syllables. Figure 4 presents
f0 traces of the four tonemes on disyllabic words with a first syllable /a/ – thewords in question are listed in Table 1.
The four tonemes are well distinguished on the final syllable, the f0 pattern of which is entirely as expected on the basis of the lexical specification.
This suggests that within each segmental morpheme, the lexical/morphologicaltone pattern – H, L, HL or LH – associates with the rightmost syllable. This
Association Rule is illustrated in (16), where the square bracket stands for amorpheme boundary.
(16)

Association Rule
⎤
σ
⎦
(T) T

This pattern of association is somewhat at odds with what one might expectfrom tone languages elsewhere in Africa. That is, given Dinka’s rich quantity
system, we might expect tones to associate with moras, thereby affording richer
tonal specifications in heavier syllables. However, we find no evidence for thisin the Luanyjang dialect, and our findings are consistent with Andersen’s analysis of the Agar Dinka tone system.
The Association Rule means that any non-final syllables are initially unspecified for tone, as seen from (17):

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F0 (Hz)F0 (Hz)196

Figure 4. The four tonemes on disyllabic words with a mid or long vowel in the final
syllable, in final position in an existential yes/no-question – cf. (6). Data fromtwo speakers. H: dash-dotted; LH: dashed; L: dotted; HL: solid. The start ofthe vowel of the final syllable is marked by a dotted vertical line.

(17)

añáaar ‘buffalo:s’σ σHHowever, the graphs in Figure 4 show a phenomenon we have not accounted
for so far. While the f0 trace on the final syllable follows from the Association
Rule, that of the penultimate syllable does not. In each trace of each speaker,
we find high f0 on the penultimate syllable (before the vertical line). The phenomenon is clearest in the case of the LH (dashed traces), where there is a welldefined peak on the penultimate syllable. These f0 data compel us to postulatea H tone on the penultimate syllable. But where does it come from, and why
does it not trigger dissimilation on the nouns that have patterns H or HL? With
regard to the former question, we note that this H tone is not present invariably.
It is absent in the citation form, and in contexts where the noun is preceded by

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a Low-toned verb. This suggests that it needs to be attributed to this particular
context. We argue that its source is the existential marker dě, which we hypothesize to have the LH toneme, and that the H tone of this toneme shifts to thetoneless following syllable, as in (18).
(18)

High Shift

σ
L

⎤
⎦

+
H

σ (σ ) σ
H/L

⎤
⎦
(H/L)

This process has as one of its effects that the surface phonetics of Dinka approximate a little more closely the presumably ideal one-to-one correspondence
between tones and syllables. However, since most words are monosyllabic andsince only disyllabic words with a toneless initial syllable provide the appropriate input for High Shift to apply, surface phonetic tonal sequences of thissort in Dinka remain relatively unusual.
High Shift is not, of course, limited to existential YNQs, nor to contexts involving dě. We also find it in existential declaratives, and in the basic inflected
form of a class of long transitive verbs. We will consider each of these in turn,because they each reveal sensitivity of the Dinka tone system to morphosyntax.
In existential declaratives (“There is/are X”), the noun is preceded by theexistential marker dě, just as in the existential questions. This sentence type isillustrated in (19), and f0 traces are presented in Figure 5. As in the corresponding questions (Figure 4), there is evidence of High Shift, clearest in the case of
the LH (Figure 5, dashed traces), where there is a well-defined peak before theonset of final syllable. The main difference between the existential questions
and the existential declaratives relates to the application of Dissimilatory Lowering. The nouns that have HL or H tonemes underlyingly are realised with an
f0 fall, which sets in at the start of the vowel (Figure 5, solid and dash-dotted
traces). That is, Dissimilatory Lowering has applied. The application of thisprocess confirms that there is a preceding H tone, which we have accounted forby postulating a LH tonome on dě in combination with High Shift.
(19)

à-dě
akÔOOn¨
agrs-exist elephant:s‘There is an elephant.’

The fact that Dissimilatory Lowering does not apply in yes/no-questions,even though it does when the same sequence of morphemes is uttered as adeclarative, means that the application of this sandhi process is to some extent
conditioned by sentence type. The ultimate scope of this exception can only
be determined on the basis of an in-depth study of tonal morphophonology;
for example, it is conceivable that other question types are also implicated in

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F0 (Hz)F0 (Hz)

198

Figure 5. The four tonemes on disyllabic words with a mid or long vowel in the final
syllable, in final position in an existential declarative – cf. (19). Data from two
speakers. H: dash-dotted; LH: dashed; L: dotted; HL: solid. The start of thevowel of the final syllable is marked by a dotted vertical line.

this exception. However, it is well known that in many languages certain tonelowering processes (such as downstep or downdrift) are suspended in questions(e.g., Lindau 1986 on Hausa).
Another construction in which High Shift applies involves the basic inflected
form of certain transitive long verbs, e.g., mǎan ‘to hate:zero’ and lěel ‘toprovoke:zero’. We postulate that these verbs have the LH toneme in this inflection. An example is presented in (20b). Panels A, B in Figure 6 illustrate
the baseline condition. Here the target nouns are preceded by the Low-toned
verb form tìN ‘to see:zero’; cf. the example in (20a). In this baseline condition,
the patterns¨under evaluation – monosyllabic (A) and disyllabic (B) nouns witheither H (dash-dotted) or HL (solid) tonemes – are realised as expected. Thatis, we find high level pitch in the case of H and a delayed fall in the case of HL,
just as in Figures 1 and 4, for mono- and disyllabic nouns respectively. Panels
6 C, D display the same nouns preceded by the verb mǎan ‘to hate:zero’. As
stated above, this verb has the LH contour toneme in this inflection. Comparing
the realisations of the monosyllabic H- and HL-toned nouns preceded by the
LH-toned verb with their realisations when preceded by the L-toned verb, wefind no difference. By contrast, there is a clear difference in the realisation of

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the disyllabic words as a function of the preceding context. The disyllabic H
and HL-toned nouns both show f0 falling from the beginning of the vowel inpanel 6D.
(20)

a.

b.

Acóol à-tìN
akÔOOn¨¨Acol agrs-see:zeroelephant:s‘Acol sees an elephant.’
Acóol à-mǎan
akÔOOn¨
Acol agrs-hate:zero elephant:s‘Acol hates an elephant.’(L __)(LH __)The observed variation in the realisation of H and HL disyllabic nouns canbe accounted for in terms of the mechanisms already introduced in relation to
the existential sentences involving dě. That is, the H second component of the
LH on mǎan reassociates to any toneless syllable to the right – cf. High Shift(18) – thus creating the context where we can invoke Dissimilatory Lowering
to account for the fact that HL and H turn into L on the following disyllabic
noun.
Interestingly, LH-toned predicate heads such as mǎan and dě trigger Dissimilatory Lowering only on a following disyllabic noun, but not on a following monosyllabic noun. To account for this limitation, we invoke the process in(21). Contour Simplification reduces the number of tones associated to the verb
in the unmarked ‘zero’ inflection, retaining only the first component tone. This
rule bleeds Dissimilatory Lowering, but only between the head of the predicate
and any following constituent. As a result, any second tone component in thezero inflection will be deleted, unless it has been shifted to a following toneless syllable as a result of High Shift (18).
(21)

Contour Simplification⎤σ+ ⎦T1 T2 verb in ‘zero’ inflection

The application of Contour Simplification rule is postulated to be sensitive tothe morphosyntactic context, applying only on verbs marked for the ‘zero’
inflection. This qualification is necessary because Contour Simplification does
not apply in contexts like the ones in (3b, d). If Contour Simplification had
applied, then the LH-toned past passive in (3b) would become simplified to theform found for the 1st singular form in (3a), and the underlyingly HL-toned
passive in (3d) would have become indistinguishable from the H-toned 2nd
singular in (3c). But this does not happen.
At this point, we have defined the conditioning domain edge as the verb
in the ‘zero’ inflection. It may well be necessary to widen its scope as more

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F0 (Hz)Monosyllabic / L __ #F0 (Hz)Disyllabic / L __ #F0 (Hz)Monosyllabic / LH __ #F0 (Hz)Disyllabic / LH __ #Figure 6. F0 traces showing the realisation of monosyllabic and disyllabic words with
underlying toneme H (dash-dotted) or HL (solid), in two sentence-final contexts. A, B: preceded by L tone pattern (à-tìN); C, D: preceded by H tone¨(à-mǎan).

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information on the morphophonology of tone becomes available. That is, giventhat the Contour Simplification is conditioned by morphosyntactic context, theultimate scope of the process requires a comprehensive survey of tone in verb
morphology, which is outside the scope of the current paper. It is worthwhile
to note that, in inflecting tone languages, it is not uncommon for tone rules tobe sensitive to particular morphosyntactic conditioning (see, e.g., Goldsmith
1990: 33).
2.4. Tone, quantity and f0 alignment
In Section 1.2, we briefly introduced the Dinka quantity system, with its unusual three-level vowel length distinction. In African tone languages that havea two-level vowel length distinction, more complex tone patterns tend to befound on long vowels than on short ones.7 It would be easily conceivable,
then, for the Dinka tones to associate differently depending on the quantityof the vowel, with contour tonemes being restricted to the longer level(s) of
vowel length. This does not appear to be the case, though. With respect to theAgar dialect, Andersen (1987:18) writes that “[a]ny tone can combine with any
vowel length and with either voice quality”. In the Luanyjang dialect, the contour tonemes (HL, LH) are very rare but attested on nouns with short vowels:bîñ ‘cup:s’, ma-kwǎc ‘bct-spotted:s’. By contrast, contour tonemes appear¨
commonlyin short verb forms, as a result of regular inflection. A minimal-set
example involving a verb with a short vowel is presented in (22).
(22)

a.

b.

Acóol à-tìN¨Acol agrs-see:2s‘You are looking at Acol.’Acóol à-tîN¨Acol agrs-see:pass‘Acol has been seen.’

In summary, it appears that in the Agar and Luanyjang dialects of Dinka alike,the tone-bearing unit (TBU) is the syllable. The association of tones to thesegmental string makes no reference to the distinction between short, mid, andlong vowels, which in terms of moraic theory (see e.g. Hyman 1985, Hayes
1989) might be regarded as mono-, bi, and trimoraic nuclei respectively. This

7. For example, the Bantu languages Rangi (Stegen 2002) and Matumbi; the Nilo-Saharan language Nara (Dawd and Hayward 2002) the Afro-Asiatic language Somali, and Saramaccan,
an English-based creole with a West-African substrate. Languages not followed by a reference
were found in the XTone Cross-Linguistic Tonal Database (Allison, Hyman and Mortensen
2006).

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F0 (Hz)202

Figure 7. Mean f0 values for three points in the rhyme (beginning and end of vowel, andend of coda – the values are marked by dots). Separate lines for two L-toned
nouns - gèm ‘cheek:P’ and nòoon ‘grass:S’. The words are uttered once or¨
twice in citation
form, by each of three speakers (AMC, CAM, MAJ). Ten
tokens in total.

is noteworthy, because the vowel length distinction greatly affects the durationof the domain on which the tones are realised, and, as already described in
Section 2.1, has a considerable effect on the realisation of a given toneme on agiven syllable.
In a comprehensive study of the quantity system of Luanyjang Dinka, Remijsen and Gilley (2008) find average durations of 70, 100, and 145 milliseconds in utterance-medial position, for short, mid, and long vowels, respectively.
Coda durations are negatively correlated with phonological vowel length. Thatis, all else being equal, monosyllabic words with a short nucleus have thelongest coda, followed by those with a mid nucleus, and items with a long
nucleus have the shortest coda. This tendency is illustrated in Figure 7, whichshows mean values for the f0 and duration of nucleus and coda of two Lowtoned words – one with a short (/V/) vowel (gèm ‘cheek:p’), the other with¨a long (/VVV/) vowel (nòoon ‘grass:s’). The boundary
between nucleus andcoda is marked by the middle dot.
As seen from Figure 7, the rhymes of gèm and nòoon both show falling f0¨
over nucleus and coda. The fall on gèm, though,is considerably steeper thanthat on nòoon. There are three causes¨for this. First, the duration of the rhyme
of gèm is considerably shorter than that of nòoon – 185 ms. vs. 324 ms., on¨
average.
An equal-sized f0 fall realised over these two domains will yield amuch steeper slope over the shorter domain. Second, the f0 fall sets in about 8
Hz higher at the start of gèm than at the start of nòoon, resulting in slope sizes¨ This is remarkable: given that the onset of gèmof 37 vs. 29 Hz, respectively.
is a voiced stop, we expect consonantal perturbation to lower f0 at the start¨ofthe vowel that follows it (see Hombert 1978 and other sources cited there). But

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that is not what we find. We speculate that the f0 at vowel onset may be raisedon syllables with a short vowel to ensure that the fall that encodes the Low issaliently marked.
Finally, a third factor in the way the Low toneme is impressionistically perceived is the proportional make-up of the rhyme in terms of nucleus and coda.
As seen from Figure 7, the coda makes up most of the rhyme of gèm, while¨ nucleus
it constitutes less than a third of the rhyme of nòoon. In general, theis the more salient part of the rhyme in perceptual terms. In the case of gèm,but not in the case of nòoon, only the higher part of the f0 fall is realised¨ on
the nucleus. In other words, the cue that is prone to give rise to a perceptionof low pitch is on the less salient constituent in the case of gèm. As a result,researchers who are familiar with other African tonal systems ¨may be prone toanalyse the tone pattern of short L-toned words as involving an initial high tone
component.8 Such interpretations hinge on the assumption that phonetic pitchtranslates into phonological tone in an unambiguous manner across languages.
This assumption may be valid for many African tone languages in which the
TBU is the mora, but it does not hold in Dinka, because the realisation of a particular toneme varies as a function of the quantity of the relevant vowel, and it is
the alignment of tones with the segmental string that tends to remain constant.
Thus, irrespective of the quantity of the syllable with which it is associated, theLow toneme is realised as a fall, the starting point of which is aligned no later
than the start of the vowel (cf. Figures 1, 2, 4), i.e., much earlier than in thecase of the HL. If the patterns of alignment are taken as a criterion, the typologically unusual phonetic realisations of specific tonemes in specific contexts
are almost to be expected, rather than constituting a weak point in the analysis.
We also note that, once our analysis of the basic tonal contrasts is accepted,
the resulting system is governed by processes that are well known from othertone languages. For example, Dissimilatory Lowering parallels Meeussen’sRule (Goldsmith 1984), which is part of many Bantu tone systems. In short,
we believe that Dinka’s inventory of tonal phonological processes is rather unremarkable, but its tonal phonetics, and the relation between tone and quantity,
are of typological interest.
2.5. The ordering of tone processes
The ordering of High Shift and Contour Simplification before Dissimilatory
Lowering produces the output forms observed for mono- and disyllabic forms

8. Constance Kutsch Lojenga (p.c.) noted that the Low sounds like a downstepped High in somecases. Larry Hyman (p.c.) hypothesised that there could be a High tone, associated with apreceding syllable which gives rise to the steep falling contours.

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after a LH toneme in the head of predicate slot. The scheme in (23) specifies
the ordering and illustrates the effect of all the rules introduced in the autosegmental analysis. The uncontroversial associations between syllable nodes andthe segmental string have been left out to save space. This schema presents theordering of all but two rules sketched in the foregoing sections of the paper.
The LH Levelling rule (15), which is a matter of context-sensitive variation,
comes at the very end, after the application of the OCP. We have been unable
to establish the relative ordering between Low Absorption and Dissimilatory
Lowering.

(23)
Association
Rule (16)High
Shift (18)

Contour
Simplif. (21)Diss.
Lowering (11)OCP (12)

a. Input: mǎan akÔOOn¨ OOn]
Output: ⎤[màan
ákÔ
⎡
σ
σσ ¨
⎦⎣
L H
H L
⎤⎡
σ
σσ
⎦
⎣
+
L H
H L
⎤⎡
σ
σσ
⎦⎣
L H
H L
⎤⎡
σ
σσ
⎦⎣
L H
H L
⎤⎡
σ
σσ
⎦⎣
σ
L H

b. Input: mǎan mâalOutput: ⎤[màan
mâal]
⎡
σ
σ
⎦⎣
L H
H L
⎤⎡
σ
σ
⎦
⎣
+
L H
H L
⎤⎡
σ
σ
⎦⎣
L H
H L
⎤⎡
σ
σ
⎦⎣
L
H L
⎤⎡
σ
σ
⎦⎣
L
H L

As stated above, Dinka morphemes are predominantly monosyllabic, and every
morpheme is specified for tone. As a result, all monosyllabic morphemes are
specified for tone once the Association Rule has applied. Also specified fortone are the originally toneless initial syllables of disyllabic morphemes thatare preceded by the LH, as a result of High Shift. In other contexts, the f0
pattern of the toneless non-final syllables of polysyllabic morphemes seems tofollow from interpolation between specified tone targets.

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3. Quantitative analyses of acoustic data
Given the complexity of the foregoing description, we feel it is worthwhile tooffer a different sort of empirical evidence for our analysis. While it is now
easy to obtain f0 data and to run straightforward statistical analyses, quantitative statistical corroboration of such descriptions is still not very common. In
Section 2.1, we have already noted the usefulness of supplementing impressionistic description of tonal phonetics with instrumental analysis of f0. In thissection, we present statistical evidence supporting the most basic feature of
our analysis, namely the hypothesis that Luanyjang Dinka has a four-way tonal
contrast.
We investigated the f0 patterns of the members of a minimal set for tone. The
members of this set and the contexts in which they were collected are presentedin (5). Approximately two realisations of each member of this minimal set wererecorded in sentence-final position. They were elicited from 9 speakers by ourreference speaker, and he also produced them himself. To characterise the f0
trajectory across the vowel, we took four measures: the mean f0 over the middle
50 % of the vowel’s duration, the standard deviation of the f0 tracker points
over the same domain, and also the values at the boundaries of this domain (i.e.,at the 25th and 75th percentile points). In addition, we measured the durationof the vowel, as tone affects vowel duration in some languages – e.g., Mandarin
Chinese (Ho 1976, Xu 2004). In Mandarin Chinese, the phenomenon is limited
to sentence-final contexts (Ho 1976) – the same context under consideration
here.
Because measurements for the same words were collected from each of 10
speakers, we applied within-subjects or repeated-measures ANOVA, calculating the effect of tone on a given measure by dividing its Mean Square by the
Mean Square of the interaction between this factor and the factor speaker. Our
approach is multivariate, with five dependent measures (cf. above), and a single
factor: toneme, which has four levels (H, L, HL, LH). The ANOVA results arepresented in Table 2, and the descriptive statistics are included in the Appendix.
As seen from Table 2, all four of the f0-related measures are highly significant, but duration is not. The greatest effect is found for the f0 measurement 3/4
into the vowel. For the f0 measures, we carried out post-hoc Bonferroni tests toverify whether each of the four tonemes is significantly different from the others. As it turns out, every toneme is significantly different from every other byat least one of the four f0 measures. The tonemes most similar to one anotherare H and LH. This is to be expected, as the LH is realised with level pitch infinal context (cf. Figure 1A, B).
To further evaluate the measurements, we carried out a Linear Discriminant
Analysis (LDA). LDA is a statistical technique that can reveal to what extent
tokens can be classified for a categorical distinction – in this case toneme –

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Table 2. The effect of toneme on 5 dependent variables in a within-subjects multivariate
ANOVA (86 tokens)
FactorDegrees of freedom
and F value

Probability

DurationF0 mean
F0 standard deviation
F0 at 1/4 of vowel’s duration
F0 at 3/4 of vowel’s duration

F (3,9) = 3.06
F (3,9) = 41.98
F (3,9) = 61.25
F (3,9) = 29.19
F (3,9) = 76.08

p = 0.084, n.s.
p < 0.001
p < 0.001
p < 0.001
p < 0.001

on the basis of one or more continuous measurements – in this case all five of
the acoustic measurements described above. All measures were z-transformed
to correct for between-speaker variation in speaking tempo and in f0 registerand range. Measurements were added to the LDA automatically in stepwise
fashion, that is, the measurement with the greatest F value as a function of thecriterion toneme was included first, and additional measurements were addedin order of decreasing F, as long as their F were above the threshold for significance (corresponding to p < 0.05). Crucially, the automatic procedure neveradded vowel duration to the equation, as its independent contribution did notreach the threshold for inclusion. The resulting model, based on the four f0related measures, yields a correct classification score of 90.7 percent. This result is to be interpreted relative to a chance-level baseline of 25 percent – theprobability of guessing the correct toneme out of four candidates. The lowest correct classification result – 85.7 percent – was obtained for the H, which
was mistaken for the LH in the remaining 14.3 percent of the cases. Again,
because LH is phonetically similar to H in prepausal position in a declarative sentence, we speculate that correct classification would be considerably
higher if we compare the materials in a context in which the LH Levelling rule
does not apply. At the same time, the fact that the statistical differentiation waslargely successful suggests that LH Levelling, even where it does apply, does
not result in complete neutralisation.
These results allow us to conclude that the distinction between the four
tonemes argued for on the basis of data from a small number of speakers in
Section 2 is valid, thereby corroborating the hypothesis that this four-way tonal
distinction is characteristic of Luanyjang Dinka speech community as a whole.

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4. Discussion and conclusion
4.1. Main findings
The main characteristics of Luanyjang Dinka tone system can be summarised
as follows. Luanyjang Dinka has four tonemes (L, H, LH, HL), and each morpheme carries one, irrespective of its number of syllables. This toneme associates with the rightmost syllable, which is usually the only syllable. Theinternal composition or “weight” of the syllable is irrelevant to the associationof tones. In utterances, the string of underlyingly specified tonemes is distorted
due to the effect of tone sandhi processes. The most important of these is Dissimilatory Lowering, which turns H tone into L when it is preceded by H. Thisapplies whether the H tones involved manifest the High toneme or are component tones of the Rising (LH) or Falling (HL) tonemes. The participation of thecontour tonemes in this dissimilation rule indicates that the contour tonemes
constitute sequences of L and H tones. Both Dissimilatory Lowering and Low
Absorption apply only if the constituents are realised with a certain level ofphrase-level prosodic cohesion, and they may fail to apply if the relevant constituents are not connected in this way. Finally, we found some evidence ofsensitivity of tone processes to morphosyntax: Dissimilatory Lowering does
not apply in existential yes/no-questions. Moreover, tone contours are simplified in the basic finite verb form, but not elsewhere.
4.2. Tonal variability and the function of tone
As we have seen throughout the paper, the function of tone in Luanyjang Dinka
is to a large extent morphological. The same conclusion can be drawn for theAgar dialect on the basis of Andersen (1993). How can the fact that so manymorphologically related words are distinguished by tone be reconciled with thevariability in tonal realisation? That is, if tone is so important to Dinka morphosyntax, then how can it be that communication is successful overall in theface of processes that disrupt the faithful rendering of the underlying tonemes?
This point is illustrated in example (24). While tîiim has a HL underlyingly, it
can also surface with a Low – due to Dissimilatory Lowering – or with a H –due to Low Absorption, depending on the tonal context.
(24)

a.

b.

Acóol à-tìNtîiim¨
Acol agrs-see:zero
tree:p‘Acol sees trees.’tîiim máaan
Acóol à-cí¨
tree:p hate:pst
Acol agrs-aux:pst‘Acol hated trees.’/tîiim/ > [tîiim]/tîiim/ > [tìiim]

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/tîiim/ > [tíiim]

Acóol à-tìNtîiim ”tìt
Acol agrs-see:zero tree:p red:p‘Acol sees red trees.’

Several factors play a role here. First, morphologically related forms tend todiffer from one another in terms of several dimensions of phonological contrast. In nouns, for example, while the singular and plural forms of nouns may
differ solely in terms of tone, as in pìic- píic ‘stirringstick:s/p’, several com¨ some
¨ combination of tone, quantity,
mon patterns of number marking involveand vowel height/breaking – e.g., ”tíl-t”jÈEl ‘thistle:s/p’, and also example (4).
Less commonly, changes in voice quality and in the coda consonant can also be
involved – e.g., wǎal-wàl ‘plant:s/p’; rÒOw-ròot” ‘hippo:s/p’. This redundancy¨¨
makes the communicationof inflected word forms
more robust – when the lexical / morphological tonal marking of a particular word is not evident from thecontext, other cues are often available.
A second factor is the role of certain function morphemes. Given its recursive nature, it is conceivable for Dissimilatory Lowering to change each
non-initial H in a sequence of 8 or10 H-toned words. This is unlikely to happen, though, because certain high-level grammatical domains are marked off
by Low-toned function morphemes. This is illustrated in (10), repeated forconvenience in (25).
(25)

Acóol à-cí
léeN
máaan
¨
[Acóol à-cí
lèeN
màaan
¨
Acol agrs-aux:pst
drum-s hate:pst‘Acol has hated a drum there.’è-tÉne¨è-tÉ¨ne]¨¨prp-there

Both finite verbs and auxiliaries take a prefix that marks number agreementwith the preceding topic: à-/àa- ‘agrs/agrp’ (cf. Andersen 1993). This L tone
preserves the tone pattern of the morphemes in the verb phrase from the influence from any H tone at the end of the preceding topic. The prepositional
marker è- similarly limits the potential for utterances to contain long sequences¨
of dissimilated
H’s. Its distribution is very wide – this prefix is found before
most common adverbs, before external arguments of the verb, and between
possessed and possessor, among others. Just like à-/àa-, è- plays a crucial role
¨ grammatical conin preserving the stability of tone patterns within particular
stituents. It appears, then, that the application of Dissimilatory Lowering islimited to well-defined syntactic domains, bounded by Low-toned function
morphemes. In this context, it is worthwhile to note the difference between/aCV(V)(V)C/ sequences like à-léel ‘agrs-provoke:2s’, and those like añáaar
‘buffalo:s’. In the former, the initial /a/ is a separate morpheme with its own L
tone, buffering the following H tone from sandhi. In the latter, the initial /a/ istoneless – it is not the rightmost syllable within a morpheme – and therefore

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F0 (Hz)The tone system of the Luanyjang dialect of Dinka

Figure 8. Segmented F0 track of the predicate of the sentence in (26), uttered by speaker
MAJ

the H tone on the final syllable is exposed to Dissimilatory Lowering under the
influence of a preceding H tone.
More generally, the fact that a greater proportion of the f0 fall is realisedon the coda after a short vowel means that, when the coda of a /(a)CVC/ or/(a)CVVC/ word is voiceless, there is considerably less time to fully realise thefall, and it is underarticulated as a result (cf. Sundberg 1979, Xu 2004). In suchsituations, Dissimilatory Lowering may constitute a crucial indication of thetoneme of a given noun. That is, when the surface phonological tone patternof a given word may not be reflected clearly in its own f0 pattern, the (lackof) application of Dissimilatory Lowering on the following word may provide
a crucial cue. This is illustrated in Figure 8, which shows the f0 trace of thesentence in (26). In the absence of a voiced coda, the LH on cǒok ‘foot:s’ isrealised suboptimally, without its characteristic late-aligned rise.¨9 Nonetheless,its H tone component can easily be inferred from the application of Dissimilatory Lowering on the following word tìN ‘to see:neg’.
¨(26)
Acóol à-cìicǒok tíN
/tíN/ > [tìN]
¨
¨
¨
¨
¨
Acol agrs-aux:neg
foot:ssee:neg‘Acol does not see a foot.’
Finally, while Dissimilatory Lowering distorts the string of underlying tones,
it does so in a predictable way, shifting to the right the tonal cues that are relevant to lexical decision and morphosyntactic processing. We speculate that,paradoxically, this distorting process may actually be beneficial to communication, in particular when it is conditioned by short vowels (cf. Figure 8). In
those situations, the underlying toneme of the short-vowel word is cued more
9. As noted in Section 1.2, most Dinka stems are closed by a coda. Exceptions to this are very
rare, in particular in content words (Andersen 1987: 2, Malou 1988: 11). Importantly, thenature of the coda does not restrict the distribution of tonemes – i.e., both level and contour
tonemes combine with any coda type.

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Bert Remijsen and D. Robert Laddsaliently by its effect or lack of effect on a following toneme, than by the f0
pattern of the word itself.
4.3. Comparison with the Agar dialect
The Agar dialect is spoken in a territory that is geographically adjacent to Luanyjang Dinka. Andersen (1987) distinguishes three tonemes: H, L, and HL.
The crucial difference between Agar and Luanyjang in terms of the inventoryof tonemes is the LH of Luanyjang Dinka. On this issue, our own explorations
with 2 speakers of Agar Dinka are in agreement with Andersen: we found noevidence to postulate this toneme for the Agar dialect. Nouns that have the LH
in Luanyjang were found to have the H in Agar. As for the other three tonemes,
their realisations in the two dialects broadly correspond. One minor difference
has to do with HL. Andersen writes that, in the Agar dialect, this toneme isrealised as high level pitch anywhere but in prepausal context. In Luanyjang,however, HL is faithfully realised as a fall in pitch when followed by a H tone,
and turns into H only when followed by L, as a result of Low Absorption.
This process, Low Absorption, has also been hypothesised for the Agar dialect(Andersen 1987). By contrast, Dissimilatory Lowering, which in Luanyjang
Dinka has a greater functional load than Low Absorption, does not appear tooccur in the Agar dialect in the same way.10 When we elicited past-tense constructions like (25) from speakers of Agar Dinka, we found that the past-tense
auxiliary cí – which has a High toneme in Agar Dinka just as in the Luanyjang¨ not trigger dissimilation on a following H- or HL-toned noun.
dialect – doesInterestingly, we also found that, whereas Luanyjang Dinka marks existential
yes/no-questions purely using f0 register and range, Agar Dinka has a highquestion-marking boundary tone.
In summary, while there are important parallels between the tone systemsof Luanyjang and Agar dialects, we also find non-trivial differences at every
level – with respect to the inventory and realisation of tonemes, with respect totone-in-context processes, and with respect to the morphophonological use oftone.
4.4. Directions for further research
We found evidence that the tone sandhi processes are to some extent conditioned by morphosyntax. That is, Contour Simplification is limited to verb
10. Andersen (2002: 21 f) does report regressive tone dissimilation in some nouns, triggered bya High tone on a following demonstrative – e.g., ñíir ‘girl:p’ becomes ñìir-ká ‘girl:dem’.
¨
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out to us.

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forms marked for the ‘zero’ inflection. Also, Dissimilatory Lowering does
not apply in yes/no questions. This conditioning reveals that the importance ofmorphosyntax to the Dinka tone system is not limited to the specification ofunderlying tonal inflections, but that it extends to the system of phonologicaltone processes. Given these findings, a comprehensive analysis of the Dinka
tone system necessarily encompasses a detailed study of Dinka tonal morphology, and such a study may lead to additions and/or reformulations of the overall
analysis postulated here. A detailed study of Dinka tonal morphology is a major
challenge, given the rich system of nominal and verbal inflections that involvea tonal component. At the same time, the current study is of value to such a
project, allowing to distinguish between the effects of tone sandhi and those ofmorphological tone.
The relevance of tone sandhi to the study of morphosyntax can be illustrated
by the issue of case-marking on postverbal noun subjects. Andersen (2002)
reports that, in the Agar dialect, the underlying tonemes H, L, and HL on nouns
are replaced by L, L, and HL, respectively, as a tonal form of case marking.
This is illustrated in (27) – from Andersen (2002: 7).
(27)

a.

b.

báñ
à-tòocd”ÒOk¨¨chief:sagrs-send:zero boy:s‘The chief is sending the boy.’dbàñ” ÒOk à-tóooc
¨
¨
boy:s
agrs-send:nts chief:s:obl‘The chief is sending the boy’

Whereas báñ ‘chief:s’ is specified for the High toneme, as in (27a), it has the¨ in the pragmatically marked sentence in (27b), where the object
Low toneme
appears in topic position. This syntactic pattern is marked on the verb by meansof quantity (long grade), and by the High toneme. As noted above, we foundno evidence that Dissimilatory Lowering exists in Agar. As a result, Andersen’s morphosyntactic interpretation of the tonal alternation on the noun is notcontroversial. However, if the same tonal alternation exists in the Luanyjang
dialect, then the replacement of a High by a Low following a High on the verb
could be interpreted in terms of Dissimilatory Lowering instead. This, in turn,
could explain the historical origin of this tonal inflection in dialects like Agarthat do not show Dissimilatory Lowering.
The current study reveals both similarities and differences between the tone
systems of the Luanyjang dialect at issue here, and the Agar dialect studied inAndersen (1987). Further study on prosody in particular dialects of Dinka isrequired to determine the range of variation in terms of tone, other prosodic
systems such as quantity, vowel quality, and voice quality and the relation between them. Given the typologically unusual nature of the Dinka prosodic system, this line of research is likely to yield new insights into possible prosodic

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Bert Remijsen and D. Robert Ladd

configurations. In addition, given the central role of suprasegmental features inDinka morphosyntax, such studies will be of great value to the study of Dinka,
and to certain aspects of Dinka applied linguistics such as orthography development and language learning resources.
University of Edinburgh
Appendix
Table A. Means and (in parentheses) standard deviations for each of the five measurements by toneme (86 tokens)
Measurement

H

HL

L

LH

Overall

Duration (in ms)
F0 mean (Hz)F0 st.dev. (Hz)F0 at 1/4 of V (Hz)F0 at 3/4 of V (Hz)186 (32)172 (56)
1.9 (1.1)
170 (56)
174 (56)

202 (44)179 (53)
8.0 (4.6)
189 (58)
162 (49)

191 (39)135 (48)
6.5 (3.7)
146 (51)
124 (44)208 (48)
175 (51)
1.1 (0.7)
176 (52)
175 (50)

197 (42)166 (54)
4.4 (4.2)
171 (56)
160 (53)

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