On the syllable-internal falling tone and empty consonants in Hatoma (Southern Ryukyuan)
Wayne P. Lawrence
The University of Auckland
Empty consonant slots (consonant slots with no gestural features) have been proposed in a numberof languages to account for a number of segmental processes observed in subsets of vocabulary
which would otherwise be classed as irregular. These include triggering of gemination (e.g. inFinnish (Rotenberg 1978: 206), Seri (Marlett & Stemberger 1983) and Aranese Gascon (Hualde1992)), blocking vowel deletion, triggering allomorphy and vowel epenthesis (Marlett &Stemberger 1983), and triggering glide epenthesis (Marlett 1997). This presentation argues it isnecessary to postulate the existence of an empty consonant in the Southern Ryukyuan dialect ofHatoma, but on the basis of the tone contour, i.e. suprasegmental evidence.
The Hatoma dialect has two main word-pitch contours, and a small number of peripheral
contours (Lawrence 1997, 2012). The two main contours are an all-High contour and the unmarked
phrase-final-syllable-Low contour (in compounds the fall in pitch in the unmarked class depends onthe foot structure of the compound-final morpheme). (In all words an initial light syllable ispronounced on a Low tone, except if the second syllable is voiceless.)
all-High: ˹mai ‘rice’, hu˹ci ‘mouth’, ka˹mai ‘structure’, ˹uuru ‘coral’,su˹buru ‘gourd’, su˹kurai ‘pretence’, ˹huNsukuru ‘pocket’unmarked: ˺mai ‘front’, ˺huci ‘comb’, ˺kamai ‘boar’, ˹uu˺ru ‘cucumber’,su˹bu˺ru ‘head’, su˹ku˺rai ‘mending’, si˹tumu˺ti ‘morning’
The negative ending is pronounced as -anu in absolute clause-final position or before theconjunctive particle -nu ‘but’, and it is reduced to -aN elsewhere. Although all-High class pa˹ranu(attach-NEG) becomes pa˹raN, in the unmarked class pa˹ra˺nu (go-NEG) also becomes pa˹raN andnot the expected *˺paraN (with the Low initial light syllable and Low final syllable of the unmarked
tonal contour; cf. the affirmative form ˺paruN) or *pa˹ra˺N (with the same tone contour of the prereduction form). This form shows that (i) the tonal contour comes from that of the unreducedpa˹ra˺nu and (ii) a contour tone is being avoided.
However, although relatively rare, there are surface contour tones (falling tones which derivefrom level tones) in the Hatoma dialect. The falling tone is most commonly encountered on thesuperheavy final syllable of the conclusive form of adjectives, such as a˹gaa˺N ‘red’ (with the allHigh class stem aga- as evidenced by a˹ga-daikuni ‘beet’) and ta˹kaa˺N ‘high’ (with the unmarked
tonal class stem taka- as in ta˹ka-maf˺fa ‘high pillow’). A clue to how this contour tone should beanalysed is provided by a much rarer environment of the contour tone. Note the following forms:
˺jama‘mountain’

˺jamaamountain-TOP

ja˹maamountain-ALLja˹ma˺amountain-ALL-TOP

The allative morpheme =a does not usually produce a High tone (e.g. ˺maci ‘town’, ˺macee (townALL(-TOP)); ja˹ku˺ba ‘village office’, ja˹ku˺baa (village office-ALL)). In order to obtain ja˹maa(mountain-ALL) from ˺jama by adding =a which is not marked for a High tone, it is necessary toassume that a syllable is being added to ˺jama to produce ja˹ma˺-CV. This points to an allative
form of =Ca, where the C is an empty consonant, so the derivation becomes ˺jama → ja˹ma˺-Ca→ ja˹ma˺a → ja˹maa where the last step is the same as is observed in the derivation of thenegative form pa˹ra˺nu → pa˹ra˺N → pa˹raN. ja˹ma˺a (mountain-ALL-TOP) will be derived as˺jama → ja˹ma˺-Ca → ja˹ma˺-Ca-a → ja˹ma˺aa → ja˹maa˺a → ja˹ma˺a. Evidently the High
tone only spreads one mora to the right within the syllable, so that a contour tone will only be foundon superheavy syllables (as in the adjectival conclusive form) or heavy syllables which derive fromsuperheavy syllables (as in ja˹ma˺a (mountain-ALL-TOP)).
A by-product of this analysis is that it provides an explanation the seemingly irregular
relationship between ˹maa ‘where’ (all-High tonal class) and ˹maa˺ru (where-FOC), ˹maa˺nu(where-NOM) (unmarked tonal class) (Kajiku 2020:1541). ˹maa ceases to be irregular if it isrecognised as being the allative form which is derived as ˺maa → ˹maa˺-Ca → ˹maa˺a → ˹maaa→ ˹maa.
This presentation will also demonstrate that, in order to account for the tonal contour, theadjectival conclusive form is not simply stem + -aN (cognate with the existential verb ˺aN(unmarked tonal class)), but must contain an empty consonant (i.e. aga-Ca-aN, taka-Ca-aN, etc.
where -Ca is an adverbializer).

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