Everything about Tone Terracing totally explained
Tone terracing is a type of
phonetic downdrift, where certain
tones shift downward in pitch after other tones. The result is that a tone may be realized at a certain pitch over a short stretch of speech, shift downward and then continue at its new level, then shift downward again, until the end of the
prosodic contour is reached, and the pitches reset. A graph of the change in pitch over time of a particular tone resembles a
terrace.
Tone terracing is particularly common in the languages of
West Africa.
Two basic types of tone terracing are found. In one, all tones shift downward, so that their difference in pitch remains constant; in the other, the pitch of the low tone remains at the lower end of the speaker's vocal range, while the other tones shift downward, so that their difference in pitch narrows. Pitch reset is required in the first instance because the tones approach the lower end of the speaker's comfort range, and in the second because the tonal distinctions of the language start being lost.
It is very common for only the low tone to cause a
downstep in pitch, whether the result is that all tones, including subsequent low tones, are terraced, or whether only non-low tones are.
A somewhat more intricate system is found in the
Twi language of
Ghana. Twi has three phonemic tones: high, mid, and low. A word, and therefore a prosodic chunk of speech, may only start with a high tone or a low tone on its first syllable. As in many languages, a low tone starts out and remains at the bottom of the speaker's range. After a low tone, a subsequent high tone is downstepped. (A temporary exception occurs when a single low tone is found between two high tones. In this case the low tone is raised from its base value, but the second high tone is still downstepped, and subsequent low tones return to the base pitch.)
However, a phonetic downstep occurs between any two adjacent mid tones as well. In fact, a high tone is defined as any tone that's at the same pitch as a preceding high
or mid tone; a mid tone will always be lower in pitch than a preceding high or mid tone. The result is that every instance of a mid or low tone shifts the upper end of the pitch range downward, until all pitches are reset at the end of the prosodic melody.
Table 1. The phonetic terracing effect in Twi of a series of mid tones. (The first tone must be either high or low.)
| (starting range) |
syllable 1 : |
syllable 2 : |
syllable 3 : |
syllable 4 |
| (high) |
|
| |
|
| (mid) |
|
mid |
| |
|
|
mid |
| |
|
|
|
mid |
| (low) |
low |
Table 2. The phonetic terracing effect in Twi of an alternating series of high and mid tones.
| (starting range) |
syllable 1 : |
syllable 2 : |
syllable 3 : |
syllable 4: |
syllable 5 |
| (high) |
high |
| |
| (mid) |
|
mid |
high |
| |
|
|
|
mid |
high |
| (low) |
|
Table 3. The phonetic terracing effect in Twi of an alternating series of high and low tones.
| (starting range) |
syllable 1 : |
syllable 2 : |
syllable 3 : |
syllable 4: |
syllable 5: |
syllable 6 |
| (high) |
high |
| |
|
|
high |
| (mid) |
|
|
|
|
|
high |
| |
|
low |
| (low) |
|
|
|
low |
low |
From tables 2 and 3 it can be imagined that the tone sequences
high-low-high and
high-mid-high may be difficult for a non-native speaker to distinguish.
Bibilography
- J.E. Redden and N. Owusu (1963, 1995). Twi Basic Course. Foreign Service Institute (Hippocrene reprint). ISBN 0-7818-0394-2
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