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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: How did Korean lose the tones?
Message-ID: <1995Jan14.224537.14914@midway.uchicago.edu>
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References: <1995Jan13.001815.28006@midway.uchicago.edu> <3f5kti$s7g@frigate.doc.ic.ac.uk>
Date: Sat, 14 Jan 1995 22:45:37 GMT
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In article <3f5kti$s7g@frigate.doc.ic.ac.uk> rap@doc.ic.ac.uk writes:

>In Proto-Bantu, each vowel can have high or low pitch (and can be
>long or short), independently of the other vowels (ignoring sandhi).
>That would be comparable to the tone system of Modern Chinese, but with
>only a 2-way distinction.  

That is not comparable to modern Chinese (I assume you mean Mandarin).
Tones in Mandarin are associated with syllables, not vowels (the
distinction is important because of the large number of diphthongs in
Mandarin).  The system you describe sounds much closer to one of the
pitch-accent systems others have been discussing.  Still, you've
answered my question admirably.

So, we're left with several examples of languages which have lost
their pitch-accent system (Korean, Swahili, Greek), but nary a one
that has lost honest-to-goodness lexical tone.  One person suggested
"Burman" to me in email.  If he meant "Burmese," then it was my
impression that this was still tonal.  Anyone know?
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
