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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: How did Korean lose the tones?
Message-ID: <1995Jan13.001815.28006@midway.uchicago.edu>
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References: <1995Jan6.215248.9102@galileo.physics.arizona.edu> <3f0rau$9vp@frigate.doc.ic.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 1995 00:18:15 GMT
Lines: 16

In article <3f0rau$9vp@frigate.doc.ic.ac.uk> rap@doc.ic.ac.uk writes:
>From article <1995Jan6.215248.9102@galileo.physics.arizona.edu>, by hjlu@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (Hung Jung Lu):
>> Middle Korean has tones. Modern Korean does not (in the sense that
>> words are not distinguished by tones.)  [...]
>> Are there other examples where a language becomes atonal?
>
>Swahili.

Could you be more detailed?  I know that some of the Bantu languages
have distinctive pitches, but are they actually tonal?  (See my and
Mr. Alderson's descriptions of pitch-accent vis-a-vis lexical tone.)
What kind of intonation system is posited for proto-Swahili?
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
