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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: How did Korean lose the tones?
Message-ID: <1995Jan10.000227.7127@midway.uchicago.edu>
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References: <1995Jan6.215248.9102@galileo.physics.arizona.edu> <3es05f$hbf@pheidippides.axion.bt.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 00:02:27 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang:34111 sci.lang.japan:21458

In article <3es05f$hbf@pheidippides.axion.bt.co.uk> donald@srd.bt.co.uk (Donald Fisk) writes:
>Hung Jung Lu (hjlu@soliton.physics.arizona.edu) wrote:
>: Middle Korean has tones. Modern Korean does not
>: (in the sense that words are not distinguished by tones.)
>: How did this language lose the tones? When did it
>: happen? Does the use of Hangul writing (circa 1400 A.D.?)
>: have something to do with it? Are there other examples
>: where a language becomes atonal?
>
>Greek?

Nope.  The *intonation* of Greek has certainly changed over time,
but Ancient Greek was never a "tone language" in the way that term
is currently used in linguistics.

Actually, come to think of it, Middle Korean "tone" resembles more
the "pitch-accent" system of modern Japanese than the systems of 
so-called "tonal languages", like modern Chinese or Tai.  Does
anyone know of any studies contrasting the pitch/intonation/tone of
Japanese and Korean?

-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
