Citation
James J. Tyhurst. 1985. “Tone in Kenyang Noun Phrases”. M.A. thesis at the University of California, Los Angeles.
References
PDF document: JimTyhurst-1985-Tone-in-Kenyang-noun-phrases-MA-Thesis.pdf
Indexed in: OLAC Language Resource Catalog
at: http://www.language-archives.org/item/oai:sil.org:9539
Abstract
Kenyang nouns and noun phrases provide a restricted paradigm in which we can observe tome patterns and the interaction of various tonal processes. An autosegmental description of tone is presented in which noun roots carry tone melodies of three tone segments. The association of tones to tone-bearing units occurs by general convention. This accounts for the difference in distribution of surface tone patterns on two and three syllable nouns.
Associative noun phrases are marked by a relatively complicated set of vowel deletion alternations. However, the reassociation of tones is seen to follow from a commonly observed principle and a specification of the domain for tone associations.
A result of theoretical interest is that the Obligatory Contour Principle is nto a part of the phonology of Kenyang. Rejecting the Obligatory Contour Principle at both the lexical and phrasal levels leads to a much simpler description of tonal phenomena.