Open AccessThe relation between the middle tone and empty category principle violations in Krio
Author(s) -
Dudley K. Nylander
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
studies in african linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.178
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 2154-428X
pISSN - 0039-3533
DOI - 10.32473/sal.v15i2.107516
Subject(s) - tone (literature) , linguistics , syllable , sentence , syntax , psychology , relation (database) , philosophy , computer science , database
An examination of monosyllabic words in Krio reveals the existence of three distinct tones: high. mid and low. words of more than one syllable. However, only two tones are attested: high and low. The mid tone is, in fact, found only in monosyllabic forms in two very specific contexts: citation forms and sentence final forms. In other contexts. the mid tone ia replaced by the high tone. This suggests that the mid tone is merely a phonetic variant of the high tone. The interaction of tones and syntax is considered.