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tone assignment in Waľavaľwa
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sandhi school
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 12 Oct 2020, 23:19.

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A Waľavaľwa word pronounced carefully, in isolation, will have low tone on any syllables preceding the stressed syllable, a rising or falling tone on the stressed syllable, and a mid tone on any syllables following the stressed syllable.

For instance:
ayca "easily" ay˨˦ ca˧
pàla "baskets, netbags" pa˥˨ la˧
jarí "support, protection" ja˨ ri˨˦
talàw "be bad" ta˨ law˥˨

However, in running speech, the stressed syllable is only rarely pronounced as an actual rising or falling tone.
Regardless of accent type, syllables preceding the first stressed syllable in an utterance will take low tone and the stressed syllable takes high tone. If the accent is rising, the unstressed syllable following the stress takes mid-high tone, and tone gradually drops until the next stressed syllable. If the accent is falling, the first syllable after the stress takes mid-low tone, and so do the following syllables until the next stressed syllable.

As an example, consider the following sentence:

Lacácaʼu ŋanàtayvazir.
speak.Hlung-INFInfinitive (TAM)
non-tensed verb
1SFirst person singular (person)
speaker, signer, etc.; I
-POTPotential (mood)
likely events, ability
-difficult.IPFVImperfective (aspect)
'interrupted or incomplete'

"I can speak Hlung with some difficulty."

The tone in that sentence would be assigned as follows:
la˩ ca˥ ca˦ ʼu˧ ŋa˨ na˥ tay˨ va˨ zir˨
Or for IPA lovers:
[lȁca̋cáʔū‿ŋàna̋tàjvàtsìr]

Notice that both stressed syllables take high tone, even though cá is phonemically rising and nà is phonemically falling.

If two stressed syllables are next to each other, then falling tone will actually be pronounced as falling, and rising as rising. The phrase ŋará jajay [ŋȁrǎ‿ɟǎɟáj] "too many ants" is an example of this.
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