Re: Grammatical tones

Christopher Wright sikyal:

> Bama.
>
> How plausible is it for tones to have a grammatical rather than lexical
> meaning? For instance, where many languages have articles, this one would
> have different tones instead. Or perhaps verb number or tense would be
> indicated thus.
Very plausible. Tonal morphemes are well-attested cross linguistically,
and may take a variety of shapes. They are less common in Sino-tibetan
style tone languages, where most tones are contour tones and are tied to
one syllable, but even there they occur.

>
> That says it all, doesn't it?*
>
> *Well, not _all_. The minimum amount of time to say everything would be
> at least as long as it takes to happen, which is generally agreed to be a
> minimum of one hundred thousand billion years.
>
> Laimes,
> Wright.
>
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton