Typological Relationships between Tonic Pitch and Syllable Nuclei

Abstract

Certain covariations among voice pitch, loudness, and syllable nuclei types are more "natural" than others. For example, a rise/fall in subglottal air pressure automatically causes a rise/fall in BOTH pitch and loudness unless a compensatory adjustment of the vocal folds is made (Borden and Harris 1984:88). Furthermore, rises/falls in voice pitch are typically accompanied by automatic raising/lowering of the larynx (Lindsey et al. 1986); and the concomitant shortening/lengthening of the vocal tract causes variations in vowel timbre (Ashby 1983). The natural favouring of least neuromuscular effort therefore predicts the most expected covariations among pitch, loudness, and nuclei types that are shown in Table 1 of this paper.

The above covariations help explain the extreme vowel variation found in southwestern dialects of England. Such covariations are also evident in three of the four languages (French, Spanish, German, and English) described in Delattre (1963). They are even detectable in tone languages, despite the greater autonomy of voice pitch in such languages. Thus, register tone languages are more likely to have only monophthongs, whereas contour tone languages are more likely to have additional (gliding) types of nuclei.