Onset-tone interaction in Mundabli

Abstract

This paper presents an acoustic study of Mundabli tones from original fieldwork data, specifically focusing on interactions of onset consonant type (voiceless obstruents, voiced obstruents, and sonorants) and f0 level and trajectory of tones. Our results reveal that voiceless obstruents condition an abrupt rise in f0 at vowel onset, while voiced obstruents and sonorants maintain similar, relatively steady f0 levels, providing evidence for an account of onset-f0 interaction in which only voiceless consonants condition f0 raising. In addition, we note that Mundabli's dense tonal inventory does not appear to constrain these interactions, as might be expected under accounts of speech production that relate within-category variation to the density of contrast in an inventory.