Downstep is a phenomenon in
tone languages in which if two syllables have the same
tone
Tone may refer to:
Visual arts and color-related
* Tone (color theory), a mix of tint and shade, in painting and color theory
* Tone (color), the lightness or brightness (as well as darkness) of a color
* Toning (coin), color change in coins
* ...
(for example, both with a high tone or both with a low tone), the second syllable is lower in pitch than the first.
Two main kinds of downstep can be distinguished. The first, more usually called automatic downstep,
downdrift
In phonetics, downdrift (also known as ''automatic downstep'') is the cumulative lowering of pitch in the course of a sentence due to interactions among tones in a tonal language. Downdrift often occurs when the tones in successive syllables are ...
or catathesis, occurs when high and low tones come in the sequence H L (L) H; the second high tone tends to be lower than the first because of the intervening low-toned syllable. It is common in African languages, such as
Chichewa. It has also been argued that the same phenomenon is heard in English sentences, if these sentences are pronounced with a falling intonation, for example ''I
really be
lieve Ebe
nezer was a
dealer in mag
nesium'', or ''I bought
blueberries,
bayberries,
raspberries,
mulberries, and
brambleberries''.
Downstep proper, or non-automatic downstep, is another phenomenon found in many African languages, such as
Igbo (see for an overview of downstep in African languages). When two high tones are in succeeding syllables (thus in the sequence H H), and the second is lower than the first, there is said to be a downstep.
The symbol for the second kind of downstep in the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...
is a
superscript
A subscript or superscript is a character (such as a number or letter) that is set slightly below or above the normal line of type, respectively. It is usually smaller than the rest of the text. Subscripts appear at or below the baseline, wh ...
down arrow, (
↓). It is common to see instead a superscript
exclamation mark
The exclamation mark (also known as exclamation point in American English) is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or to show wikt:emphasis, emphasis. The exclamation mark often marks ...
(
!) because of typographic constraints, though technically that would mean an incompletely or lightly articulated
alveolar click
The alveolar or postalveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia. The tongue is more or less concave (depending on the language), and is pulled down rather than back as i ...
release.
It has been shown that in most, if not all, cases of downstep proper, the lowering of the second high tone occurs when an intervening low-toned syllable has dropped out. What was H (L) H has become HH. The missing low-toned syllable creates what is known as a '
floating tone
A floating tone is a morpheme or element of a morpheme that contains neither consonants nor vowels, but only tone. It cannot be pronounced by itself but affects the tones of neighboring morphemes.
An example occurs in Bambara, a Mande language ...
'. An example occurs in
Bambara, a language spoken in
Mali
Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...
. In Bambara, the
definite article
In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" ...
is a floating low tone. With a noun in isolation, it docks to the preceding vowel and turns a high tone into a falling tone:
However, when it occurs between two high tones, it downsteps the following tone:
See also
*
Upstep
In linguistics, upstep is a phonemic or phonetic upward shift of tone between the syllables or words of a tonal language. It is best known in the tonal languages of Sub-Saharan Africa. Upstep is a much rarer phenomenon than its counterpart, down ...
, which is less commonly phonemic.
References
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Downstep (Phonetics)
Phonetics
Phonology
Tone (linguistics)