Phonetic implementation of phonologically different high tone plateaus in Luganda
Abstract
Work on incomplete neutralization in the phonetic implementation of phonological processes is under active investigation with segments, but with much less progress on tones. In Luganda, underlyingly different phonological representations of tones can result in the same surface string. The Autosegmental Metrical Theory emphasizes tonal targets and turning points, so there has been little work on the phonetic implementation of the transition between targets. While the phonology of tonal processes in Bantu languages has been the focus of active research, less is known about their phonetic implementation. Investigating the phonetic implementation of Luganda tone spans has the potential to shed light on assumptions about the representation of phonological processes and augment the literature on incomplete neutralization. We re-analyze data from a controlled Luganda production experiment from Myers et al. 2018 (henceforth M18) using Functional Principal Components Analysis (FPCA). While the focus in M18 was on the timing and scaling of F0 targets at the onset and offset of the high tone spans, FPCA allowed us to compare F0 contour shape components over the high tone spans from different phonological sources, revealing differences in their phonetic implementation. (first paragraph of abstract)
