Lionnet (2025): Tonal Languages Without Tone #
@cite{lionnet-2025}
Tonal languages without tone: downstep in Drubea and Numèè (Oceanic, New Caledonia). Phonology 42, e23, 1–43.
Key claims formalized #
The word-prosodic system of Drubea and Numèè consists entirely of register features — underlying downstep (
l) and postlexical upstep (h) — with no tone features.The register-bearing unit (RBU) is the mora, not the syllable, evidenced by the CV⁺V three-way contrast.
Culminativity: each native stem contains at most one downstep.
Drubea/Numèè downstep satisfies the core definitional properties of downstep cross-linguistically (@cite{leben-2018}).
Tonal systems split into tone-based (paradigmatic) and register-based (syntagmatic), enriching @cite{hyman-2006}'s word-prosodic typology.
The register analysis is more parsimonious than the tonal alternative: 1 underlying primitive + 1 postlexical process vs. 3 + 2 (@cite{lionnet-2025} §5).
Every monosyllabic minimal pair shares the same segmental form.
The contrast is purely prosodic — the register feature l is
the only difference between the two members of each pair
(@cite{lionnet-2025}: ex. 4).
The contrast in each minimal pair IS the register specification: one member is registerless, the other is σ1-downstepped.
Every stem in the Drubea fragment satisfies culminativity:
at most one l feature per stem (@cite{lionnet-2025} §3.10).
Culminativity holds structurally for all three patterns at any
mora count: each pattern places at most one l.
The three register patterns produce distinct mora-level specifications on bimoraic stems, confirming the mora as the RBU (@cite{lionnet-2025} §3.7, §4.2).
CVV registerless: both morae unspecified [∅, ∅].
⁺CVV: downstep on first mora [l, ∅].
CV⁺V: downstep on second mora [∅, l].
With only 1 mora (monomoraic CV), only two patterns are distinct:
registerless and σ1-downstepped. The σ2 pattern collapses to
registerless (no second mora to host the l).
Four consecutive downstepped monosyllables produce terracing: each is realized one step lower than the preceding (cf. ex. 11: /⁺ɲi ⁺mwa ⁺ŋii ⁺me/ 'They said that…'; ex. 12: /⁺mwa ⁺ŋii ⁺yoo ⁺ne/ in Figure 7).
Registerless syllables following a downstep maintain the lowered register — they are realized at the same pitch as the downstepped syllable (cf. ex. 7–8, Figures 3–4).
A mixed sequence of downstepped and registerless syllables: each downstep creates a new lower plateau (cf. ex. 15: /⁺ne-⁺boo-V ⁺ya yaa ⁺me a-⁺te/).
Abrupt h-epenthesis: insert h on the registerless RBU immediately
preceding a downstep (cf. ex. 13b; @cite{lionnet-2025} §3.2, §4.4).
After h-epenthesis, the raised RBU is realized above baseline, creating a sharper contrast with the following downstep (cf. Figure 8).
Spreading h-epenthesis: raising extends over the entire sequence of registerless syllables before a downstep (cf. ex. 16: /⁺tã ⁺mwa ne-re ma⁺a/; @cite{lionnet-2025} §3.2).
Registerless RBUs get h-epenthesis before a downstep;
downstepped RBUs do NOT — they are already l-bearing
(cf. ex. 32 vs 33; @cite{lionnet-2025} §4.5).
Utterance-initial downstep is not phonetically realized: there is no preceding register to contrast with (cf. ex. 30 vs 31; @cite{lionnet-2025} §3.5, §4.5).
The contrast between registerless and downstepped IS maintained when a downstepped syllable follows: the initial registerless syllable undergoes pre-downstep raising, the initial downstepped one does not (cf. ex. 32 vs 33; @cite{lionnet-2025} §3.5).
Drubea utterance-final raising: h% docks onto the final registerless syllable (cf. ex. 20: /⁺taa bee pwi +⁺%/; @cite{lionnet-2025} §3.3, §4.8).
Numèè utterance-final lowering: l% docks onto final light CV syllable after a registerless syllable (cf. ex. 24–25; @cite{lionnet-2025} §3.4, §4.8).
Boundary l% after a downstepped syllable: the final registerless syllable acquires a boundary downstep, producing two consecutive pitch drops (@cite{lionnet-2025} §3.4, §4.8).
Drubea/Numèè downstep satisfies all three core definitional properties of downstep (@cite{leben-2018}: 2; @cite{lionnet-2025} §6.1):
(a) affects the entire prosodic domain (not just one tone) (b) changes the register for what follows (c) cumulative: multiple downsteps stack
Equations
- One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.
Instances For
The register analysis of Drubea/Numèè (@cite{lionnet-2025} §4):
1 underlying primitive (the l feature) and
1 postlexical process (h-epenthesis).
Equations
- Phenomena.Tone.Studies.Lionnet2025.registerAnalysis = { underlyingPrimitives := 1, postlexicalProcesses := 1 }
Instances For
The competing tonal analysis (@cite{lionnet-2025} §5): 3 representational primitives (underlying L + epenthetic H + epenthetic downstep ⁺) and 2 postlexical processes (OCP-driven downstep insertion + H-spreading for pre-downstep raising).
Additionally, the tonal analysis suffers from a duplication problem (both L and downstep encode the same pitch drop) and a conspiracy problem (raising of H before L and of L before ⁺L are analysed as unrelated despite the same phonetic effect).
Equations
- Phenomena.Tone.Studies.Lionnet2025.tonalAnalysis = { underlyingPrimitives := 3, postlexicalProcesses := 2 }
Instances For
The register analysis is strictly more parsimonious.
Drubea is the first attested register-only word-prosodic system: tonal contrasts defined entirely syntagmatically, with no paradigmatic tone features (@cite{lionnet-2025} §6.2, Conclusion).
Drubea is +tone under @cite{hyman-2006}'s definition (3): pitch (via register features) enters into the lexical realization of morphemes. The minimal pairs in §1 demonstrate this directly.
Drubea enriches Hyman's typology: it is a tonal system (by def. 3) that is register-based rather than tone-based — a sub-distinction within Hyman's tone prototype that he did not draw.
Drubea is +T, −SA under @cite{hyman-2006}'s 2×2 typology (same quadrant as Yoruba).
Drubea satisfies register culminativity: every stem in the fragment
has at most one l feature. This is isCulminative from
RegisterTier, applied to all stems in §2.
This is NOT @cite{hyman-2006}'s stress culminativity (def. 5b),
which concerns primary stress per word. Drubea has no stress
accent system — OBLHEAD does not apply. The two uses of
"culminativity" are formally parallel but phonologically distinct
(see Hyman2006.CulminativityDomain).