English

Noun

tonology ‎(countable and uncountable, plural tonologies)

1. (linguistics, uncountable) The study of tone in human languages.
   • 2004, Larry M. Hyman; Knut J. Olawsky, “Dagbani Verb Tonology”, in Chege Githiora, Heather Littlefield, and Victor Manfredi, editors, Kinyĩra Njĩra! – Step Firmly on the Pathway (Trends in African Linguistics; 6), Trenton, N.J.; Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, ISBN 978-1-59221-200-2, page 97:

     In practice, the deciphering of complex verbal tonology is done in reverse: to arrive at the lexical and morphological tones, one typically has to factor out the postlexical tone rules. Since nominal tonology is usually more transparent, it can be used as a guide to unravel the tonology of verbs.

2. (linguistics, countable) The system of rules governing tones in a particular language.
   • 1987, Alfons Weidert, “Introductory Remarks”, in Tibeto-Burman Tonology: A Comparative Account (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science. Series IV, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory; 54), Amsterdam; Philadelphia, Pa.: John Benjamins Publishing Company, ISBN 978-90-272-3548-0, page 5:

     Anomalies such as those found in the comparative tonology of these three language divisions indicate antecedent morphological or morphosyntactic features that would otherwise have gone unnoticed by the historical analyst.

   • 1992, Farida Cassimjee, “Introduction”, in Jorge Hankamer, editor, An Autosegmental Analysis of Venda Tonology (Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics), New York, N.Y.; London: Garland Publishing, Inc., ISBN 978-0-8153-0706-8, page 3:

     This thesis represents a beginning rather than an ending. Specifically, it is an attempt to explore the tonology of Venda (more correctly, Tshiveṉdá), a Bantu language spoken in the Zoutpansberg district of the Northern Transvaal in South Africa as well as in parts of Zimbabwe.

   • 2005, Phil Harrison, “Tone and Dependency in Yorùbá”, in Philip Carr, Jacques Durand, and Colin J. Ewen, editors, Headhood, Elements, Specification and Contrastivity: Phonological Papers in Honour of John Anderson (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science. Series IV, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory; 259), Amsterdam; Philadelphia, Pa.: John Benjamins Publishing Company, ISBN 978-90-272-4773-5, page 158:

     In the introduction to this paper, it was stated that the asymmetric tonology of Yorùbá in no way marked the language out as unique. To help set the language in a wider context, some aspects of the tonology of two related languages are now described. One of these, like Yorùbá, has three surface tone heights, while the other has four. It is shown that the tonologies of these languages are also consistent with the hypothesis that 'Low Tone', in West Africa, is not [L].

   • 2006, Pia Bergmann, “Regional Variation in Intonation: Nuclear Rising-Falling Contours in Cologne German”, in Frans Hinskens, editor, Language Variation – European Perspectives: Selected Papers from the Third International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE 3), Amsterdam, June 2005, Amsterdam; Philadelphia, Pa.: John Benjamins Publishing Company, ISBN 978-90-272-3481-0, page 25:

     The present study aims to characterise the Colognian rise-fall with respect to its tonology as well as its conversational functions.

Derived terms

• tonological
• tonologically
• tonologist

See also

• phonology