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Hoyloy is a tone language. Each syllable in a word is pronounced with a distinct tone. Correct tones are as significant as correct sounds in making up right words. Besides most monosyllabic words demanding different tones for different meanings, there are plenty of polysyllabic words that have different meanings simply because of different tones. In addition, appropriate employment of tonal bondage plays a vital part for yielding the proper meaning of an expression.
All human utterances--verbal, musical or incidental--bear tones with various senses. So it is true that all languages use tones. The key point here is that they play different roles in different languages. Tones are used in Englsh as continuous ingrediants of intonation. But in Hoyloy they are consecutive elements each forming an integral part of each syllable in a word. Tones used in Hoyloy are thus named as syllabic tones.
Tone Patterns
Hoyloy as spoken in Taiwan employs six syllabic tone patterns. To identify each of these tone patterns, reckoning is required of the three pitch levels: high, middle and low. When the pitch is maintained more or less evenly throughout a tone pattern, the tone is said to be leveled. When the pitch falls, rises or swings, the tone is said to be contoured. Three of the six tone patterns are leveled and the remaining three are contoured.
The leveled tone pattern of the high pitch level transcribed with the symbol of [=] (equal sign) is named as plateau. The other two leveled tone patterns with the transcriptive symbols of [-] (hyphen) for that of the middle pitch level and [_] (underscore)* for that of the low pitch level are named as plain and flat respectively.
*It is not recommended to have a transcription underscored. If it has to be, convert any underscores inside to spaces and any spaces to underscores.
The contoured tone pattern that falls from the high pitch level is transcribed with the symbol of ["] (double quote) and named as acute and the pattern that falls from the middle pitch level is transcribed with the symbol of ['] (single quote) and named as grave. The contoured pattern that has a rising pitch after a short fall from the middle pitch level is named as crescent and transcribed with the symbol of [+] (plus).
When the duration of any tone pattern is extended for exaggeration, such extention is denoted in transcription with a [:] (colon) placed next to the symbol of the tone pattern.
The acute pattern is similar to the primary stress for accentuation of English words and the grave pattern to the secondary stress, except that the increased loudness at the start of a primary stress for English does'nt usually accompay the high pitch in the acute for Hoyloy. Besides, the acute and the grave in Hoyloy are normally maintained with equal loudness while in English the primary stress is far more prominant in loudness than the secondary stress. The crescent pattern is similar to the ascending tone in Englsih for a yes/no question, but loudness again is not normally raised in company with the rising pitch.
Checked and Unchecked Types of Tone
The pattern of a tone as described above is varied when the syllable closes with a stop which cuts off the tone abruptly. A tone pattern of this type is called a checked tone in contrast to an unchecked type of tone which phases out uninterrupted. Specifically, unchecked tones are borne by syllables ending with a vowel or nasal consonant, while checked tones are borne by syllables ending with a stop; namely, [p], [t], [k] or [Q]. (All indigeneou Hoyloy words take not any other consonant to end a syllable with.) It is an essential feature of the Hoyloy sound system for checked tones to be phonologically distinguished from unchecked tones syllables*.
*See Nominal Tones in the Appendix.
Tonal Bondage
Both word formation and syntax in Hoyloy make use of tonal bondage by adoption of linking tones or through rolling-off with enclitic tones*.
*The term comes from the work by Rev. Carstairs Douglas 1873: Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy, p611, Appendix V. Enclitics.
For the first type of tonal bondage, when two or more morphemes or words are combined to form a word, compound, phrase or clause, the preceding one replaces the tone of its last syllable with a correspondent tone. Such a correspondent tone is called a linking tone while the original tone is called a basic tone. (The details of correspondance between basic tones and linking tones are charted in the Table of Nominal Tones in the Appendix.) Conforming to this rule, all syllables of a polysyllabic word or morpheme except the last one bear linking tones.
Since any of the tone patterns, except for the flat which is exclusively used as a linking tone, may serve for either basic or linking tone*, to denote a pattern for basic tone inside a transcription a space or a vertical bar is placed right after the symbol of tone pattern -- take note, however, a space may also be used to indicate a deferred bondage. The vertical bar also serves as a signal for submission of the following syllable or syllables to enclitic tones as will be explained next.
*A pattern serving for a linking tone is not exactly the same as for a basic tone though both are named identically. If you listen carefully you will feel a pattern used as a basic tone sounding more vigorouly than as a linking tone. Also quite often linking tones are subject to co-aticulation with bordering tones.
As regards rolling-off with enclitic tones, the format is made of a heavy syllable followed by one or more light syllables. In such a format, contrary to adoption of a linking tone, the preceding word or morpheme upkeeps the basic tone of its last syllable, called the header, with more or less increased loudness and solidity while submitting all tones of the following words or morphemes to the weakened tone patterns of either grave or plain. Inside a transcription, a vertical bar placed right after the header* in a rolling-off format indicates the submission of following syllables to enclitic tones. Inside a transcription the end of a rolling-off format is marked with a space.
*No space is necessary in front or rear of a vertical bar because of the basic tone being obligatory to be followed by enclitic tones.
Where a transcription breaks for a new line , a hash mark (#) must be used if a space is intended.
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