Glossary of Linguistic Terms

Grammatical Tone

Definition: 

Grammatical tone is the distinctive pitch level which marks contrasts in grammatical features such as tense, aspect, and case.

Discussion: 

In many African languages, tone has a much heavier functional load in the grammar than in the lexicon. In most tone languages, tone functions in the verb system to mark certain verb tenses or aspects only by tone.

Examples: 

(Ngiti, Central-Sudanic, Zaire)

Note: Tone is marked as follows:

  • The acute accent |á| means high tone
  • The grave accent |à| means low tone
  • The unmarked |a| means mid tone
  • The wedge |ǎ| means rising tone

These are examples of grammatical tone in the verb system:

  • ma màkpěnà ‘I whistled’ (recent past)
  • ma mákpěná ‘I whistled’ (intermediate past)
  • ma makpéna ‘I will whistle’ (near future)
  • ma makpénà ‘I used to whistle’ (past habitual)
  • ma mùbhi ‘I walk’ (present perfective)
  • ma mubhi ‘I walked’ (distant past)
  • ma mubhi ‘I walked’ (narrative past)

(Mahi, Bantu, Zaire)

Note: Tone is marked as follows:

  • The acute accent |á| means high tone
  • The unmarked |a| means low tone

These are examples of grammatical tone in the narrative past and future: Low and high tone on the subject prefix:

  • nagánja ‘I counted’
  • nágánja ‘I will count’

These are examples of grammatical tone in the recent past and distant past: Low and high tone on the subject prefix:

  • rhwalángaga ‘we kept (it) well’ (recent past)
  • rhwálángaga ‘we had kept (it) well’ (distant past)

(Rendille, Cushitic, Kenya)

Note: Tone is marked as follows:

  • The acute accent |á| means high tone
  • The unmarked |a| means low tone

These are examples where tone distinguishes between subject and object case:

  • ínam ‘boy’ (isolation, object case)
  • inam ‘boy’ (subject case)
  • inám ‘girl’ (isolation, object case)
  • iname ‘girl’ (subject case)
  • iname ínam á agarte ‘the girl (subject) saw the boy (object)’
  • inam inám á arge ‘the boy (subject) saw the girl (object)’
See Also: 

Glossary Hierarchy