Tone and Accent in Oklahoma Cherokee (Oxford Studies of Endangered Languages)

This book examines the tone and accent of Oklahoma Cherokee, in which six possible pitch patterns can occur on a syllable: low, high, low-high, high-low, lowfall, and superhigh. It provides a comprehensive description and analysis of these patterns, examining their distribution, their source, the principles that determine their positions, and the nature of tonal alternations. The tone and accent of Oklahoma Cherokee displays some typologically unusual features, such as the glottal stop as the historical source for both high and lowfall tones, the coexistence of tonal and accentual systems, the existence of multiple accentual systems, and the morphosyntactic use of accents. Studies on tones in general have focused mainly on analytical languages or languages with little morphology, but Cherokee is unique in that it is polysynthetic at the same time as tonal. The emergence of tones in Oklahoma Cherokee is recent and its source is easily traceable, but the language has already developed a complex tonal alignment and tonal phonology. Hiroto Uchihara's description of tone and accent in Oklahoma Cherokee will not only contribute to a deeper understanding of the sound system of Cherokee, but will also advance the historical study of Iroquoian languages as a whole, and the typological study of tonal and accentual systems more generally. The Cherokee language is the sole representative of the Southern Iroquian branch of the Iroquoian family. It is spoken by around 10, 000 speakers in north-eastern Oklahoma in Cherokee Nation, which consists of eight entire countries and parts of six more countries, and by approximately 1,000 speakers in western North Carolina, in Qualla Boundary in Swain and Jackson Counties, and in the Snowbird Community in Graham Country. Although Cherokee has more speakers that other Native American languages in the United States, it is not spoken by many tribal members under the age of 40 and is no longer being learnt by children as a home language, even in Cherokee Nation, where the rise of the Cherokee language has been considered to be more vigorous than in western North Carolina Contents 6 General Preface 13 Preface 15 List of Abbreviations 17 1 Introduction 20 2 Segmental inventory 53 3 Phonotactics and syllable structure 73 4 Overview of the tones and accents 104 5 Lowfall tone 120 6 Tonal phonology of H1 126 7 The source of H1 147 8 Historical source of H1 alignment 170 9 High tone on the final mora of the stem (H2) 188 10 Floating high tone from pre-pronominal prefixes (H3) 199 11 Superhigh accent 239 12 Typological properties of Cherokee tone and accent 271 Appendix A: On tonicity 290 Appendix B: Summary of phonological processes and constraints 304 References 308 Index 318 This Text Examines The Tone And Accent Of Oklahoma Cherokee, In Which 6 Possible Pitch Patterns Can Occur On A Syllable: Low, High, Low-high, High-low, Lowfall, And Superhigh. It Investigates The Distribution And Source Of These Patterns, The Principles That Determine Their Positions, And The Nature Of Tonal Alternations. Hiroto Uchihara. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 289-298) And Index. This book examines the tone and accent of Oklahoma Cherokee, in which 6 possible pitch patterns can occur on a syllable: low, high, low-high, high-low, lowfall, and superhigh. It investigates the distribution and source of these patterns, the principles that determine their positions, and the nature of tonal alternations.