The phonetics and phonology of word stress and tone in the Dharamshala variety of Tibetan

Abstract

This study focuses on the word stress and tone patterns of the Dharamshala Tibetan (DT), a variety of Tibetan spoken by the Tibetans in exile community in Dharamshala, India. Tone and stress have been studies from the points of view of both phonetics and phonology. Tibetan belongs to the Bodish subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman group of languages. The language is widely spoken in Tibet, China, Nepal, parts of India, and among the Tibetan diaspora throughout the world. The Tibetan language can be broadly divided into three regional divisions, namely, the central or the Lhasa dialect group, the Kham dialect group, and the Amdo dialect group. The standard variety of Tibetan is based on the variety spoken in central Tibet, in and around Lhasa. The origin of Tibetan speakers in India can be traced to the three aforementioned geographical and dialectal regions of Tibet. Most of their ancestors left Tibet and went to India in the decades following 1959, after China’s military annexation of Tibet. The three main Tibetan dialect groups are not always mutually intelligible. In order to cater to the need for a standard variety and a common medium of communication, the native speakers of Tibetan in Dharamshala have created a relatively composite variety of Lhasa Tibetan (LT), which has both phonological and morphological influences from the other two dialectal groups. Naturally, DT can be regarded as a composite language variety. In this situation, the present work examines the status of tone and stress through the exploration of different acoustic correlates. Two production experiments have been conducted. The acoustic observables considered in this study include the fundamental frequency (f0) (height and direction), duration, and intensity. A one-way repeated measures ANOVA followed by a generalized linear regression modeling (GLM) and estimated marginal means (EMMs) confirmed a three-way tonal contrast viz., high (HT), mid (MT), and low (LT) in this variety. A one way ANOVA is conducted to examine the acoustic correlates of stress. More than 90% of stimuli have the left headed stress pattern with left to right directionality and weight insensitivity. Only two words are found with right headed stress. A few monosyllabic words with heavy syllables are also found. The current study also focuses on the phonology of stress and tone in DT. Optimality theory (OT), a constraint-based framework has been used as the theoretical framework. The current work also aims to provide a systematic theorisation of DT word stress in terms of theuniversal parameters like culminativity, location of the head, direction, and quantity sensitivity. A phonological exploration of DT tone sandhi is also included. The majority of the DT words are left-headed, maintains a left to right directionality, and consists of light syllables. Degenerate foot is accepted. Right headed feetin DT are quantity insensitive. A small set of monosyllabic DT words are also found, which are stressed by default. Qualitative values of the citation tones may go up or down in the impact of the tone preceding it. Dharamshala Tibetan contains three level tones, H, M and L. A few DT compound words have been listed for analysing their tonal behaviour. Simultaneously, the tonal behaviour of the individual words which are the building blocks of the aforementioned compound words and phrases is also studied. DT has two types of tonal behaviour when two or more tones congregate. Firstly, a left to right oriented change in terms of tone sandhi might occur, where the qualitative values of the citation tones change. The category of tone may go up or down in the impact of the tone preceding it. Secondly, the leftmost tone does not change but can cause change in tone category. Stress and tone in DT is also examined in the context of reduplication. The placement of the stress in DT reduplication depends on the number of syllables the base carries. In case of a base with a single syllable, the stress would be on the base, and the reduplicant would lack the stress. In case of a bisyllabic base, the whole stress pattern would be copied in the reduplicant. In case of tonal reduplication of the instances with monosyllabic base, the suffixal reduplicant undergoes a change in tone in DT. For instances with bisyllabic bases, the reduplicant can copy the tone pattern of the base. In certain cases, the H tones in the RED might undergo downstepping. Maintaining TETU is the main goal in DT regarding stress and tone reduplication, rather than complete copying.