Abstract
This article provides an argument for Hong Kong English being a tonal language and informs the growing literature on word- and phrase-level prosody interactions. By teasing apart tonal effects that come from intonation and those that come from the word boundary, a clear picture emerges that H tones are assigned in all combinations to HKE di- and trisyllabic words. Tone spreading and blocking across words can also be seen in HKE, but syllables lexically specified for H never give up their tones. Complexity in HKE tone patterns arises when the H tones interact with boundary tones, such as the declarative final L% and the word-initial M.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | e67-e87 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Language |
| Volume | 92 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2016 |
Scopus Subject Areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language
User-Defined Keywords
- Boundary
- English
- Hong Kong
- Intonation
- Tone