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Tone assignment in Hong Kong English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Lian-Hee Wee
Lian-Hee Wee*
Affiliation:
Hong Kong Baptist University
*
Department of English Language and Literature, Hong Kong Baptist University, Waterloo Road, Kowloon Tong, KL Hong Kong SAR, China [lianhee@hkbu.edu.hk]
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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.

Keywords

toneboundaryintonationHong KongEnglish

Information

Type
Phonological Analysis
Information
Language , Volume 92 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. e67 - e87
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Linguistic Society of America

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