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Tone and downstep in Paicî (Oceanic, New Caledonia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Florian Lionnet*
Affiliation:
Program in Linguistics, Princeton University, 1-S-19 Green Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA
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Abstract

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In this paper, I propose an updated analysis of the tone system of Paicî, one of the rare tonal Oceanic languages. Building on Jean-Claude Rivierre's (1974) work, I show that the tonal system of Paicî is best described with three underlying primitives: a High tone, a Low tone, and a downstep /↓/ analyzed as a register feature independent of tone. Paicî is particularly interesting for the empirical documentation as well as the typological and theoretical understanding of downstep, because it combines many rare properties: (i) only downstepped ↓L is attested; (ii) downstep is incompatible with H tones within the prosodic word (*↓H, *H…↓L); (iii) it is realized utterance-initially; (iv) it has accentual properties, and very likely derives from a former accentual system. The paper also provides an acoustic description of tone and downstep in Paicî, an important step toward filling a serious gap in the documentation of downstepped ↓L tones and their properties.

Information

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
Published by the Linguistic Society of America with permission of the authors under a CC BY 3.0 license.
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 Florian Lionnet
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