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The tone system of Poko-Rawo (Skou)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Laura McPherson and
Matthew S. Dryer
Laura McPherson*
Affiliation:
Program in Linguistics, Dartmouth College, 64 College St HB 6220, Hanover, NH 03755 USA
Matthew S. Dryer*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Buffalo, 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 USA
*
laura.e.mcpherson@dartmouth.edu
dryer@buffalo.edu
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Abstract

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This paper describes the tone system of Poko-Rawo, a Skou language spoken in northwestern Papua New Guinea. The system displays a number of points of interest to tonal typology, including: a distinction between underlying specified Mid tones and M tones filled in by default; a dispreference for single-toned melodies; a preference for rising tones rather than falling tones; and strict alignment of Low and High tones, with L always initial and H always final in a melody. These aligmnent principles extend to floating tones, as floating L is always to the left of a stem and floating H always to the right. We provide a detailed description of underlying melodies, postlexical processes, and phonetic realization of tone in Poko in an effort to bring more Papuan data to bear on questions of tonal typology.

Keywords

tonePapuanSkoutypology

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Phonological Data and Analysis , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , 2021, pp. 1 - 32
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 © 2021 Laura McPherson & Matthew S. Dryer.

Footnotes

*

We are grateful first and foremost to our primary Poko consultant, Didicus Mari, for sharing his patience and enthusiasm in sharing his language. We would also like to thank Lea Brown for her work on Poko and Guhui Zhang for her help in creating the phonetic tone plots. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under awards no. BCS-0004327, BCS-0756075, and BCS-1500751, and the Endangered Language Documentation Program under award no. MDP0038. The paper has benefitted greatly from the helpful comments and suggestions of three anonymous reviewers and the editor, Megan Crowhurst. All errors are our own.

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