Everything about Contour Linguistics totally explained
In
phonetics,
contour describes speech sounds which behave as single
segments, but which make an internal transition from one quality, place, or manner to another. These sounds may be
tones,
vowels, or
consonants.
Many
tone languages have
contour tones, which move from one level to another. For example,
Mandarin Chinese has four lexical tones. The high tone is level, without contour; the falling tone is a contour from high pitch to low; the rising tone a contour from mid pitch to high, and, when spoken in isolation, the low tone takes on a dipping contour, mid to low and then to high pitch. These are transcribed with series of either
diacritics or
tone letters, which with proper font support fuse into an iconic shape: [ma˨˩˦].
In the case of vowels, the word
diphthong is used instead of 'contour'. These are vowels that glide from one
place of articulation to another, as in English
boy and
bow. These are officially transcribed with a non-syllabic sign under one of the vowel letters: [bɔɪ̯], [baʊ̯], though when there's no chance of confusion, the diacritic is often left off for simplicity.
The most common contour consonants by far are the
affricates, such as English
ch and
j. These start out as one
manner, a
plosive, and release into a different manner, a
fricative, but behave as single consonants: [t͡ʃ], [d͡ʒ]. Other types of transition are attested in consonants, such as
prenasalized stops in many African languages and
nasal release in
Slavic languages, the
retroflex trill [ɽ͡r] of
Toda, the
trilled affricate [t̪͡ʙ̥] of
Wari’,
voicing contours [d͡tʰ], [ɡ͡k͡xʼ] in
ǃXóõ, and even
click-plosive contours (
airstream contours) in
Khoisan languages such as
Nǀuu, which start with a velaric airstream mechanism, and release with a pulmonic mechanism: [ǃ͡q], [ǂ͡χ].
| Transition in |
Example |
Where found |
| Tone | [ma˨˩˦] |
China, Southeast Asia, Liberia, Khoisan languages
|
| Vowel | diphthongs |
worldwide
|
| Consonants |
| Manner | affricates |
worldwide
|
| nasalization |
Africa, New Guinea, Slavic languages |
| trilled |
Wari, Toda |
| Voicing | [d͡tʰ] |
Khoisan languages
|
| Airstream | [ǃ͡q] |
Khoisan languages
|
Further Information
Get more info on 'Contour Linguistics'.
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