Characteristics of Omotic tone Shinasha Borna

Abstract

The article provides some phonological background and outlines the tonal system of Shinasha (Borna), an isolated North Omotic language of Ethiopia. There are two contrasting tones. Their behaviour shows characteristics which have also been observed for other Omotic languages: stability of lexical tone, limited use of tone in the syntax, and absence of sandhi. The article provides new evidence that vowel quality can have a strong influence on the tonetic realisation: Shinasha is not the only Omotic language where high vowel quality is associated with extra high pitch.

Keywords

• tone
• Shinasha
• Omotic
• lexical tone
• pitch