Tone
Many dialects of Limburgish (and of Ripuarian) have a pitch accent, having two different accents used in stressed syllables. The difference between these two accents is used for differentiating both various grammatical forms of a single lexeme and minimal tone pairs one from the other. With specific regards to Limburgish, these two accents are traditionally known as sjtoettoen ("push tone") and sjleiptoen ("dragging tone"). The dragging tone is lexical while the push tone is not. For example, daa~g with a dragging tone means "a day" in Limburgish, while in many Limburgish dialects daa\g with a push tone is the plural form, "days" (in addition, can also be articulated in a neutral tone as a third possibility. In this case, it means "be good").
This difference is grammatical, but not lexical. An example of a lexical difference caused by dragging tone is the word bie\ which is articulated with a push tone and means "bee", forming a tonal minimal pair with bie~, which is articulated with a dragging tone and means "at".
Read more about this topic: Limburgish Language
Famous quotes containing the word tone:
“Genius resembles a bell; in order to ring it must be suspended into pure air, and when a foreign body touches it, its joyful tone is silenced.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“We often contradict an opinion when it is actually only the tone with which it was put forward that is uncongenial to us.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“He doesn’t know a damn thing about China ... That’s what makes him an expert. He knows nothing about music, being tone deaf. That’s what makes him a musician ... And he’s batty in the head. That’s what makes him a philosopher.”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)