Tone Types
Underlyingly, each syllable of every morpheme may be described as having one of two tone types: high (H ) and null (ø). On the surface, all remaining null tones default to low (the LTA rule below) and the language is therefore spoken with two contrasting tonemes (H and L).
A classic example of a nasal carrying a tone:
- To form a locative from a noun, one of the possible procedures involves simply suffixing a low tone -ng to the noun. To form the locative meaning "on the grass" one suffixes -ng to the word jwang‡ , giving jwanng‡ , with the two last syllabic nasals having contrasting tones.
Names, being nouns, frequently have a tonal pattern distinct from the noun:
- The Sesotho word for "mother/missus/ma'am" is mme‡ , but a child would call their own mother mme‡ , using it as a first name. Also, ntate‡ means father/mister/sir, while ntate‡ might be used by a small child to say "dad."
Read more about this topic: Sotho Tonology
Famous quotes containing the words tone and/or types:
“It makes me hate accepting things that are probable when they are held up before me as infallibly true. I prefer these words which tone down and modify the hastiness of our propositions: “Perhaps, In some sort, Some, They say, I think,” and the like.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“The wider the range of possibilities we offer children, the more intense will be their motivations and the richer their experiences. We must widen the range of topics and goals, the types of situations we offer and their degree of structure, the kinds and combinations of resources and materials, and the possible interactions with things, peers, and adults.”
—Loris Malaguzzi (1920–1994)