The Study of tone and related phenomena in an Amazonian tone language: Gavião of Rondônia

Moore, Denny; Meyer, Julien

The Study of tone and related phenomena in an Amazonian tone language: Gavião of Rondônia

dc.contributor.author	Moore, Denny
dc.contributor.author	Meyer, Julien
dc.date.accessioned	2014-11-10T18:52:59Z
dc.date.available	2014-11-10T18:52:59Z
dc.date.issued	2014-12
dc.description.abstract	This paper describes the methods used to study the tone and some related phenomena of the language of the Gavião of Rondônia, Brazil, which is part of the Mondé branch of the Tupi family. Whistling of words by indigenous informants was discovered to be a very effective method for obtaining phonetic accuracy in tone and length. Methods were devised to map out the system of tone and length. They were subsequently used in the study of other Amazonian languages, including Karitiana, Munduruku, Zoró, and Surui of Rondônia, with success. Some notes on tone considerations in orthography are offered, as well as notes on procedures that proved useful in the diachronic study of tone in the Mondé languages. Methods for the study of natural whistled speech used for distance communication are also described, with special attention to the whistled speech of the Gavião, including its use, its efficiency, and the whistling techniques used. The relation between some aspects of Gavião instrumental music and the suprasegmental aspects of the language are also discussed and the methods used to study this are described. Audio and video clips illustrate the phenomena being discussed. *This paper is in the series How to Study a Tone Language, edited by Steven Bird and Larry Hyman
dc.description.sponsorship	National Foreign Language Resource Center
dc.identifier.citation	Moore, Denny and Julien Meyer. 2014. The Study of tone and related phenomena in an Amazonian tone language: Gavião of Rondônia. Language Documentation & Conservation 8: 613—636
dc.identifier.isbn	978-0-9856211-2-4
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24618
dc.publisher	University of Hawai'i Press
dc.relation.ispartofseries	LD&C Special Publication
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License
dc.title	The Study of tone and related phenomena in an Amazonian tone language: Gavião of Rondônia
dcterms.requires	As Flashplayer no longer works, each audio file is provided here for download
prism.endingpage	636
prism.publicationname	Language Documentation & Conservation
prism.startingpage	613
prism.volume	8