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Free Content The Inventory of Nuclear Tones in Connemara Irish

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The paper is an attempt at establishing an exhaustive inventory of nuclear tones in the western variety of Irish, called Connemara Irish. For this purpose O'Connor and Arnold's (1973) model of analysis is adopted with minor modifications, such as the incorporation of vowel length into other existing criteria. The use of O'Connor and Arnold's model of description made it possible to arrive at the inventory of eleven tones some of which bear resemblance to the tones recorded in English, i.e.the high-rise, the low-rise, the high-fall, the low-fall and the mid-level; some other tones differ in pitch configurations from their English counterparts, i.e.the simple fall-rise, the simple rise-fall, the complex fall-rise and the complex rise-fall; and there are two tones which are characteristic exclusively of Connemara Irish, i.e.the flatfall and the flat-rise. The paper does not aim at a semantic analysis of particular tones and the only contextual effects that are taken into account are presence or absence of emotion. These effects combined with the tendency for Irish long vowels to be raised in pitch are responsible for the occurrence of the simple fall-rise and the simple rise-fall in this dialect.

Document Type: Research Article

Publication date: 01 January 2004

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  • The Journal of Celtic Linguistics publishes articles and reviews on all aspects of the linguistics of the Celtic languages, modern, medieval and ancient, with particular emphasis on synchronic studies, while not excluding diachronic and comparative-historical work. This journal is of great interest to students of languages and Celtic studies, as well as members of the general public interested in the linguistic progression within Celtic languages and linguistic history. The editor is Lecturer in the Welsh Department at Aberystwyth University, and is supported by an editorial board including representatives from Oxford and Cambridge universities, and from universities across Europe and North America. Papers are invited in English, French or German on all fields/‘levels’ of analysis; phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics; formal or functional, cross-language typological or language-internal, dialectological or sociolinguistic, any theoretical paradigm.

    Mae’r Journal of Celtic Linguistics yn cynnwys erthyglau ac adolygiadau ar bob agwedd ar ieithoedd Celtaidd - modern, canoloesol a hynafol - gyda phwyslais arbennig ar astudiaethau syncronig, a heb eithrio gwaith diacronig a hanesyddol-gymharol. Y mae’r cyfnodolyn hwn yn ddefnyddiol i fyfyrwyr sydd yn astudio ieithoedd ac astudiaethau Celtaidd, yn ogystal â darllenwyr sy’n ymddiddori yn hanes datblygiadau’r ieithoedd Celtaidd. Mae’r golygydd yn Ddarlithydd yn Adran y Gymraeg, Prifysgol Aberystwyth, ac yn cydweithio â’r bwrdd golygyddol sydd â chynrychiolaeth o brifysgolion Rhydychen, Caergrawnt, ac o brifysgolion ledled Ewrop a Gogledd America.

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