This paper investigates the word-prosodic system of the Curaçao dialect of Papiamentu. Curaçao Papiamentu has both lexically distinctive stress and, independently, a word-level tone contrast. On the basis of a detailed acoustic investigation of this tonal contrast, we propose a privative phonological interpretation of the tone contrast, similar to proposals for the Scandinavian word-accent systems (Riad 1998, to appear). As compared to previous treatments of Curaçao Papiamentu word prosody, our hypothesis makes crucial reference to intonation and to tonal underspecification. We also investigate the realisation of primary and secondary stress in Curaçao Papiamentu.

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This study investigates a contrast in tonal alignment that involves falling contours in Dinka. This contrast calls into question the assumption that tonal alignment cannot distinguish contour tones of the same shape within the syllable domain (e.g. Odden 1995). A qualitative description and a small-scale perception study are followed by a detailed production study. The results indicate that the main correlate of the contrast is indeed tonal alignment: the early-aligned fall sets in during the onset or early in the vowel; the late-aligned fall sets in well into the vowel. The production study also suggests that it is unlikely for more than two patterns of alignment in contour tones of the same shape to be accurately produced and perceived, given various phonetic limitations. The contrast is represented phonologically using a binary feature. This representation is adequate in an explanatory sense, in that the category boundary is in line with the quantal threshold hypothesized in House 1990. The results also corroborate the hypothesis of three-level vowel length in Dinka.*

This paper presents a descriptive analysis of tone in the Luanyjang variety of Dinka, a Nilotic language spoken in Southern Sudan. We show that LuanyjangDinka has four tonemes, High (H), Low (L), Rising (LH) and Falling (HL). We also describe how underlying tone sequences are often substantially modified in utterances by a number of context-sensitive phonological processes such as dissimilatory lowering of High tones. Given our standard autosegmental description, the phonological categories and processes we posit are broadly familiar from other African languages. However, our analysis requires a typologically less usual understanding of (1) the surface phonetic categories of tone -in particular, what we call "Low" toneme is realized under some conditions as a fairly steep fall; and (2) the relation between the tonal phonology and the quantity system -in particular, we show that each morpheme is underlyingly associated with one and only one toneme, regardless of vowel length. We 1. We are very grateful to our colleague and reference speaker Caguor Adong Manyang. The exploratory sessions with him led us to our initial hypotheses, and he assisted with data collection in Khartoum. In addition, he provided some of the background information on Luanyjang summarised in Section 1.2. We thank our speakers, in particular Caguor and the other three main speakers: Acuil Malou Choth, Gum Dak Mabior, and Makol Jongkuc Athian. We are indebted to the Institute of African and Asian Studies (University of Khartoum), and in particular to its director, Prof. Al-Amin Abu-Manga, for hospitality at his institute. two anonymous reviewers provided valuable feedback. We gratefully acknowledge their input.