Much theoretical work has been done on the tonal structure of languages in the Bantu family. However, most of these studies are not supported by physical measurements, or even a consistent model for mapping from linguistic constructs to such measurements. As a first step towards addressing this deficiency, we report on initial measurements regarding the relationship between fundamental frequency and linguistic tone in isiZulu. After choosing a suitable algorithm for pitch extraction, we have correlated a number of linguistically assigned tone values with measured values for fundamental frequency. These measurements indicate a fairly complex relationship between tone and pitch, and suggest that the commonly observed 'falling' tone in isiZulu may be a context-specific realization of the high tone.
Reference:
Govender, N., Barnard, E. and Davel, M.H. 2005. Fundamental frequency and tone in isiZulu: initial experiments. INTERSPEECH 2005, Lisbon, Portugal, September 4-8 2005
Govender, N., Barnard, E., & Davel, M. (2005). Fundamental frequency and tone in isiZulu: initial experiments. Interspeech 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5514
Govender, Nicolin, E Barnard, and MH Davel. "Fundamental frequency and tone in isiZulu: initial experiments." (2005): http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5514
Govender N, Barnard E, Davel M, Fundamental frequency and tone in isiZulu: initial experiments; Interspeech 2005; 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/5514 .
