{"id":612,"date":"2026-06-16T16:10:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T20:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=612"},"modified":"2026-06-16T16:10:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T20:10:30","slug":"low-tone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/?p=612","title":{"rendered":"low tone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[low tone] \/ [low pitch]<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n

Counterpart<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

[non low tone] [non low pitch]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

Feature System<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

SPE Features<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Definition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The feature [low tone] refers to a sound segment whose pitch is lowered such that it meaningfully contrasts the speaker\u2019s base pitch and surrounding acoustic and syllabic context.\u00a0 This is produced through lowering the rate of vibrations of the vocal cords through allowing for fewer contractions of the larynx (Goldsmith 1976).\u00a0 Importantly, this is a diacritic feature referring to pitch, which can distinguish lexical meanings from one another and patterns with systematical phonotactic restrictions in the world\u2019s languages.\u00a0 The feature [low] does not describe sentence prosody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For [low] as a vowel feature, see [low<\/a>].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purpose<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Chinese famously has a five-part minimal set differing only in tone.\u00a0 Inflected with different tones (i.e., [high], [elevated] or [rising], [concave], and [falling]) \/ma\/ can become \u2018mother,\u2019 \u2018hemp,\u2019 \u2018horse,\u2019 or \u2018scold.\u2019\u00a0 \u2018Mother\u2019 is [+high], while \u2018hemp\u2019 and \u2018horse\u2019 vary in pitch.\u00a0 \u2018Hemp\u2019 starts as [+high] but becomes [+low], meaning it is overall [falling], while \u2018horse\u2019 starts [+high], becomes [+low], and then raises again to [+high], making it [concave].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kuki-Thaadow has rules of both H- and L-spreading (Hyman 2010). For example, \/k\u00e0 z\u00f3o\u014b \u0261\u00f9up\/ (L-H-L) \u279d [k\u00e0 z\u00f3o\u014b \u0261\u00fbup] (L-L-HL) \u2018my six monkees\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cognominally, [low] can refer to a distinctive feature regarding phones produced with a lowering of the tongue body below the level that it maintains in the neutral position, which is raised and fronted.  William Yang was among the first to introduce [low] in reference to pitch and discuss it as a tonal feature acting as part of a greater system of distinctive features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the preface of Sound Patterns of English<\/em>, Chomsky and Halle (1968) \u201comitted pitch from consideration because [they] have nothing to add to the study of phonetics of intonation and phonological theory as [they] so far understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goldsmith argued that tones such as [high] and [low], also sometimes represented as H or L, should be represented on a separate tonal tier that can associate with, spread across, or detach from syllables independently. Duanmu (1999) described that tones inhibit different units of oral language in different languages; for example, the primary unit of tone in Mandarin is the syllable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Chomsky, Noam, and Morris Halle. 1968. The sound pattern of English<\/em>. New York: Harper and Row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duanmu, San. 1999. Metrical structure and tone: Evidence from Mandarin and Shanghai. Journal of East Asian Linguistics<\/em> 8(1). 1\u201338. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1023\/A:1008353028173<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hyman, Larry M. 2010. Kuki-Thaadow: An African tone system in Southeast Asia. Essais de typologie et de linguistique g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/em>, ed. by Franck Floricic, 31-51. Lyon: Presses de l\u2019\u00c9cole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wang, William S.-Y. 1967. Phonological features of tone. International Journal of American Linguistics<\/em> 33(2).93\u2013105. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1086\/464946<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further Reading<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hyman, Larry M. 2011. The representation of tone. The Blackwell Companion to Phonology, vol. 2: Suprasegmental and prosodic phonology<\/em>, ed. by Marc van Oostendorp; Colin J. Ewen; Elizabeth Hume; and Keren Rice, 1078-1102. Malden, MA: Blackwell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Allon Boettcher<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[low tone] \/ [low pitch] Counterpart [non low tone] [non low pitch] Feature System SPE Features Definition The feature [low […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"disabled","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomsofsound.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}