Qohenje Tones
The use of tone in Qohenje is restricted to one syllable — the aspect syllable — in every lexeme. The two tonemes are employed to help distinguish lexical aspects. Each of these two tonemes has three allotones (variants).
- Live:
the allotone is a long contour in...
- all syllables containing a diphthong;
- syllables ending in a pure vowel ("open");
- syllables ending in a sustainable consonant (ḃ, ṁ, b, m, d, n, g, ŋ, l, r) .
- Dead: the allotone is a short absolute pitch in syllables containing a pure vowel and ending in a non-sustainable consonant.
- Broken: the allotone is a succession of two short absolute pitch tones in all syllables containing a broken vowel.
Furthermore, in "live" syllables the toned vowels are notably longer than their untoned correlates (mé = [mé::] ). This length distinction is part of the toneme, and is not marked overtly in the transcription. The toneme is marked in the native spelling transcription, while the IPA transcriptions show the allotones, as indicated below.
High-falling tone
Written with a circumflex accent: mê, jâk.
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LIVE — this tone begins high and drops sharply.
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DEAD — a short high even tone (writen with an acute accent in IPA transcription)
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BROKEN — a short high tone followed by a short mid/low tone (separated by a glottal stop). In IPA this sequence is written with an acute on the first element, and a grave on the second.
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Low-rising tone
Written with a "hacek":mě, jǎk.
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LIVE — begins low and rises sharply
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DEAD — a short low even tone. IPA shows a grave accent.
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BROKEN — a short low tone followed by a short mid/high tone (separated by a glottal stop). IPA shows a grave on the initial element and an acute on the second.
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Untoned (neutral tone) syllables
Toneless syllables tend to follow the trajectory of any preceding aspectual syllable, defining an unmarked contour for a phrase that is entirely determined by the aspects of its lexemes. For example, the phrase, (I came across a snake, chased it down, killed it and ate it) would have an unmarked intonation pattern like,
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while (The boy and I were fighting together) would be more like
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