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The transcription of tone in the IPA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Ian Maddieson
Ian Maddieson
Affiliation:
Phonetics Laboratory, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1543, USA
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Extract

Prior to the 1989 convention in Kiel the principal symbols for tones recommended by the IPA were a set of “horizontal and oblique accents” which were intended ‘by their shapes and positions” to “give some indication of their musical values” (quotations are from Principles of the IPA 1949, p. 18.). Thus, level tones were to be indicated by horizontal bars, rising tones by marks that slope up from left to right, falling tones by marks that slope down from left to right, and so on. The height of a tone could be indicated by vertical position of these marks relative to the symbols for the segmental material concerned. The marks could be placed either “over or under the vowels, … or at the beginnings of syllables”. A possible set of transcriptions is illustrated in table 1.

Type
Phonetic Representation a) Revision of the IPA
Information
Journal of the International Phonetic Association , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , December 1990 , pp. 28 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Journal of the International Phonetic Association 1990

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References

Abraham, R. C. (1946). A Dictionary of the Hausa Language. University of London Press, London.Google Scholar
Chao, Y.-R. (1930). A system of tone letters. Le Maître Phonétique 30: 24–27.Google Scholar
Meyers, L. F. (1976). Aspects of Hausa Tone (UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 32). Phonetics Laboratory, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Pike, K. L. (1948). Tone Languages. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Pullum, G. K. (1990). Remarks on the 1989 revision of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20: 33–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar