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Linglib.Fragments.Hausa.Tone

Hausa Tone — mathlib-style #

@cite{newman-2000} @cite{inkelas-1998}

Hausa is a register tone language with a two-level lexical contrast (H, L) and a derived falling contour (F = HL on a single TBU). There is no rising contour: a low followed by a high on adjacent TBUs realises as L H, never as a rising tone on one TBU (@cite{newman-2000} ch. 71).

Architectural shape #

This file is the interpretation of two existing Theory interfaces in Hausa, not a parallel hierarchy:

Per-cell facts (e.g. the plural template is dominant) appear as examples — corollaries of the smart-constructor lemmas.

Surface tones on a Hausa TBU (= mora). The contour F is realised only on heavy (bimoraic) syllables and decomposes as H+L on the autosegmental tier. There is no R (rising) tone: the prediction is that no Hausa surface form exhibits a single-TBU rising contour.

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      No rising contour. Every surface tone in the Hausa inventory begins with H or L on the autosegmental tier. A rising tone would have to begin with L and continue to H on the same TBU; the inventory provides no such cell (@cite{newman-2000} §71.1).

      Tonal polarity: a morpheme surfaces with the opposite tone of its host. The classic Hausa case is the linker -n of the genitive construction, which is L after a H-final host and H after a L-final host. Polarity is one of the named operations in @cite{rolle-2018} (GTOperation.polarization); we derive its behaviour structurally.

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        Polarity is involutive on the H/L sublattice. This is what licenses polarity as a "natural" tonal operation: the linker -n swaps H and L, and applying the swap twice returns to the original.

        Build a replacive-dominant word-level GTSpec from a name and melody. Hausa's morphological tonal templates (the plural template, the genitive linker, ...) all share these defaults: a whole valuation window, word-level GT, and auxiliary exponence (the template co-occurs with segmental material).

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          Build a neutral word-level GTSpec from a name and melody. Used for floating-tone clitics whose melody concatenates with the host's underlying tones rather than overwriting them.

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            The Hausa plural template -ōoCíi imposes an all-H melody on the base, regardless of the lexical tone of the singular (@cite{inkelas-1998}, @cite{newman-2000} §56.4). The paradigmatic case of replacive-dominant GT.

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              The Hausa referential clitic -ⁿn attaches a floating L to the host without overwriting lexical tones (@cite{newman-2000} §31.5). The paradigmatic case of neutral GT in Hausa.

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                The morphological-tone registry: every Hausa GT trigger we formalise. Universal theorems below quantify over this list.

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                  Hausa uses only the dominant/neutral cells of the GT typology. Of @cite{rolle-2018}'s six dominance categories, Hausa morphological tone occupies exactly two: replacive-dominant (templates) and neutral (floating clitics). No subtractive, additive, melodic, or recessive GT is attested.

                  Concrete demonstration: an all-L disyllabic stem is overwritten to H on every TBU under the plural template.

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