High and low tone in Taa (!

Xóõ)
Christfried Naumann

(Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie Leipzig and Universität Leipzig)

1. Introduction
Traill (1977, 1985) has described Taa (3Xóõ, 3Xoon)1 as a tonally complex language with two tonal
categories, i.e. (1) four lexical tones (high, mid-falling, mid, low) and (2) two distinct tonal phrases
for concordially determined forms. He regards the monosyllabic or bisyllabic base as the unit to
which lexical tone is assigned. Miller-Ockhuizen (1998) reanalyses these data and claims the
existence of four distinct tone levels (super high, high, low, super low) with the mora as tone
bearing unit and the absence of phonological contours. In this paper, which is based on acoustic data
from the two varieties that are spoken in Namibia, West 3Xoon and 'N9ohan,2 it will be shown that
there is no need to assume more than two tonemes - high and low - being associated to morae in
order to represent and analyse tonal phenomena of the language.

Following these introductory remarks, the main points of Traill (1977, 1985) and Miller-Ockhuizen
(1998) concerning tone in Taa will be presented (section 2.). Then methods of this investigation will
be outlined (3.) before discussing findings for 'N9ohan (4.), West 3Xoon (5.), and the conclusion.3

2. Previous accounts on tone in Taa

Traill (1977:11-47, 1985:28-55) makes a distinction between two tonal categories in 3Xoon, namely
(1) lexical or inherent tones (on lexical entities and some grammatical morphemes) versus (2) "tone
phrases" (on concordially determined forms).

(1) As for independent entities (mainly nouns and intransitive verbs), Traill posits four underlying
tones, namely high H, mid-level M, mid-falling MF, and low L (see Figure 1, left). They can be

1
Traill (1985:1-3) uses the term "3Xóõ" as a cover term for a dialect cluster belonging to the Tuu (or Southern Khoisan)
language family, spoken from Dutlwe (Botswana) in the east to Aranos (Namibia) in the west. After the research
conducted within the DoBeS project "Documentation of Western 3Xoõ of Namibia" (cf. http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/), we
opted for the more neutral term "Taa Eaan" ("person's language", cf. Traill 1985:3) or simply "Taa" because this is a name
that speakers of all its varieties accept in order to refer to their language while "3Xoon" is associated with a dialect group
of that name (three different groups have "3Xoon" as their self-designation). "3Xoõ" and "3Xoon" are orthographic variants
of the same word, i.e. nasalised vowels are written with a word-final <n> in this and related publications. In striving for
a practical orthography that follows the one of Ju9'hoan, other adapted conventions differing from Traill are for instance
writing nasalised or voiced clicks with respective <n> or <g> in front of the basic click symbol or representing
pharyngealised vowels by means of <q> following the vowel letter.
2
Traill (1985:2) refers to these varieties as "Aminuis group", "(Aminuis) 3Xóõ" or "3gáo kxKâatê" (West 3Xoon) and "K9num
de" ('N9ohan). He classifies them as belonging to the Western dialect group of 3Xóõ.
3
I would like to thank Margrita Maaku Anien, Maria Tamaro Bessa, Josef Axi Isaacs, Elsa 9Hobusa Tsame, and Julieta 9Uu
ka'e Tsame as well as Gertrud Boden, Sven Grawunder, and the Volkswagen-Stiftung. Special thanks to Juliette Blevins,
Tom Güldemann, Roland Kießling, and Don Stilo for comments on earlier versions of this paper.

1
mapped to monosyllabic (normally realised as [H], [M], [MF], [L]) and bisyllabic bases ([HH],
[MM], [MMF], [LL]). So the base - irrespective of its segmental shape (e.g. CVV, CVCV, CVN) -
is considered by Traill as the domain of lexical tone. One reason for assuming monomoraic or
bimoraic bases (against morae) as tone-bearing units is probably his assertion of four distinctive
tones in light syllables (CV), e.g. in -te MF "plural suffix", ba L "indicative formative", -ti H
"verbal particle" and -ka- M "verbal particle" (Traill 1977:21). However, Traill does not provide
any phonetic evidence for a 4-way tonal contrast in monomoraic morphemes (CV).
Figure 1. Left: Traill's averaged curves of lexical tones for one speaker (high, mid, mid-falling, low, 14 to 24
measurements per contour, from Traill 1985:30). Right: Averaged pitch graphs for sequences of four post-
head dependent forms (tone phrase 1 (TP1) vs. tone phrase 2 (TP2), from Traill 1985:46).

(2) Word forms that are "affected by concordial agreement" with nominals (e.g. transitive verbs with
their objects or adjectives with their governing nouns) are reported to "show unexpected tonal
behaviour" (Traill 1985:44). Their tones or pitch contours are in most cases not lexical, but assigned
by agreement rules. These pitch contours on dependent forms can be grouped into two patterns, tone
phrase 1 and tone phrase 2 (TP1, TP2) each for pre-head and post-head forms. They are (partially)
triggered by the two tone classes (TCL1 and TCL2, respectively) to which nouns belong,
independently of the segmental noun class system according to Traill (1985:45, 1994:23). For
example, the transitive verb form 9na-e "to see" and the adjective !xaWe "big" in (1) agree with the
noun !'ûle "dish" in the segmental noun class 3, which is reflected by the concordial suffix We in the
dependent forms. The mid-falling tone of !'ûle is lexically assigned, and the mid tone phrases of
9naYWe and !xaYWe (TP1) are claimed to be triggered by tone class 1, to which !'ûle also belongs.
East !Xoon (Traill 1994:21, original orthography, glosses adapted)
(1) nY à 9naY-e !'û-le !xaY-e ... "I saw a large ... dish"
1SG PST see-3 dish.3/TCL1 big-3

The grammatical assignment of pitch contours is one reason why Traill prefers to call them "tone
phrases" (TP) instead of "tones":

"All concordially affected forms in pre-head position with a TCL 1 noun have a middle-pitched
level tone... - I deliberately avoid calling it M since it is by no means obvious that it should be
identified with any of the lexical tones." (Traill 1985:47)

2
Another possible motivation for the differentiation between two tonal categories is that pitch graphs
from sequences of post-head dependent forms (like in "only another big knife") point to a pitch
contour over the whole phrase instead of individual tones (Figure 1, right). Traill, however, does not
show that similiar contours could not be construed as sequences of lexical tones.

Traill (1985:50) proposes an analysis of MF and M as sequences of H and L (i.e., HL and LH) but
immediately discards this idea because his data on tonal changes "should leave no doubt that this
approach will fail at this stage". A decompositional two tone analysis for Taa is again suggested by
Elderkin (1989:252), repeated in Elderkin (2004:65).

In addition, Miller-Ockhuizen (1998) proposes a reanalysis of tones in Taa, based on Traill (1985)
and lexical data from Traill (1994). She cites Traill's lexical tones as High Falling, Mid Falling, Mid
level, and Low Falling4 claiming that these tones should be analysed as four distinct level tones,
namely Super High, High, Low, and Super Low plus "an additional phonetic effect at the edge of
words" causing falling contours at right edges. She thus accepts the existence of four distinct tones
on monomoraic and bimoraic words, explaining contour effects by a mechanism that lies beyond
lexical tones. Phonological contour tones like /HL/ or /LH/ do not exist. She prefers this analysis
"since it allows for a decompositional approach to 3Xóõ tonology which makes it more similar to the
other Khoisan languages, Ju|'hoasi and Khoekhoe" (i.e. concerning the number of tone levels,
Miller-Ockhuizen 1998:222). It should be stressed that a major precondition for her argument is
Traill's observation of four distinct tones on monomoraic words.

3. Method
In order to analyse the tonal structure and tonal patterns related to the noun class systems of West
3Xoon and 'N9ohan, more than a dozen paradigms, i.e. sets of complete utterances with variation for
one constituent at a time, were elicited and audio-recorded for two speakers (one constant and two
alternating speakers for each variety).5 The most comprehensive paradigm included 233 utterances
for West 3Xoon and 262 utterances for 'N9ohan and was of the structure
SUBJECT PRONOUN (+ TAM) + TRANSITIVE VERB + OBJECT NOUN + (X), e.g.

West !Xoon (tones unmarked)

(2) 'nn si n9a-i Eqhii ka-i "I see this dog"
1SG IPFV see-1 dog.1 DEM-1

(3) 'nn (si) ...-... ... ka-... "I ... this ..."
1SG (IPFV) ...-... ... DEM-... (8 verbs x about 20 nouns)

4
Based on an alternative, phonetically motivated proposal that is discussed in Traill (1985:32). In a short comment on tone
in Traill (1994:12) the designations "high", "mid-level", "mid-falling", "low" are used.
5
So far, extensive measurements have been made for three speakers of both West 3Xoon (all female) and 'N|ohan (two
female, one male), supported by additional measurements for five speakers of West !Xoon (one female, four male) and one
speaker of 'N|ohan (female).

3
The elicited paradigms were recorded with a Sony TCD-D100 DAT recorder and transferred to a
computer readable format (WAV audio format, 48 kHz sample rate, 16 bit). All acoustic
measurements were conducted manually with PRAAT (www.praat.org) whereby standard pitch
settings were used. Pitch or fundamental frequency ("F0") was measured in the nucleus of each
mora, i.e. about at one half of vowel length in CV6 syllables (point A in Figure 2) and at one quarter
(C) and at three quarters (E) in CVV (and similarly CVN) syllables, at the onset of the second mora
in CVCV and CVN bases, and in the middle of vowel length in CVV syllables (D). Sometimes F0
was also determined for the third quarter of the second mora (F), its offset (G, second or third to last
glottal pulse) or the onset of the first mora (B, second or third glottal pulse). Vowel length was
primarily identified through sections of glottal pulse, but visually controlled in the waveform (e.g.
excluding bursts) and spectrogram (by checking for vowel-like harmonics and formants).
Figure 2. Waveform and spectogram with superimposed pitch contour (black on white line with corresponding
scale to the right) of West 3Xoon ('nn) si 9ui (dua kai) "(I) hold (this fruit)". The time marked sections of the
waveform indicate vowel lengths for [i] and [ui]. Glottal pulses that continue for about 25ms after the closure
at 0.162s (leading to a non-phonological F0 dropping from 285 Hz to 195 Hz) were not seen as part of the
vowel because of the reduced harmonic structure in the spectogram (auditively comfirmable). Points in time
indicated with capital letters below the spectogram, especially points A, C, D, and E, illustrate main measuring
points of F0 for this investigation.
Waveform "si |ui"

0 0.092 0.162 0.362 0.64

Time (s)

Spectogram and pitch contour "si |ui"

4000
300

250

200

0 150
A B C D E F G
[ s i 9 u i ]

The principal methodological difference to Traill's procedure was that the material under
investigation was not recorded in isolation but in context, and measured preferably for relative pitch
values instead of mere absolute figures. For both varieties, the point of departure was measuring F0
in different transitive verb forms in relation to the preceding and tonally stable imperfective particles
sí (West 3Xoon) or bà ('N9ohan) (at point "A") of the above mentioned paradigm (1,2). The large

6
Some grammatical morphemes in Taa have the phonotactic shape CV while verbs, non-affixed nouns, and other bases
can mostly be represented as CVV, CVN, or CVCV. C1 stands in this paper for the onset of a base irrespective of the
question whether it should be analysed as monophonemic or onset cluster.

4
number of utterances allowed a reliable grouping of transitive verb forms into four and three tonal
categories, respectively, by graphical clusters of their relative F0 values. Then all object nouns
following verbs of the same cluster were measured for F0 relative to the value in the previous mora
("E"), and so forth. In this way, bimoraic and monomoraic words occuring in a number of
paradigms could be measured for F0 relative to an adjacent, tonally identified word form and
classified accordingly by their pitch patterning, building up a data table of tonal categories in
various environments. The advantage of measuring F0 relative to a point of reference is that the
downdrift effect can be outweighed and comparisons between tonal patterns in different sentence
positions are possible. It turned out that F0 of a certain phonological tone, at least in Taa, depends
largely on F0 of its preceding (or surrounding) tones, which means tone is relative.

Although pharyngealised vowels or vowels with non-modal phonation, as well as different onset
types, e.g. plain versus aspirated clicks, were considered during the investigation, they will not be
examined in this paper (cf. Traill 1985:38-42). The influence of vowel quality (closed versus open
vowels) on F0 was ignored (but see discussion of Figure 7).

4. Tone in 'N|ohan
In this section, tonal contrasts occuring in the 'N|ohan variety of Taa will be discussed. Before
dealing with F0 patterns proper, however, some remarks on vowel length should be made.

In words that consist of a consonantal onset followed by a vowel of constant quality, there is a
binary contrast in vowel length as in kè "initial relative particle (3b)" vs. kèè "final relative particle
(3a)" whereby forms with a short vowel (structure CV) are exclusively grammatical morphemes.
Words with a phonetically long constant vowel should be regarded as showing a sequence of two
identical vowels (/CVV/ instead of /CV:/) because many CVV words are bimorphemic, e.g. |u-i
"grab-1", |u_u "grab-4", 3xa_i "big-1", 3xa_a "big-2SG", and there is no length contrast in other
positions than in CV vs. CVV, as one would expect for /V:/.7 Figures illustrating the vowel (or rime)
length contrast of CV vs. CVV, hence between monomoraic and bimoraic rimes, are given in Table
1.
Table 1. Average vowel (or rime) lengths (modal phonation) for words of the structure CV vs. CViVi in non-
phrase-final position for two speakers. All values were measured in pairs, i.e. for both categories one value
each from the same utterance.
Speaker MG JI
Structure CV CViVi CV CViVi
Average [vowel] length (ms) 128 212 129 230
Standard deviation (ms) 21 50 20 39
Number of measured tokens 43 43 39 39

7
For instance, there are no long vowels in closed syllables (*[CV:N]). V2 in verb forms of the structure C1V1C2V2 is
phonetically longer than V1 ([CVCV:]) but without phonological contrast (*[CVCV]). Names and loans may deviate.

5
As opposed to Traill's generalising assertion ("grammatical particles consist of a single mora",
1985:37), not all grammatical particles or morphemes are monomoraic. For instance, the final
relative particles kVV or -saan "nominalising particle", probably cognate to Traill's (1977:21) -sa
(low tone) "gerundive nominalising particle", have long phonetic vowels according to my
measurements. The phonetic distinction between monomoraic and bimoraic syllables, however, is
not always clear-cut. On the one hand, frequently used CVV forms are apparently often affected by
phonetic reduction. This phenomenon could also be observed for some lexical stems like tuu
"people", sometimes realised as [tu]. On the other hand, it seems that CV in phrase-final or
extremely slowly uttered forms can be lengthened. From this follows that 1) the distinction between
CV and CVV has no heavy functional load, that 2) morphemes of the structure CV might originate
in grammaticalised older CVV forms, that 3) grammaticalisation processes are still ongoing, and that
4) true pitch contours on phonetically short vowels could potentially be explained as pointing to an
underlying CVV form.
Figure 3. F0 at three points of monomoraic morphemes (CV) for speaker MG (female) relative to the second
mora of a preceding [mid-rising] (LH) base. Plain lines represent average curves (from six to eight tokens),
dotted lines stand for single tokens. The higher cluster is interpreted as H, the lower cluster as L.
50

40
F0 relative to preceding LH base/2nd mora (Hz)

30 si- nominal prefix

kV relative TCL II
kV relative TCL II
kV relative TCL II
20 kV MPO TCL II
si- nominal prefix

10

0 kV relative TCL I
kV MPO TCL I
-te nominal suffix
|V possessive TCL I
-10 kV copula TCL II

kV copula TCL I

-20
|V possessive TCL II
ba imperfective

-30
1/4 of vowel length 1/2 of vowel length 3/4 of vowel length
"A"

As for morphemes of the structure CV, only two tonal patterns could be found. The most extensive
investigation in this respect was measuring F0 for speaker MG at one quarter, one half, and three
quarters of vowel length in twenty-one different monomoraic morphemes following a bimoraic LH
stem serving as reference (Figure 3).8 Only two clusters arise, with no significant difference to the

8
63 tokens of 21 different morphemes were measured, whereby functionally identical particles with agreement for
different (segmental) noun classes but the same tone class were subsumed under the same tonal group, resulting in eight
particles (kV and |V particles of TCL I and II) and three invariant morphemes (ba, si-, -te) in Figure 3. Out of the

6
essentially level contour. One might argue that the three lowest curves of the lower cluster form
their own pattern. However, the single values for the second and third to lowest average curves
overlap significantly with values of the higher curves of that cluster. In other investigated
environments the order of the lower cluster is different, but consistently contrasting to the higher
cluster. The lowest curve in Figure 3 represents ba "imperfective" where the voiced, hence
depressing onset consonant provides a good explanation for the lower F0 mean values.

Similiar figures and the same twofold contrast with no significant contrast in pitch contour were
obtained measuring the same speaker for different environments (CV following HH and LL stems)
and another speaker for two environments (CV following LH and LL stems). It can be concluded
that there is only a binary tonal contrast between a higher (H) and a lower (L) tone for CV words in
'N|ohan that can be captured by measuring F0 at the nucleus of vowel length, e.g. ká "initial relative
particle, noun class 2a (TCL2)" versus kà "initial relative particle, noun class 2b (TCL1)".
Figure 4. F0 in bimoraic bases with modal phonation and non-depressing onset (aspirated, glottalised, or
ejected onset consonants excluded) for speaker MG relative to preceding CV syllable with low tone (L). Plain
lines represent average curves (36, 20, 16 tokens, respectively) for the three tonal clusters found in transitive
verbs, narrow dotted lines stand for the first sixteen single tokens. The broad grey dashed line represents the
average curve for a forth cluster [mid-falling] that is not found in transitive verbs. The highest cluster will be
interpreted as /HH/, mid falling as /HL/, mid rising as /LH/, and the lowest cluster as /LL/ (see below).
90

80
F0 in bimoraic bases relative to preceding L syllable ("A") (Hz)

70

60
[high]
50

40

30 [mid falling]

20
[mid rising]
10

-10
[low]
-20

-30

-40
Nucleus of first mora 1/2 of vowel length (CVV) or onset of second mora (CVCV, CVN) Nucleus of second mora
"C" "D" "E"

remaining CV forms given in Traill (1977:21-23), three were measured as bimoraic in 'N|ohan (-tu MF "plural suffix" >
'N|ohan -túù, -sa L "nominalising particle" > -sààn, |nV "verbal particle" > n|VV), two have not been elicited following
a LH base but in other environments (-ti H "verbal particle" > -tí, -sa MF "non-productive plural suffix" > -sá), and one
has only been elicited in phrase-final environment (-ko MF "exclamatory particle"). The other five forms have not been
recorded.

7
The tonal analysis of bimoraic bases (CVV, CVCV, CVN) started with the measurement of
transitive verbs following the imperfective particle bà. This resulted in three clusters of pitch
contours, namely 1) a higher, slightly rising-falling cluster, 2) a mid and slightly rising, and 3) a
low, slightly falling cluster ([high], [mid rising] and [low] in Figure 4). At first glance, one is
tempted to identify a super-high cluster (more than 60 Hz) in addition to a high cluster (40-60 Hz),
but this can be ruled out because of the variation among the tokens of identical word forms. While
any of the high, mid rising, or low pitch contours can be found in transitive verbs preceding noun
objects of Tone Class 2, only a mid-rising pitch contour can precede noun objects of Tone Class 1.
These findings are in agreement with the observations of Traill (1985:48). When the analysis
proceeded with measuring other bimoraic forms (nouns, adjectives, bimoraic grammatical
morphemes), a fourth, mid falling pitch cluster appeared (for reasons of clarity, only the mean
relative F0 contour is given in Figure 4) while the existing three clusters just expanded in number of
measured tokens.
Figure 5. F0 in non-phrase-final bimoraic bases (modal phonation) following a high base as reference for
speaker MG. Left: Absolute F0 values in the 2nd mora ("E") compared to F0 in "E" of the referential high
base. Right: Relative F0 values in the 2nd mora ("E") against F0 rising from the 1st towards the 2nd mora ("C"
to "E") in the base in question.
320 30

310

300
20
[mid rising] (/LH/)
290
[high] (/HH/)
F0 of base in question (2nd mora/"E") (Hz)

Rising of F0 (2nd-1st mora/"E" - "C") (Hz)

280
10
270
[high] (/HH/)
260

250 0
[mid rising] (/LH/)
240 [low] (/LL/)
[mid falling] (/HL/)
230
-10
220 [mid falling] (/HL/)

210 [low] (/LL/)

-20
200

190

180 -30
240 250 260 270 280 290 300 310 320 330 340 350 -100 -90 -80 -70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10
F0 in preceding HH base (2nd mora/"E") (Hz) F0 of base in question at "E" relative to preceding HH base ("E") (Hz)

In order to prove the four tonal patterns as distinct, Figure 5 is presented showing two chart types
that - taken together - turned out to be sufficient for representing and identifying tones in 'N|ohan
and West 3Xoon. To the left, absolute F0 values in second mora nuclei ("E") of bimoraic bases are
shown against F0 in the same point ("E") of a preceding high base. Four clusters for the four tonal
patterns ([high], [mid-falling], [mid-rising], [low]) appear, provided with manually sketched ovals
and calculated trendlines. While F0 in the second mora of a high pitch contour is about 10 Hz lower

8
than in the same point of a preceding high (because of downdrift), it is 30 to 10 Hz lower in a mid-
falling, about 70 to 40 Hz lower in a mid-rising, and approximately 100 to 60 Hz lower in a low
pitch contour. By comparing the trendlines it becomes evident that mid-falling contours are not
really distinctive in this chart, namely in respect to the high and mid-rising clusters. There is also
some minor overlap between low and mid-rising. In the chart to the right of Figure 5, the difference
in F0 relative to the preceding base is displayed against rising of F0 from the first towards the
second mora ("C" to "E") in the base in question (positive values towards the top indicate a
phonetically rising contour, negative values towards the bottom indicate a falling). Mid falling is
here distinct from both high and mid-rising clusters whereby F0 falls by 7 Hz to 28 Hz from "C" to
"E". In mid-rising contours, it can rise as much as 23 Hz, but in two cases it even falls by 6 Hz. In
low contours, F0 sometimes drops considerably.

Similiar measurements with similiar results were made in other environments (following LH, LL, L
bases, in phrase-final position) and for two other speakers. It must be conceded that mid-falling
pitch contours are not yet represented broadly enough, which is due to the setup of the elicitation,
i.e. the limited number of nouns included and the absence of the mid-falling pattern for transitive
verbs.

We have seen so far that there are four distinct pitch contours on bimoraic bases that can on the
average be described as high, low, mid-falling, and mid-rising. One could still hold that they
represent four different tonemes associated to the base because there is no falling or rising contour
that nearly stretches from high to low or vice versa, even in these more carefully uttered
elicitations.9 As for 'N|ohan verbs, there is apparently no pattern allowing for a systematic
relationship between the four pitch contour groups. However, from the phonological point of view,
mid-rising should rather be analysed as an underlying succession of low and high (LH, e.g. 3òó
"knife") and mid-falling as high and low (HL, e.g. síì "to come") because of three reasons.

First, as has been shown above, there are only two tonemes on monomoraic morphemes, one toneme
out of two associated to one mora. On this base one would expect four different tone patterns for
bimoraic word forms (two morae * two tonemes) the representation of which is more economic by
means of two tonemes than by four.

Second, the phonetic realisation of HL and LH within one word form should be expected to show
less contrast in absolute F0 than between neighbouring H(H) and L(L) pitch contours and to adapt to
each other because of mutual assimilation and shorter realisation time, especially in CVV and CVN
bases. Although the rather extreme degree of contour levelling is astonishing in phonetic terms, an
economic phonological representation is feasible.

9
It should be considered, however, that in many cases the dropping of F0 from the nucleus of the first towards the second
mora ("C" to "E") will be less than from the onset towards the offset (cf. Figure 2). Hence the chosen measuring points of
this investigation do not necessarily reflect maximum values of change in F0 but merely proved to be reliable for
categorisation purposes.

9
Table 2. Examples for nouns with invariable (high, mid-rising) and variable tone patterns (low > mid-rising)
in three different construction types. Representation of tone is according to H-L hypothesis and simplified.

Tone patterns Position of noun

post-verbal (object) utterance-initial (indefinite) utterance-initial (definite)

[high] 'nef g9ùb-ì párí khá'-ì párí kì khá'-í, ... párí kì 3xà-ì
(párí) 1SG know-1 goat.1 DEM-1 goat.1 COP.1 DEM-1 goat.1 COP.1 big.SG-1
"I know this goat" "This is a goat, ..." "The goat is big."

[mid-rising] 'nef g9òb-é tàá khà'-é tàá kè khà'-é, ... tàá kè 3xà-é
(tàá) 1SG know-3b man.3b DEM-3b man.3b COP.3b DEM-3b man.3b COP.3b big.SG-3b
"I know this person" "This is a human being, ..." "The man is tall."

[low > mid-rising] 'nef g9ùb-ù tùù khá'-ù tùù kù khá'-ú, ... tùuh kù 3xàb-ù
(tùù) - (tùú) 1SG know-4 people.4 DEM-4 people.4 COP.4 DEM-4 people.4 COP.4 big.PL-4
"I know these people" "These are people, ..." "The people are tall."

A third reason lies in a tonal phenomenon in bimoraic noun bases that can be described by both
assumptions (four vs. two tonemes in bimoraic forms) but explained only by the latter one. Nouns
that bear a [low] pitch contour post-verbally, i.e. as objects of transitive verbs, show a [low] versus
[mid-rising] contrast in utterance-initial/subject position depending on whether they are "indefinite"
or "definite".10 On the other hand, nouns bearing a [mid-rising] or [high] pitch contour in post-verbal
position show an identical contour utterance-initially, irrespective of being definite or indefinite
(Table 2). The phonetic evidence for this assertion is presented in Figure 6, although statistically
meagre (low number of measured tokens). It is backed by measurements for a second 'N|ohan
speaker and by a similiar, even more complete patterning in West 3Xoon (see remarks below).

The change in tone pattern for nouns with a low pitch contour can well be represented under the
hypothesis of four tonemes as has been done in the first column of Table 2 by the use of phonetic
labels. But the source of the alternation and its limitation to one tonal group remains obscure and
unmotivated. In contrast, if we assume two underlying tonemes we see that the high and the mid-
rising pitch contours have something in common - a high tone (H) on the second mora (HH, LH). In
case of "utterance-initial definiteness" (or a similiar condition), a low tone on the second mora
changes (LL>LH), i.e. definiteness is associated with H on the last mora without adding other
segmental material. In other words, definiteness can be ascribed to a floating high tone that affects
only a low tone on the last mora of the host. All surface forms are explained on the same lines:
(4) párí "goat" + - h "DEF" > párí "the goat"
(5) tàá "person" + - h "DEF" > tàá "the person"
(6) tùù "people" + - h "DEF" > tùú "the people"

10
A conclusive morphosyntactic and functional analysis of this phenomenon is not yet available.

10
Hence, the hypothesis of two underlying tonemes (H, L) is not only sufficient and more economic
than assuming four tonemes but allows to analyse and to explain tonal alternations in nouns.
Figure 6. F0 in utterance-initial bimoraic noun bases (modal phonation, non-depressing onset consonants)
relative to a following CV syllable with low tone (L) for speaker MG. Nouns that bear a [high] ("HH") or
[mid-rising] ("LH") pitch contour in a post-verbal object position show the same, invariable pattern utterance-
initially. Nouns with a [low] ("LL") pitch contour in post-verbal position or when indefinite, however, bear a
[mid-rising] pitch contour when definite in an utterance-initial position.
50

nouns (post-verbally HH),

F0 in bimoraic noun bases relative to following L syllable ("A") (Hz)

"definite", mean of 5 tokens

40 [high]
nouns (post-verbally HH),
"indefinite", mean of 7 tokens

30

nouns (post-verbally LL ),
20 "definite", mean of 5 tokens

[mid rising] nouns (post-verbally LH),

"definite", mean of 4 (!) tokens
10 nouns (post-verbally LH),
"indefinite", mean of 5 tokens

-10
[low]

nouns (post-verbally LL) ,"in-

definite", mean of 4 (!) tokens
-20
Nucleus of first mora 1/2 of vowel length (CVV) or onset of second mora (CVCV, CVN) Nucleus of second mora
"C" "D" "E"

Nevertheless, combinations of H and L in bimoraic bases have different phonetic realisations from
those in sequences of monomoraic forms and should be treated accordingly by keeping these
phonetic categories (H, L, HH, LL, HL, LH) distinct. Not only phonological contour tones (LH, HL)
are realised differently from what would be expected but also F0 in LL bases is significantly lower
than in L monomoraic forms. In Tables 3 and 4, some mean F0 values are presented. If one
compares relative F0 values at the nucleus of the final mora ("A" or "E", Table 4), there are -
roughly speaking and generalising across contexts - three phonetic pitch levels: [high] (HH, H),
[mid] (LH, HL, mostly L), and [low] (LL) whereby the difference in F0 between two adjacent levels
is about -20 to -60 Hz downwards and 10 to 35 Hz upwards. A drop in F0 of -10 Hz between two
succeeding bases or syllables of the same phonetic pitch level is normal because of downdrift. LH
versus HL is of course distinguished by a different rising of F0, L versus LH and HL by vowel
length.

11
Table 3. Mean absolute F0 values of six tonetic categories for two speakers of 'N9ohan (including tokens with
depressing onset consonants and in utterance-final position, excluding non-modal phonation). It should be
emphasised that absolute F0 values are less significant than relative values.

Speaker Measurement Tonetic category

H L HH HL LH LL
MG F0 (Hz) in "A" / "C":"D":"E" 254 226 276:283:282 253:246:238 232:236:238 223:219:211
(female) SD 29 21 28:30:31 24:22:20 22:23:24 22:22:21
N 47 124 133 35 201 139
JI F0 (Hz) in "A" / "C":"D":"E" 206 190 224:233:228 196:192:183 195:198:196 184:176:165
(male) SD 23 16 18:22:21 12:12:11 18:18:18 15:14:14
N 11 78 75 20 123 72
Table 4. Mean relative F0 values of six tonetic categories for speaker MG (including tokens with depressing
onset consonants and in utterance-final position, excluding non-modal phonation). For the various categories
(first column), it is shown to what degree F0 rises or falls from the nucleus of the first mora ("C") towards the
nucleus of the second mora ("E") (second column) and how F0 in the nucleus of the last mora ("E" or "A")
differs from the last mora ("E" or "A") of a preceding HH (third column) to LL (last column). Note that
standard deviations are smaller than in Table 3. In columns three to eight, white shading represents the same
"phonetic pitch level" (see text), light grey stands for a difference of one level, dark grey for two levels.

Tonetic F0 rising (Hz) F0 (Hz) (SD / N) in the nucleus of the last mora relative to the last mora of
category 1st > 2nd mora preceding ...
(SD / N) HH H HL LH L LL
HH [high] 6 -10 -7 26 34 54 55
(16 /133) (8 / 21) (13 / 5) (4 / 2) (13 / 36) (14 / 56) (13 / 13)
H [high] one mora -8 - - 27 - 47
(9 / 16) (3 / 3) (13 / 28)
HL [mid -15 -19 - - -15 25 16
(-falling)] (10 / 35) (8 / 5) (10 / 9) (11 / 17) (6 / 4)
LH [mid 6 -46 -28 -3 -5 13 20
(-rising)] (12 / 201) (14 / 43) (6 / 4) (11 / 6) (11 / 62) (10 / 76) (8 / 10)
L [mid or one mora -45 - - -16 - 15
low] (11 / 42) (13 / 52) (11 / 30)
LL [low] -12 -81 -64 -44 -34 -12 -15
(10 / 137) (18 / 42) (2 / 3) (15 / 8) (13 / 20) (10 / 46) (13 / 18)

5. Tone in West 3Xoon

Because procedure and results of the tonal analysis for West 3Xoon were mostly similiar to those for
'N9ohan they will be presented more briefly in what follows. The major difference to 'N9ohan (and
East 3Xoon) is located in the tonal patterns of transitive verbs and other concordially determined
forms. They constitute another strong argument for two tonemes (H and L) instead of four, at least
for that variety, and will be treated more in detail.

12
As in 'N9ohan, there is a vowel length distinction in words with a consonantal onset and a vowel of
constant quality that should phonologically be represented as CV versus CVV, hence between a
monomoraic and a bimoraic rime. In Table 5 some mean values are given for two female speakers.
It should be mentioned that the majority of measured CV structures in Table 5 are tokens of the
particle sí "imperfective", i.e. that the given mean vowel length for CV is possibly not representive
yet for the whole range of CV forms. CV forms are exclusively grammatical morphemes whereby
the cognates of some monomoraic 'N9ohan forms are bimoraic in West 3Xoon, cf. 'N9ohan -tè "plural
suffix" or 9V "possessive" versus West 3Xoon -téè and 9VV, respectively.
Table 5. Average vowel (or rime) lengths (modal phonation) for words of the structure CV vs. CViVi in non-
phrase-final position for two speakers. All values were measured in pairs, i.e. for both categories one value
each from the same utterance.
Speaker JT MA
Structure CV CViVi CV CViVi
Average [vowel] length (ms) 96 210 107 221
Standard deviation (ms) 14 57 14 59
Number of measured tokens 39 39 33 33
Figure 7. F0 in monomoraic morphemes for speaker MA (female) relative to the second mora of a preceding
HH [high] base. All dotted lines stand for single tokens (28 in total), plain lines represent their average curves.
The high cluster is interpreted as H, the low cluster as L.
10

0
[high]
F0 relative to preceding HH base/2nd mora (Hz)

-10

[high]
several tokens of
-20
kV relative TCL1
kV MPO TCL2
kV copula TCL1
si- nominal prefix
-30
si imperfective

-40 [low]

[low]
several tokens of
-50 kV MPO TCL1
kV PLACE

-60

-70
1/4 of vowel length 1/2 of vowel length 3/4 of vowel length Offset
"A"

Figure 7 for speaker MA shows that there are two tonal patterns in monomoraic (CV) forms, a
higher (H) and a lower (L) one. For several tokens of the higher cluster (black symbols and lines in
Figure 7) a F0 dropping towards the offset (cf. Figure 2) can be recognised. Those tokens do not
constitute another, possibly "high falling" cluster because all word forms represented by black lines

13
with less than -20 Hz in the Offset have sister tokens in the potential "high level" cluster, either for
the same (MA) or for the second speaker (JT, figure not given here). F0 at one half of vowel length
("A") is the most significant value for distinguishing H from L (no overlapping in 28 measured
tokens for two speakers). The seeming split of [low] into a "mid" (-19 to -37 Hz at "A") and a "low"
(-44 to -51 Hz at "A") cluster is not confirmed by data for speaker JT and reflects the general
phonetic effect of F0 lowering in open ([a]) against non-open vowels.
Figure 8. F0 in some bimoraic bases of modal phonation for speaker JT (female) relative to the last mora ("A"
or "E") of a preceding [high] (H or HH) base or syllable. Narrow dotted lines represent the six to nine tokens
of four tonetic clusters, broad plain lines stand for their average curves. All patterns are found in transitive
verbs. The [high] cluster will be interpreted as /HH/ (black square symbols), [mid falling] as /HL/(grey
rhombs), low-mid rising as /LH/ (black triangles), and the [low] cluster as /LL/ (grey circular symbols).
20

10
F0 in bimoraic bases relative to preceding H or HH ("A" or "E") (Hz)

[high]
-10

-20

-30
[mid falling]

-40

-50

[low-mid rising]
-60

-70

[low]
-80

-90

-100

-110
Onset Nucleus of first mora Nucleus of second mora Offset
"B" "C" "E" "G"

Pitch contours of bimoraic bases (CVV, CVN, CVCV) can be grouped into four clusters, namely 1)
a high, slightly falling cluster, 2) a mid and more strongly falling, 3) a low-mid and clearly rising
and 4) a low, slightly falling cluster ([high], [mid falling], [low-mid rising] and [low] in Figure 8).
Although the points of measurement in Figure 8 are not identical to those of Figure 4 it becomes
clear that both falling and especially rising of the two mid patterns of speaker JT (West 3Xoon) are
more pronounced than the corresponding ones of speaker MG ('N9ohan). Actually, a level mid pitch
token will auditively be interpreted as [mid-rising] in 'N9ohan but as [mid-falling] in West 3Xoon.
Figure 8 shows also that information about F0 in the nuclei of the first and second morae ("C" and
"E") is sufficient for the tonal distinction while F0 in the offset can be neglected - just as in
monomoraic forms - because fall of F0 from "E" to "G" is similiar for all patterns. The existence of
four distinctive pitch clusters on bimoraic bases is confirmed by measurements in other contexts

14
(following [mid falling], [low-mid rising], and [low] patterns) and for three other speakers (two
female, one male). Charts as shown in Figure 5 for 'N9ohan are skipped here because of limited
space though they were used primarily for the identification of tones during the investigation.

As has been argued for 'N9ohan, these four distinctive pitch contour clusters should phonologically
be represented as combinations of two tonemes on two morae, hence [high] as H(H), [mid falling] as
HL, [low-mid rising] as LH, and [low] as L(L) because of 1) sufficiency and better economy, 2)
expectable mutual assimilation in LH and HL contours in phonetic terms, that is not as extreme in
West 3Xoon as in 'N9ohan (a rising and a falling contour are manifest against more level high and
low pitch clusters), and 3) morphophonological reasons that will be dealt with in the following two
paragraphs.
Figure 9. Real absolute pitch contours from rimes (vowel onset to offset -/+ 10 ms) of some transitive verb
forms (all CVV) for speaker JT, created with PRAAT. Left: Pitch contours of verbal stem 3á- "hold.PL"
combined with suffixes -í "1" (1 token), -án "2a" (5 tokens), -àn "2b" (2 tokens), -è "3b" (2 tokens), -ù
"4.ANA" (2 tokens) result in two clusters (HH: black, HL: grey). Right: Pitch contours of verbal stems 9ú-
"hold.SG", 3á- "hold.PL", 'á- "eat", n9à- "see", 9hà- "take.PL", xù- "scratch" (two tokens each) combined with
suffix -í "1" result in two clusters (HH: black, LH: grey).

300 300

280 280

260 260

240 240

220 220

200 200

180 180

Time Time

All four tone patterns for bimoraic forms occur also in transitive verbs. Those consist of a CVC or
CV verbal stem and a concordial suffix -V or -N making up CVCV, CVV, or CVN structures (Taa
in general). Unlike in 'N9ohan where resulting tone patterns of the full transitive verb forms are
either the lexical tones of the stem (HH, LH, or LL in verbs inflecting for object nouns of Traill's
Tone Class 2) or completely determined by concordance (exclusive LH pattern for verbs agreeing
with object nouns of Tone Class 1), both verbal stems and suffixes have their invariable tone in
West 3Xoon. Tone patterns of an identical verb stem combined with different suffixes result in two
pitch contour clusters (a higher and a lower one) where the larger difference in F0 is on the second
mora (suffix) as in Figure 9, left. Tone patterns of an identical suffix combined to different verbal
stems result also in a higher and a lower pitch contour cluster with the main effect on the first mora
(verbal stem), see Figure 9, right. All monomoraic morphemes in transitive verb forms bear either a
high tone or a low tone consistently across different contexts (high and low tone verbal stems
combined with high and low tone suffixes resulting in HH, HL, LH, and LL patterns, respectively)
and speakers (three speakers). Systematisation goes even further as all suffixes pattern along the two

15
distinct concordial groups (corresponding to Traill's Tone Classes) that show an internally uniform
tonal behaviour across all dependent forms. Hence in West 3Xoon pitch contours on transitive verb
forms can without doubt be analysed as sequences of lexical tones (H, L) and not doing so would
lead to the non-recognition of important traits of grammatical relations, especially as for the
distinction between grammatical (cataphoric) agreement with noun objects and anaphoric reference
(Table 6).
Table 6. Examples of concordially determined forms in West 3Xoon being grouped into tone classes.
Tone Grammatical agreement Anaphoric reference Copula Final relative particle
Classes (in transitive verbs) (in transitive verbs)
Tone Examples Tone Examples Tone Examples Tones Examples
TCL 1 L -àn "2b" H -án "2b.ANA" H ká "COP.2b" HL káà "REL.2b"
-è "3b" -é "3b.ANA" ké "COP.3b" kéè "REL.3b"
-fg "1SG.ANA" kfg "COP.1SG" kfge "REL.1SG"
-í "1PL.IN.ANA" kí "COP.1PL.IN" kíì "REL.1PL.IN"
TCL 2 H -í "1" L -ì "1.ANA" L kì "COP.1" LL kìì "REL.1"
-án "2a" -àn "2a.ANA" kà "COP.2a" kàà "REL.2a"
-é "3a/3SG" -è "3a/3SG.ANA" kè "COP.3a/3SG" kèè "REL.3a/3SG"

The phenomenon of tonal alternation in utterance-initial nouns depending on definiteness or a

similiar function is also found in West 3Xoon where not only LL but also HL nouns were recorded
the last mora of which is affected by the floating high tone:
(7) 3hàùn "strap" + - h "DEF" > 3hàún "the strap"
(8) táà "person" + - h "DEF" > táá "the person"

Although it cannot be excluded yet that the resulting pitch contours follow a distinct pattern
(potentially to be represented as LLiH or HLiH, respectively) a floating H is in any case another
argument for a tonological distinction between H and L.

In Tables 7 and 8, a selection of absolute and relative F0 values is given corresponding to Tables 3
and 4 for 'N9ohan. F0 at the onset of the second mora ("D") was not measured consistently enough
for West 3Xoon to include it in table 7. Note that standard deviations of mean absolute values, i.e.
their variation (Table 7), are smaller for West 3Xoon than for 'N9ohan but relative F0 values are
nevertheless more significant. If one wishes to define rough phonetic pitch levels at the nucleus of
the final mora (Table 8), a distinction can be made between [high] (HH, H, sometimes LH), [mid]
(HL, L, sometimes LH), and [low] (LL, following LH also HL and L) whereby the difference in F0
between two adjacent levels is about -20 to -50 Hz downwards and 5 to 30 Hz upwards. The
respective ranking of the tonetic categories is slightly different from 'N9ohan, for instance the final
mora of LH can be characterised as [high] in at least one context.

16
Table 7. Mean absolute F0 values of six tonetic categories for two speakers of West 3Xoon (including tokens
with depressing onset consonants and in utterance-final position, excluding non-modal phonation). Cf. Table 3.

Speaker Measurement Tonetic category

H L HH HL LH LL
JT F0 (Hz) in "A" / "C":"E" 250 221 256:251 232:216 223:231 211:195
(female) SD 15 13 17:14 16:13 11:18 13:12
N 36 44 50 96 37 73
MA F0 (Hz) in "A" / "C":"E" 247 213 248:250 221:211 214:229 198:186
(female) SD 14 13 19:14 15:13 8:15 15:12
N 36 42 50 96 37 78
Table 8. Mean relative F0 values of six tonetic categories for speaker JT (including tokens with depressing
onset consonants and in utterance-final position, excluding non-modal phonation). Cf. Table 4.

Tonetic F0 rising (Hz) F0 (Hz) (SD / N) in the nucleus of the last mora relative to the last mora of
category 1st > 2nd mora preceding ...
(SD / N) HH or H LH L HL LL
HH [high] -5 -8 10 8 17 37
(10 /50) (11 / 22) (3 / 3) (6 / 7) (7 / 8) (4 / 10)
H [high] one mora -4 13 - 13 43
(8 / 8) (7 / 11) (5 / 8) (7 / 5)
LH [mid 8 -32 -2 - 13 17
or high] (10 / 37) (14 / 24) (4 / 3) (5 / 4) (8 / 6)
L [mid one mora -37 -47 - -6 23
or low] (8 / 13) (3 / 4) (6 / 9) (9 / 7)
HL [mid -15 -38 -31 -10 -10 21
or low] (9 / 96) (9 / 44) (13 / 10) (8 / 6) (10 / 23) (5 / 14)
LL [low] -16 -61 -49 -37 -29 -4
(8 / 73) (12 / 25) (11 / 9) (14 / 10) (8 / 17) (6 / 16)

6. Conclusions
There is no need to posit two different tonal categories (tones and tone phrases) in Taa. Pitch
contours of both concordially determined forms, like transitive verbs or adjectives, and tonally
independent words, like nouns or intransitive verbs, cluster in the same tone categories and can be
described by the same tonological means. In addition, grammatically determined tone patterns occur
in many tone languages. Admittedly, this point has not been discussed in detail and was only a by-
product of this study. It is inherent in many generalisations, e.g. in Tables 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 or Figure 5.

There is also no need for a distinction of four tonemes, whether contour (Traill 1985) or level tones
(Miller-Ockhuizen 1998). A thorough investigation of pitch contours for monomoraic forms in
'N9ohan (and another more restricted one for West 3Xoon) resulted in two distinct clusters - high and
low - so that the four observed tone patterns on bimoraic bases can be more economically described
as sequences of two tonemes on two morae, as has been suggested by Elderkin (1989:252) and once

17
by Traill (1985:50). Moreover, at least one tonal phenomenon in 'N9ohan (tonal alternation on
utterance-initial nouns) as well as tone patterns on transitive verbs in West 3Xoon in general can
only be understood in terms of a mere twofold distinction between a high and a low tone. The
phonetic realisation of H and L on monomoraic versus bimoraic forms results in six tonetic
categories (H, L; H(H), L(L), HL, LH) that can be described as [high], [mid]; [high], [low (falling)],
[mid falling], and [mid rising], respectively, whereby [mid rising] is more pronounced in West
3Xoon as compared to 'N9ohan. As for the claim of four distinctive pitch contours on monomoraic
forms (without phonetic evidence), an explanation can probably be found by distinguishing
monomoraic from bimoraic grammatical forms and by looking for variation in phonetic length or
between Taa varieties (e.g. 'N9ohan -tè vs. West 3Xoon -téè "plural suffix"). It might of course turn
out that the two varieties of Taa spoken in Namibia are different in their tonology from Eastern and
Central varieties. The phonetic data for bimoraic forms and especially tonal phenomena for
concordially determined forms in 'N9ohan, however, look very similiar to Traill's descriptions of East
3Xoon, in contrast to West 3Xoon.

Abbreviations
1,2a,2b,...5 noun class 1,2a, 2b...5 MPO multi-purpose oblique marker
ANA anaphoric (against grammatical or N nasal
cataphoric) N number of measured tokens
C consonant PL plural
COP copula PST past
DEM demonstrative SD standard deviation
F0 fundamental frequency SG singular
H high tone TAM tense/aspect/mood
IN inclusive TCL1 tone class 1
IPFV imperfective TCL2 tone class 2
L low tone TP1 tone phrase 1
M mid tone TP2 tone phrase 2
MF mid-falling tone V vowel

References
Elderkin, Edward D., 1989, The Significance and Origin of the Use of Pitch in Sandawe. Unpublished DPhil thesis,
University of York, England.
Elderkin, Edward D., 2004, The starred tones of Central Khoisan. In: Afrika und Übersee, 87, 3-77.
Miller-Ockhuizen, Amanda, 1998, Towards A Unified Decompositional Analysis of Khoisan Lexical Tone. In: Schladt,
Mathias (ed.), 1998, Language, Identity, and Conceptualization among Khoisan. Quellen zur Khoisan-
Forschung 15: 217-243. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
Traill, Anthony, 1977, The tonal structure of !xõ. In: Snyman, Jan W. (ed.), 1977, Bushman and Hottentot Linguistic
Studies. Papers of a seminar held on 25 October 1975. Miscellanea Congregalia 2: 11-47. Pretoria: University
of South Africa.
Traill, Anthony, 1985, Phonetic and Phonological Studies of !XÓÕ Bushman. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
Traill, Anthony, 1994, A !Xóõ Dictionary. Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 9. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

18