Lexical tone contrast in Izon as ubiquitous floating tone

This paper establishes the lexical tone contrasts in the Nigerian language Izon, focusing on evidence for floating tone. Many tonal languages show effects of floating tone, though typically in a restricted way, such as occurring with only a minority of morphemes, or restricted to certain grammatical environments. For Izon, the claim here is that all lexical items sponsor floating tone, making it ubiquitous across the lexicon and as common as pre-associated tone. The motivation for floating tone comes from the tonal patterns of morphemes in isolation and within tone groups. Based on these patterns, all lexical morphemes are placed into one of four tone classes defined according to which floating tones they end in. This paper provides extensive empirical support for this analysis and discusses several issues which emerge under ubiquitous floating tone. Issues include the principled allowance of OCP(T) violations, and the propensity for word-initial vowels and low tone to coincide.

The Phonetics of Tone and Voice Quality Interactions in Sylheti

This paper examines the phonetic interactions of tone and voice qualities in Sylheti. Data from six native speakers are examined to understand the voice qualities of the vowels carrying contrastive tones. The results identify three spectral measures (viz., H1*–H2*, H1*–A2*, and H1*–A3*) and one noise measure (viz., CPP) as reliable indicators of modal (or in the continuum of modal to tense) vs. breathy (or, in the continuum of breathy to lax) phonation contrasts in the vowels carrying high and low tone, respectively. Finally, a statistical model is proposed that predicts consistent phonation contrasts across the total duration of the contrastive tones.

Processing Mandarin Tone 3 Sandhi at the Morphosyntactic Interface: Reduplication and Lexical Compounds

Mandarin tone 3 sandhi is a phonological alternation in which the initial tone 3 (i.e., low tone) syllable changes to a tone 2 (i.e., rising tone) when followed by another tone 3. The present study used a cross-modal syllable-morpheme matching experiment to examine how native speakers process the sandhi sequences derived from verb reduplication and compounding, respectively. Embedded in a visually-presented sentential context, a disyllabic sequence containing a sandhi target was displayed simultaneously with a monosyllabic audio, either a tone 1 (i.e., high-level tone), tone 2 (i.e., rising tone) or tone 3 (i.e., low tone), and participants judged whether the audio syllable matched the visual morpheme. Results showed that the tone 3 sandhi was processed differently in the two constructions. The underlying tone and the surface tone were co-activated and competed with each other in sandhi compounds whereas predominant activation of the underlying tone, over the surface tone, was observed in reduplication. The processing of tone 3 sandhi offers support for distinctive morphological structures: a lexical compound is represented both as a whole-word unit and as a combination of two individual morphemes whereas a verb reduplication is represented and accessed as a monomorphemic unit in the mental lexicon.

Child Neurology: Hypotonia and Delayed Teeth Eruption in a 2-Year-Old Female

POLR3- related disorders are rare hypo-myelinating leukodystrophies associated with hypodontia. We present a female patient, who was referred to pediatric neurology at 2 years of age for tremor, low tone, and motor delays. Additionally, she was noted to have a delay in her teeth eruption and myopia. Neurological examination was significant for ataxic features and global developmental delay. Laboratory workup was unrevealing. MRI imaging was significant for hypomyelination. Genetic testing confirmed a pathogenic variant of POLR3B. POLR3- related leukodystrophies should be considered in patients who present with hypotonia, ataxia and hypodontia. There are many different subtypes of POLR-related leukodystrophies each with distinguishing phenotypic and radiographic features. Although, MRI can be helpful in initial evaluation genetic testing is needed for confirmatory diagnosis and to guide prognosis.

Inclination, hip abduction, orientation, and tone affect weight-bearing in standing devices

PURPOSE: With children who are unable to stand or walk independently in the community, therapists commonly use standing devices to assist lower-extremity weight-bearing which is important for bone and muscle health. In addition, positioning in hip abduction may improve hip stability and range of motion. This is the first study to explore the effect of angle of inclination, hip abduction, body orientation, and tone on weight-bearing in pediatric standing devices. METHODS: This descriptive exploratory study used a convenience sample of 15 participants (2 with normal tone, 5 with generalized hypotonia, and 8 with hypertonia) (mean age of 5 years and 10 months, range of 3 years 4 months to 9 years 7 months); 13 of whom used standing devices at home, as well as 2 typically developing siblings (normal tone). Each child stood in 36 positions to measure the amount of weight-bearing through footplates. RESULTS: Weight-bearing was highest with 60 degrees of abduction and no inclination (upright) in supine positioning for children with low and normal tone. Children with high muscle tone bore most weight through their feet with no abduction (feet together) and no inclination (upright) in prone positioning. Overall, supine positioning resulted in more weight-bearing in all positions for children with low and normal tone. Prone positioning resulted in slightly more weight-bearing in all positions for children with high tone. CONCLUSIONS: Weight-bearing was affected by all three of the variables (inclination, abduction, and orientation) for participants with high, normal, and low tone. To determine optimal positioning, all standers should include a system to measure where and how much weight-bearing is occurring in the device.

Brainstem cholinergic modulation of the thalamocortical activity in urethane anesthetized mice.

In mammals, sleep consists in the recurrence of two main stages the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and the slow wave sleep (SWS). The full expression of sleep rhythms requires an intact thalamocortical loop, and its modulation by neuromodulators such as acetylcholine. A high tone of acetylcholine is observed during REM sleep while a low tone of acetylcholine modulates the cortical slow waves during SWS. Brainstem Cholinergic neurons activity correlates with cortical sleep stages but these neurons do not project directly to the cortex. Instead, they could contribute to cortically-recorded sleep stage modulation via a thalamic relay, in particular via the midline thalamic nuclei. Focusing on the brainstem LDTg cholinergic neurons, I investigated how midline thalamic single unit activity and cortical sleep-like stages are modulated during optogenetic-induced activation or silencing of LDTg cholinergic neurons in urethane anesthetized mice. Thalamic neurons were more active during REM-like than SWS-like stages. Bursting activity predominated during SWS-like while tonic firing was prominent during REM-like stage. Optogenetic silencing of the brainstem LDTg cholinergic neurons abolished REM-like stages and reduced tonic spiking of thalamic neurons. Moreover, during SWS-like, silent Down states were prolonged and thalamic tonic spiking during Up states was reduced. Stimulation of the brainstem LDTg cholinergic neurons had a mild effect on thalamic activity even though tonic discharge was increased. Surprisingly, optogenetic stimulation abolished as well REM-like stages maybe through compensatory mechanisms.

Arguments for a Privative L Tone in Northern Tepehuan

This paper proposes that Northern Tepehuan is a tonal language with just one lexical tone 'low tone' and is therefore a privative tonal system. L tone is sufficient to explain the pitch contrasts in the language and also necessary to explain the "inconsistencies" of stress assignment. Stress is normally predictable from the size of the word, from syllable-weight, and is cued by a H* intonational tone. Nonetheless, in words that do not obey the Stress-to-Weight constraint, it could be argued that stress is displaced from the heavy syllable by virtue of a high-ranked *Align(Head/Low) constraint that prohibits the placement of stress on a syllable with a lexical L. The L tone also explains why the H* intonational tone can be displaced from stressed syllables.

Negation in Languages: A Urhobo Perspective

This paper examines negation and types of tense negation in Urhobo. It also identifies negation marker(s) and the manner in which these negation marker(s) are used in sentences. Transformational generative grammar theory of analysis was used in the work. The aim of this study is to determine the syntactic characteristics of negation in Urhobo. The study shows that negative construction in the Urhobo language involves the doubling of the last vowel of the last word in sentences; or what may be called the lengthening of the last vowel of the lexical item in the sentence. Also, the low-high tone can do the same function as the lexical or grammatical tone. It was observed that negation is a natural phenomenon that cuts across Urhobo, and that the orthographic representation of the low tone, which is the copying of the final vowel, is written contiguously while other negative markers are written separately. It was also observed that Urhobo operates suffixation. Finally, the study work reveals ejo, je, odie and and oyen as negative markers in Urhobo.

A Constraint-based Analysis of Obligatory Contour Principle in Anaang Morphological Constructions

The obligatory contour principle forbids identical consecutive features in the underlying representation. This work undertakes a description of the Anaang tonal structure, the tonal behaviour of compounds and reduplicates in the language, bearing in mind their sensitivity to the OCP and the environments that trigger the adherence. An adapted Ibadan wordlist of 400 Basic Items (Trial) English version was used via interview for data collection from six men and six women within Abak Local Government Area in Akwa Ibom State. The data were analysed using optimality theoretical framework. The analysis shows that Anaang compounds as well as reduplicates exhibit cases of tonal modifications in line with OCP. For compounds, the tone of the second noun changes depending on the tonal sequence. In the HH noun base, the second-high tone of the second noun changes to a low tone, in the LH noun base, the tone of the second noun is raised to a down-stepped high tone, the LL noun base sees the tone of the second noun being raised to a high tone. For reduplication, the tone of the L verb base changes when the redup lication is partial. When the reduplication is complete, the high tone of the second noun is down-stepped.