Tonal Features and the Development of Vietnamese Tones

In describing the development of tones and register in Southeast and East Asia, several phonetic features need to be considered: various dimensions of pitch (e.g. height and contour), phonation type features (e.g. breathiness and creakiness), and length (i.e intrinsic tonal duration). Vietnamese as seen as a link between two linguistic areas with different types of suprasegmental features, namely Chinese tones versus Mon-Khmer register shows complex bundles of features in its tonal system, features that interacted to generate the conditions for tonal contour, if not tonogenesis. This study will add to Haudricourt’s proposal (1954) for Vietnamese tonogenesis by looking at how feature enhancement played a role in Vietnamese tonogenesis. This study also modifies Haudricourt’s proposed order of tonal development and shows how—historically, genetically, and phonetically—another order of development obtains involving three stages of tonal development followed by a tonal split. Another aspect of this study is to formalize the phonological relationship among tones, phonation features, tonal length, and the tone-bearing units.