Sonority and Syllable Weight Determine Tonal Association in Tashlhiyt

We investigated the alignment of F0 peaks in disyllabic target words in polar questions and contrastive statements in Tashlhiyt Berber, concentrating on cases where both syllables contained a sonorant nucleus. Peak location, interpreted as H tone association, is not only determined by the communicative function of the utterance, but also by sonority and syllable weight, with a preference for more sonorous segments and heavy syllables. This work confirms earlier findings on Intonation Phrase medial tones in this language, and sheds further light on the interaction of sonority and weight as determining factors in tonal association.