Autosegmental Analysis of Tone in Igbo Associative Construction

Abstract

Associative constructions have as an objective to use the autosegmental theory of phonological representation to analyse Igbo tones in associative constructions. An instrumental analysis was also carried out and its findings compared with the autosegmental findings. It was discovered that the proposition of underlying floating tones to account for the changes observable in these constructions was unsatisfactory as the treatment was more or less subjective. On the other hand, the instrumental analysis shows that the tonal behaviour in these constructions namely: rise in pitch come about because of the need for focus or emphasis during communication and therefore could not be satisfac¬torily accounted for by proposing underlying forms. We therefore submit that any analysis of tonal behaviour in communication should involve instrumental analysis to concretize the phenomenon and bring the facts properly into focus.