Tlapanec (Mè’phàà) Tone Spreading and Tonal Markedness

Abstract

Crosslinguistically it has been assumed that only marked tones can spread, but in Huehuetepec Tlapanec all three levels of tones, low, mid and high, can spread. Among these, the low tone is the least marked tone in the sense that it can only spread to a tone-bearing unit underspecified for tone, and only low tone can accept spreading of other tones. On the other hand, the mid tone is the least marked according to other diagnostics for tonal markedness, namely defaultness and floatability. This results in markedness paradox. This paper will describe in detail such paradox and urge reconsideration of tonal markedness.