Language | 2019
Lexical tone or foot structure in Hong Kong English? A response to Lian-Hee Wee
Abstract
Abstract:As is common in work on prosodic typology, the notions tone and stress play a key role in Wee s 2016 study of the tone system of Hong Kong English (HKE). Based on the absence of phonetic correlates of stress and the distribution of tone in polysyllabic words, Wee claims that HKE must have lexical (high) tone. In this reply, we argue that, even in the absence of phonetic correlates of stress, foot structure provides a more parsimonious account of the distribution of surface tones. Multiple high tones within words follow from predictable morphological structure and/or tonal spreading, rather than from lexical tone.