Rara #128

Legacy number: 128

 Number  128
 Phenomenon  as many as five phonological tone levels, plus two falling and one rising contour tone
 Found in  Black Miao (of Ch'ing Chiang Miao (Miao-Yao, Sino-Tibetan (?)); Dan (Ivory Coast dialect; Mande, Niger-Congo)
 Domain  phonology — tone
 Type  rarissimum
 Keywords  tone levels
 Source  Anderson, Stephen R. (1978). Tone features. In Victoria A. Fromkin (ed.), Tone: A Linguistic Survey, 133-175. New York: Academic Press, pp. 145-146.
Maddieson, Ian (1978). Universals of tone. In Joseph H. Greenberg et al. (eds.), Universals of Human Language, vol. 2: Phonology, 335-365. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
based on
Kwan, J. (1971). Ch'ing Chiang Miao phonology. Tsing Hwa Journal of Chinese Studies (New Series) 9: 289-305.
Bearth, Thomas & H. Zemp (1967). The phonology of Dan (Santa). Journal of African Languages 6: 9-29.
 Violates  not yet in UA: constraint on tone levels inherent in systems of tone features

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Discussion
Notes
There are more languages with five or indeed more level tones, which, however, seem to be surface distinctions that can be derived from fewer than five underlying tonal elements.
Comment
Frans Plank · 21 Sep 2006
There are more languages with five or indeed more level tones, which, however, seem to be surface distinctions that can be derived from fewer than five underlying tonal elements.