A Comprehensive Study of Tone/Accent Languages of Africa (2016.04-2019.03)

About the Project

Project term: 2016.04–2019.03

Despite many African languages being tonal/accentual, we know little about their functioning. In our project, each member displays and explains the tone/accent system of the languages he/she studies. The tone-syntax interface is also a topic of research because in most African tone/accent languages, the grammatical function (to differentiate relative clauses from direct clauses, affirmatives from negatives, etc.) is more important than the lexical function (to differentiate words that are otherwise the same), which is different from the case in East Asian tone/accent languages.

Shigeki KAJI, Project Coordinator (Professor, Kyoto Sangyo University)

For details, please see here.