Waihua/Under the hood

Tonogenetic Analysis
Initial tonogenesis:


 * Presupposed features:
 * Unaspirated unvoiced initial stops behave as voiced stops (i.e., give a low tone), but remain unvoiced and later merge with aspirated stops.
 * Unvoiced nasals behave as unvoiced stops and later merge again with voiced nasals.
 * Initial glottal stops behave as voiced stops, but final glottal stops behave as aspirated stops.
 * Consonant clusters behave with the leftmost consonant in the cluster.
 * Otherwise:
 * C[+voice]VC[+voice] → low
 * C[-voice]VC[-voice] → high
 * C[+voice]VC[-voice] → rising
 * C[-voice]VC[+voice] → falling

Final tonogenetic developments:


 * Concave tones are reanalyzed as high-falling, displacing falling to mid-falling?