Tonem

A tonem is an abstract summary of all the tonal phenomena that are understood to be the same by the speakers of a language and their listeners, regardless of their concrete realization, for example spoken softly or loudly, by a male, female or child's voice, even if this means that absolute pitch can vary greatly from person to person.

In the tonal languages , phonologically different tone movements or different pitches are used to distinguish words, syllables, etc. The scientific term tonem is used to denote these different tone phenomena, a word formation that is based on the similar terms " phoneme " and " chroneme ".

In all tonal language it can be observed that tonemes can only be defined via relative pitches (in register- tone languages ) or via a relative tone course (in contour- tone languages ).

Occasionally, just like with allophones , allotons also occur, these are tones or tone gradients that are clearly differentiated in terms of sound, but which do not differentiate the meaning of words in the respective language.

As a rule, languages ​​have only a very small number of tones, hardly more than ten. The Mandarin in China, for example, knows four, which are referred to as flat , rising , falling-rising , and falling according to their chronological sequence. The Vietnamese has six Toneme when the glottalization counts (creaky voice). The Limburg and Ripuarian languages ​​in western Germany and northeast Belgium and the southeast of the Netherlands, like the so-called Rhenish Regiolekt , have two tones in addition to unstressed tones, which are called differently, such as shock tone and grinding tone . No European language has more than two tones, and most have none.

Literature and source

• Pages 131 to 142 in Elmar Ternes: Introduction to Phonology , Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1987, ISBN 3-534-09576-6