A Study of Kono Tone Spacing

Abstract

Measurements were made of the fundamental frequency of a register two-tone language, Kono, a Northern Mande language from the Niger-Congo group. This language has the tonal feature of downstep which conveys linguistic information in specific contexts and introduces a terracing effect on successive high tones. The physical values were converted into their musical scale equivalents and comparisons were made with a three-tone system. They were found to be different. Observations of local and global tone ranges were made and were discussed in terms of tone spacing.