Dan
Yacouba, Gio
daf (dann1241)
Mande (mand1469) > Dan-Toura (dant1235)
Africa
( West Africa )
L1 speakers: 1600000
L2 speakers: None
A list of the publications on the language, and particularly on its tonal system, used in this report.
The version of the project questionnaire this analytical report answers, e.g. 10d.
Last modified: 2026-10-06 11:28 by kirill
2. Segmental phonology
2.1 Phonemic inventory
Consonants whose type restricts the tonal distribution of the syllable they belong to.
2.2 Prosodic units
The smallest prosodic unit relevant for the surface realization of tone. The syllable, unless the contrary is proven.
3. Tonal inventory
3.1.1 Number of tonal levels
List only those levels that either constitute targets in tonemes and their allotones, or represent a default tonal level.
“downstep” not applicable: the language has no downstep (§3.4).
3.1.2 Contours hosted by one syllable
The tonal contours a single syllable can host, each written as a sequence of tonal levels. Whether a contour is a toneme is a separate question, answered in 3.2; listing one here does not make it one, and a language may host a contour that is not a toneme.
3.2 Inventory of tonemes
Extra-high
/ xH /
toneme

Criteria:

  • The Persistence Criterion
  • The Tonal Morpheme Criterion
  • The Shared TBU Criterion

View details
High
/ H /
toneme

Criteria:

  • The Persistence Criterion
  • The Tonal Morpheme Criterion

View details
Mid
/ M /
toneme

Criteria:

  • The Persistence Criterion
  • The Tonal Morpheme Criterion
  • The Shared TBU Criterion
  • The Activity Criterion

View details
Low
/ L /
toneme

Criteria:

  • The Persistence Criterion
  • The Tonal Morpheme Criterion
  • The Shared TBU Criterion
  • The Activity Criterion

View details
Extra-low
/ xL /
toneme

Criteria:

  • The Persistence Criterion
  • The Tonal Morpheme Criterion
  • The Shared TBU Criterion
  • The Activity Criterion

View details
Falling
/ H xL /
toneme

Criteria:

  • The Persistence Criterion
  • The Extensibility Criterion

View details
3.4 Downstep and upstep
Downstep is any downtrend — a lowering of the phonetic backdrop against which pitch targets are scaled — caused by a local trigger. A downtrend triggered by a preceding lower tone counts, regardless of whether it was traditionally called downdrift or automatic downstep. A global utterance-level declination belongs to §6.3.
Not applicable: the language has no downstep (§3.4).
Not applicable: the language has no downstep (§3.4).
Not applicable: the language has no downstep (§3.4).
Upstep is the mirror image of downstep: an upward shift of the phonetic backdrop caused by a local trigger.
4. Tonotactics
4.2 Combinations of tonemes. Tonal melodies
A tonal melody is a stable combination of tonemes mapped onto a segment of variable size, most often a word.
4.3 Extratonal syllables/moras
Not applicable: the language has no extratonal syllables or moras (§4.3).
Not applicable: the language has no extratonal syllables or moras (§4.3).
4.4 Tonal phrases
A tonal phrase is a maximal domain for tonal processes made of two or more prosodic words, and is defined in syntactic terms.
5. Stress and tone
5.1 Culminativity
5.2 Stress
Not applicable: the language has no stress (§5.2).
Yes only where stress always falls on a given syllable counted from a word boundary, not merely by default.
Not applicable: the language has no stress (§5.2).
Not applicable: the language has no stress (§5.2).
Not applicable: the language has no stress (§5.2).
Not applicable: the language has no stress (§5.2).
Not applicable: the language has no stress (§5.2).
Not applicable: the language has no stress (§5.2).
5.3 Positional prominence
For languages that have no stress. Stress is a syllabic prominence that is obligatory; this is prominence that is not — a prosodic word may have no prominent syllable.
5.4 Obligatoriness of tone
Obligatoriness means that any prosodic word either bears at least one toneme or is included into a tonal span of a neighbouring word. A word with no lexical tone of its own does not rule it out.
6. Tonal rules
Mid tone dissimilation
other
/M/ /M/ > /M/ /H/ / (word) (lex: yɤ̄ | ɓɯ̰̄ | ɓā _)

Mid tone, if preceded by another mid, is replaced by high tone. For three deictic adverbs: yɤ̄ 'here' (near the speaker) and ɓɯ̰̄ 'there' (outside the visibility of both interlocutors) change their tone obligatorily, and this modification is optional for ɓā 'there' (near the interlocutor, or on some distance from both participants of the conversation)

Low plateauing
plateauing
/L/ /xL/ /L/ > /L/ /L/ / (lex _ _) (word _)

A LxL melody on a heavy foot is levelled to L if followed by another L. This rule concerns only some words, e.g. sòȍ 'horse'.

xL regressive assimilation
tonal spread
[L ..] /xL/ > [L .] [xL .] /xL/ / (lex: kèe _) (word _)

If a heavy foot hosting a L toneme is followed by xL, the xL tone assimilates its final syllable. This rule concerns only one word, kèe 'occiput', e.g.: kèȅ tȁ 'at the occiput'.

None
None

None

6.2 Segmental processes affecting mapping of tonal spans
A vowel elision that causes resyllabification, for instance, changing the number of syllables a span is mapped onto. The rules themselves belong in the analytical report.
6.3 Tone and intonation
Tone and intonation use the same medium, so the two can compete: peaks and boundary tones may block tonemes from being realized or displace the boundaries of their spans, or be affected by tonemes in turn.
Not applicable: the language has no downstep (§3.4).
7. Grammatical and lexical tones
7.1. Grammatical tones
Item-based grammatical tone can be described in additive morphology — the meaning maps onto an underlying form. Process-based grammatical tone cannot be derived from an underlying representation and is described as an operation (Sande 2022).
Replacive deletes the lexical tone of the word or part of it; additive docks without deleting. Dominant deletes the lexical tones of the word; recessive docks onto its originally toneless segments.
Mirror-reflecting replaces each toneme by its opposite; subtractive deletes a lexical tone meaningfully, leaving the morpheme toneless; scalar shift raises or lowers by one or two degrees.
7.2 Tonal paradigms
A concise account is enough, a detailed description is in the analytical report.
7.3. Lexical tones
7.4 Tonal specification of bound morphemes
8. Tonal classes of words
8.1 Differentiation of word classes by tone
8.2 Tonal classes of words
Classes whose members differ in their tonal behaviour, not necessarily following the parts of speech.
9. Diachrony of tone
A flag for finding these languages, not for comparing them: the account itself belongs in the analytical report.
10. Traditional representation of tone
10.2 Tonal notation in the writing
Analytical report (fulltext)

A detailed analytical report on the tonal system of Dan is available as a preprint at Zenodo.