Hausa
hau (haus1257)
Afro-Asiatic (afro1255) > West Chadic A.1 (west2718)
Africa
L1 speakers:
L2 speakers:
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: 2025-03-13 16:34 by llitvinova
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.
Not applicable: the language has no prosodic foot (§2.2).
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
High
/ H /
toneme

Criteria:

  • The Floating Criterion
  • The Tonal Morpheme Criterion
  • The Activity Criterion

View details
Low
/ L /
toneme

Criteria:

  • The Floating Criterion
  • The Activity 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
“foot” not applicable: the language has no prosodic foot (§2.2).
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
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
Tonal Polarity
other

The toneless copulae neː (SG.MSC/PL) and tʃeː (SG.FEM) take the tone opposite to the preceding one.

Toneme extension
tonal spread

A toneme can extend from right to left within a prosodic word. For example, pluractional verbs are formed by reduplication of the first part of a trisyllabic verb root. In this case, the initial tone of the verb melody spreads from right to left onto the reduplicated syllable as follows: káràntáː ‘read’ → kákkaràntáː ‘read repeatedly’

Tonal melody shift
tonal shift

When a prosodic word is expanded, its tonal melody is re-assigned to that expanded word from right to left. The expansion of a prosodic word occurs in the Imperative construction when object pronouns integrate into the preceding verb form: the Imperative tonal melody L-H is mapped onto a verb root and the following object pronoun as follows: màːɽeː́ ‘slap’ + \LH (IMP) + -tà (3SG.FEM) → màːɽeː́ ‘slap’ + -tà (3SG.FEM) + \LH (IMP) → màːɽeːtá ‘Slap her!’

Toneme deletion
toneme deletion

There are several cases of toneme deletion in Hausa: If the initial syllable is light, it cannot host two tonemes of a melody. Thus, the first toneme of the melody is deleted, e.g. tʃí 'eat' + \LH (IMP) → tʃí 'Eat!'. A floating L toneme is deleted in following cases: (i) when the root-final vowel to which the floating L tone is attached is short, e.g. ʔàukú ‘happen’ + -Lwáː (NMLZ) → ʔàukúwáː ‘occurrence’, (ii) when the root-final long vowel carries L, e.g. ɽúfèː ‘close’ + -Lwáː (NMLZ) → ɽúfèːwáː ‘closing’, and (iii) when the root-final long vowel carries a sequence of H and L, e.g. tʃêː ‘say’ + -Lwáː (NMLZ) → tʃêːwá ‘saying’ A toneme can be deleted when its segmental carrier is deleted, e.g. Háruːnà → Háruː (proper name)

LH contour simplification
other
LH → L / H_

A LH sequence on one syllable becomes L if the preceding tone within the same word form is H, e.g. múkà jí → múkài ‘we did’

LH contour simplification
tonal spread
LH → H / elsewhere

A LH sequence on one syllable becomes H elsewhere, e.g. dòːmín → dón ‘because’

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 Hausa is available as a preprint at Zenodo.