by Nikolaus P. Himmelmann and D. Robert Ladd
Abstract:
This article provides an introductory tutorial on prosodic features such as tone and accent for researchers working on little-known languages. It specifically addresses the needs of non-specialists and thus does not presuppose knowledge of the phonetics and phonology of prosodic features. Instead, it intends to introduce the uninitiated reader to a field often shied away from because of its (in part real, but in part also just imagined) complexities. It consists of a concise overview of the basic phonetic phenomena (section 2) and the major categories and problems of their functional and phonological analysis (sections 3 and 4). Section 5 gives practical advice for documenting and analyzing prosodic features in the field.
From our "the way it should be" Dept. If there is one type of linguist worthy of admiration it would be the fieldwork specialist. These guys are doing all us other linguists a huge favor, not to mention the world. But it's hard to be a good field linguist because so much depends on your being a jack of all (linguistic and anthropological) trades. So here we have a wonderful crazy abstract that hopes to help these wonderful fieldworkers. Hopefully, now people who study prosody in the lab will benefit from what fieldworkers (who read this article) can collect out there in the world.
On a separate note, I'm really loving the journal this article is published in. You can get all the articles from the website. Hurray for open access digital articles!
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