Contact-Induced Tonogenesis in Southern Qiang

In the Qiang language, the Southern dialects (SQ) exploit tones to make lexical distinctions, while the Northern dialects (NQ) lack tonal phenomena. There are also a few transitional dialects in which tones distinguish a few minimal pairs; each pair includes at least one borrowing from Chinese. Attempts have been made (e.g., Liu 1998a) to correlate the tones of SQ with certain phonetic features of NQ dialects (e.g., consonant cluster initials and vowel quantity/quality/rhotacization). This paper presents evidence that SQ was a pitch accent language which has undergone contact-induced tonogenesis; viz., after undergoing phonological simplifications that made SQ dialects tone-prone, lexical borrowings from a tonal language (Sichuanese Mandarin) caused the beginnings of tonal distinctions. Some dialects (Longxi, Taoping) have developed full-blown tonal systems, while others (Mianchi, Heihu) have layers of tonal strata over pitch accent systems. There appear to be phonetic motivations for some accented syllables and for certain minor tones, which are of relatively recent origin.