Voice asymmetry in Ewe nouns

Abstract

I argue in this paper that the consonantal influence on tone is highly limited, restricting itself to the tone of the vowel immediately following the onset. This point is demonstrated via Ewe High Tone Insertion, which is blocked by a voiced obstruent if the insertion targets the initial vowel following the onset, but not if the insertion targets the second vowel of a bimoraic syllable. This result confirms a number of earlier studies which show that the phonetic impact of onsets on Fo is limited to the fIrst lOOms of the following vowel.