Vowel-Tone Interaction in Two Tibeto-Burman Languages

Intrinsic F0 (IF0) has been considered a phonetic phenomenon that has a physiological basis. However, considering cross linguistic variation in IF0, it is also assumed that there is an amount of speaker intended control on IF0. This work looks into the two tone languages spoken in North East India and confirms the evidence of IF0 in the languages. However, it also shows that as soon as speakers exert control over F0 for tone production, IF0 differences diminish. As previously reported, in this study too, IF0 differences were noticed to be more pronounced in the higher F0 regions.