Seunghun J. Lee. 2011. Effects of the Coordination Problem in Tonogenesis: Restructuring of Grammar in Athabaskan Languages . Language Information . Volume 13. 111-134.
Tonal development in Athabaskan languages from Proto-Athabaskan manifests in three different ways: (a) H tone marked languages, (b) L tone marked languages, and (c) non-tonal languages. This type of tonogenesis is argued to be due to the coordination problem (Berm？dez-Otero, 2007), in which misperception leads to the restructuring of grammar, which results in the creation of tone. The diachronic changes in Athabaskan languages provide further evidence for the relationship between tonogenesis and consonant-tone interaction because tone developed in opposite ways in different languages of Athabaskan. The seemingly contradictory tonal development patterns will be explained by a constraint based theory of consonant-tone interaction. (English Department, Central Connecticut State University)
Key words: Tonogenesis, Coordination problem, Consonant-tone interaction, Athabaskan languages