floating tone

English

Noun

floating tone (plural floating tones)

  1. (phonology) A morpheme or element of a morpheme that contains no consonants or vowels, but only tone. It cannot be pronounced by itself, but affects the tones of neighbouring morphemes.
  2. (phonology) A phonemic tone which is not associated to a syllable and is only pronounced in its effect on neighboring tones, such as by causing downstep.
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