THE DEVELOPMENT OF TONE IN PANJABI AS EVIDENCED IN THE POETIC ALLITERATION PATTERNS

Carrie Estill

Ph.D. Dissertation, 1985

Abstract

Since the Nineteenth Century scholars have observed that Panjabi, unlike the other Indo-European languages of India, has tone. My thesis is divided into four chapters: (I) A short description of Pnajabi phonology. (II) A review of the literature concerning Panjabi tone. (III) A discussion of tone in languages other than Panjabi. (IV) Evidence from poetry supporting my thesis that the tonal phenomenon in Panjabi is recent. In the last chapter I examine poetry from the Adi Granth, poetry by Shah Husain, the Epic of Hira and Ranjha by Varis Shah, and poetry by many modern poets. Evidence for initial alliteration between voiceless unaspirates and voiced aspirates is common only in the work of the modern poets, suggesting that the changes in tone occurred recently, perhaps as recently as the Nineteenth Century.