Sisterhood and tonal scaling*

Abstract

Abstract. This paper discusses central aspects of the effects of hierarchical structure on tonal scaling in intonation. The core results of a number of phonetic studies on this topic, by Ladd, by van den Berg, Gussenhoven and Rietveld, as well as experimental results of our own, are reviewed. We review the suggestions of this earlier work and argue for an addition to the theory. The principle ‘The deeper the steeper’ says that downstep among sister nodes is relatively larger if these sister‐nodes are relatively more deeply embedded in the prosodic representation.