The international system of Wolof

This paper presents an overview of the intonational system of Wolof (a non- tone language belonging to the Atlantic branch of Niger-Congo), based on th e analysis of several recorded corpora. This system has several interesting typological features, including the absence of any intonational marking of focus. There is a particularly close relationship between the intonational system and the morphosyntax, manifested in complementary forms of marking. Part I describes the relevant morphosyntactic features of the language and the melodic contours of the simplest prosodic units (utterances without in tonational subdivision). Owing to the absence of pitch accent and of intona tional focus marking as well as to the optional nature of intonational subd ivision, the basic intonational structure of statements consists of a compl etely flat low-pitched plateau ending in a boundary tone. The analytic mode l postulates L and H "pitch targets" allowing the intonation curve to be br oken down into component structures. Utterance-level boundary tones and phr asal L tones and H tones mark utterance-level categories such as statements , several types of interrogatives and exclamations. Part H describes the pr osodic structures that appear in discourse (prosodic divisions, downdrift, "preambles, " pauses, and continuative boundary tones). Part III provides a summary of the system as a whole.