It is traditionally described as having three tones: high (á), low (à) and falling (â).
Rising tones are not found in Luganda, even on long vowels, since a sequence such as [àá] automatically becomes [áá].
But in some circumstances this phrasal tone does not appear, for example, when the word is the subject of a sentence or qualified by a number.
In nouns the phrasal tones begin on the syllable immediately after the fall in pitch, e.g. eddwâlíró 'hospital', masérengétá 'south'.
However, in some verbal forms the phrasal tones do not begin immediately after the accent but after an interval of two or three low-toned syllables, e.g. bálilabá 'they will see'.
One common pattern is for sentences to have a gradual descent from the first high tone to the last, as in the following:[6] The three high tones ú, ú, and áń stand out prominently from the other syllables, and each one is a little lower than the last, as if coming down in a series of steps.
This descent, which is known as downdrift, 'automatic downstep', or 'catathesis', is common in many African languages whenever tones come in a sequence HLH (high-low-high).
However there are some words in which a high lexical or grammatical tone is followed not by one, but by two or even three low-toned syllables: The existence of such words greatly complicates the description of Luganda tones and has important implications for theoretical accounts of the language.
For example, if a toneless word asks a yes–no question, it has a low tone on the final syllable.
Compare these two: A question like the following has a rise-and-fall on the last vowel: Another type of intonational tone is an upglide sometimes heard just before a pause mid-sentence.
The syllables in between are a little lower than the high tones, making a dip: This is known as downdrift, catathesis, or automatic downstep.
An example of these types of phrases is when a noun is followed by the pronominal words banó 'these', abó 'the aforesaid', bonnâ 'all', or yekkâ 'alone' (or their equivalents in other noun classes), e.g.[29] However, there is plateauing before demonstrative adjectives of the -li type: Two other contexts where there is downdrift after a phrasal tone word are before nga 'when, if, as' and before nti meaning 'that':[29][44] (The word nga in this context is toneless, but before a noun it has a tone: ngá sukkáali 'like sugar'.
First, when it is the subject or topic of a sentence (unless it is a personal pronoun like ggwé 'you sg.
The word buli 'each' also remains low-toned when followed by another word: An adverb or a subordinate clause can also form the topic of a sentence and be low-toned, e.g.[18][49] A high or a low tone may be found on any vowel, but a falling tone is found only on: When a falling tone occurs on a syllable closed by a geminate, such as in okucôppá 'to become poor', the fall is very slight and hard to hear, though it can be measured instrumentally.
Thus the third syllable gâ of Abagândá can be said to be long by position, since it has two morae, one belonging to itself and the other 'borrowed from' or 'shared with' the prenasalised consonant that follows.
[27] For example, the second syllable of omwéngé 'beer' has only two, despite starting with mw and being followed by a prenasalised consonant.
a tone on the first mora of a bimoraic final vowel falls: (ensî kí?
One of these is when it is the subject of a sentence: Another is before a quantity word: Although there are now two high tones in adjacent syllables, nonetheless a downstep still occurs just as if the L part of the falling tone were still audible, so that in the above phrase mú is slightly lower in pitch than gú.
Examples are: Nouns with a high tone on the third mora from the end of the word (e.g., akagáali 'bicycle') are also common, and the various types listed below account for at least 25% of the vocabulary.
He suggests that this is either because it may be a borrowing from another Ugandan language, Soga, or because it is a derivative of the verb -bála ('bear fruit').
In practice, however, the reader on the Luganda Basic Course recordings sometimes adds a tone on the final syllable of the noun even where it is theoretically not permitted: ensímbí zaabwe 'their money',[74] emigáátí gyaffe 'our loaves', where the text writes emigáàtì,[75] ekitábó kyange 'my book'.
Phrasal tones are added only in the case of longer verbs: Verbs in Luganda are particularly affected by a rule known as Meeussen's rule, which is common in many African languages, whereby a sequence of tones HH becomes HL.
Thus *bá-lí-lába 'they will see' theoretically has three high tones, one for the prefix bá- 'they', one for the future tense-marker -lí-, and one for the verb-stem itself lába 'see'.
Thus in the above word bálilabá the remaining lexical tone on bá is followed not by one low-toned syllable, but by two.
In object clauses, such as the following, a toneless prefix acquires a tone:[83] But when an object copula is used as in the following sentence, both kinds of prefix lose their tone: The word gwe, ge, bye etc.
[84] The tables that follow give examples of six commonly used tenses, together with the subjunctive mood and some comments on each.
In a two-mora high-toned verb, this final tone disappears by Meeussen's rule, but it reappears and makes a plateau when the verb-stem has three moras or more: When the irregular verb -li 'is (in a certain location)' is used in a relative clause, a high tone is placed on the final vowel when the prefix is toneless.
The forms given above differ from those given by Stevick,[89] who states that in this tense as in the Present the first two moras of a high-toned verb stem have underlying tone.
However, the examples given by Hyman and Katamba (e.g. báliwulírá 'they will hear')[78] imply that only the first mora of a high-toned verb has an underlying tone in this tense.
', it remains high:[13] Contrast the following, where the final vowel has a falling tone and two moras:[52] er The subjunctive has no relative clause or negative form, but a negative may be made by using the subjunctive of the verb okúlémá 'to fail' plus the infinitive.