ABSTRACT
While it is commonly found that different adnominal modifiers have their own constructional properties, this has been mostly based on morphological and syntactic criteria. In this paper we show that each type of modifier (possessive, demonstrative, numeral, quantifier, relativized verb) imposes unique tonal properties on the preceding head noun or intervening modifier. Although we show that these tonal effects all derive from the same high (H) tone of noun class agreement prefixes, each modifier treats the H tone differently: possessives and demonstratives shift the H off the prefix to become floating (with different effects on the head noun), while numerals lower the high to a low tone that blocks the phrasal rule of High Tone Anticipation. These modifiers also show differences when each occurs without an overt noun head. Evidence for the prefixal H tone is found when these modifiers are preceded by a proclitic or augment. The inevitable conclusion is that the tonal alternations must refer to the category of each modifier, thereby defining its own construction.
