Tone‐to‐Edge Constraints in Kavalan and Beyond

ABSTRACT This paper presents a number of phonological operations that occur in conditioning environments that resist representation in current theoretical frameworks of tonal phonology. These operations involve the shifting of a tone toward the opposite domain edge and are triggered by a tonal melody of a certain length being associated with a domain edge. Evidence for these operations comes from novel fieldwork on the Formosan languages, including Kavalan, Saaroa, and Mantauran Rukai, as well as some evidence external to Austronesian. In order to account for the conditioning environments of these operations, a formal representation of tonal melodies aligned to domain edges is proposed as an addition to Autosegmental‐Metrical phonology.