Abstract
This talk proposes an analysis of grammatical tone that is consistent with segmental grammatical particles on the one hand, while being in line with the treatment of other intonation phenomena such as lexical tone and sentence intonation on the other hand. The possessor-marking function of the ‘Induced Creaky Tone (ICT)’ in Burmese is taken as an example to show how tonal phonology interacts with morpho-syntax and semantics. Burmese is an omnisyllabic tone language with both a complex lexical tone system and abundant grammatical tonal alternation. The ICT alternation is optional and multifunctional. Production experiments and interviews with native speakers demonstrate that there are several well-distinguished conditions of different nature for this tonal alternation. ICT is primarily induced by syntax, varies due to pragmatic factors, occurs only on the shared right boundary of phrases and stem forms, and its phonological condition has a domain stretching to the left boundary of the prosodic word. A comprehensive account of such conditions provides the basis for a grammatical analysis which tests the theoretical options for representing a tonal morpheme in the morpho-syntactic structure of a sentence. It also sheds light on other issues such as the interfaces between phonology and grammar, and between tonal morphology and tonal syntax.