Register complex

Article summary

In linguistics, a register complex is a combination of phonation type, pitch, length, vowel quality and/or other variants that function dependently as distinguishing features within a single phonological system. In languages employing register systems, differences in a distinguishing feature correlate relative to the quality of another distinguishing feature. For instance, in a system where pitch, voice quality and stress timing are distinguishing features, the meaning of a vowel-consonant cluster like "Pai" (as in the English word "Pie") may depend on whether the cluster is voiced in a high, medium or low pitch relative to the clearness, breathiness and glottal quality of speech as well as relative to the duration of the cluster relative to other neighboring clusters. Thus, "Pai" voiced in a high tone with a breathy quality and unstressed along with other unstressed clusters would connote a different meaning if any of the three features changed relative to other features. Many register languages are tonal. However, tone is not a universal distinguishing feature among register systems and register complexes are not a component of most tonal languages. In fact, tonal languages can employ either a register tone system or a contour tone system.…

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