In Luganda (Bantu, Uganda), there is a contrast between high and falling tone, differing in the timing of the f0 peak relative to the consonant and vowel intervals of the associated syllable. According to the extensive transcription-based literature on the language, this contrast is limited to “long” syllables (those with a long vowel or coda), and to short word-final syllables. In this study, these claims are tested in two production studies. As in other languages, the timing of f0 peaks was found to be sensitive to the duration of the onset-vowel interval in the high-toned syllable, with longer onset-vowel duration associated with a later f0 peak. The high tones were found to have a significantly greater peak delay than falling tone, but only in long syllables with a long vowel or diphthong. High tones had an earlier f0 peak in phrase-final words than in nonfinal words, but word position had no effect. The results suggest that the phenomenon that previous studies have described in terms of the distribution of falling tones is better seen as a phonetic effect of phrasal position on f0 peak timing, as has been observed in languages such as English, Spanish, and Serbian.

在卢干达（乌干达班图），高音和降音之间存在对比，不同的是 f0 峰值相对于相关音节的辅音和元音间隔的时间。根据关于该语言的大量基于转录的文献，这种对比仅限于“长”音节（带有长元音或尾音的音节）和短词尾音节。在这项研究中，这些声明在两项生产研究中进行了测试。与其他语言一样，f0 峰值的时间被发现对高音节中的元音起始间隔的持续时间很敏感，较长的起始元音持续时间与较晚的 f0 峰值相关。发现高音比降音具有明显更大的峰值延迟，但仅限于带有长元音或双元音的长音节。高音调在词组词尾的 f0 峰值比非词尾词更早，但词位没有影响。结果表明，以前的研究在降调分布方面描述的现象更好地被视为短语位置对 f0 峰值时间的语音影响，正如在英语、西班牙语和塞尔维亚语等语言中所观察到的那样。