Certain Efik nominal constructions exhibit fixed tonal melodies that overwrite nouns' underlying tones. Previous analyses of these alternations (Welmers 1973; Kim 1974; Cook 1985) are purely phonological. Working in a constraint-based framework, I propose that the tonal alternations are actually phrasal morphology (McPherson 2014). The tonal melodies are overlays encoded in lexicalized construc- tional schemas that relate idiosyncratic phrasal phonology with specific syntactic constructions.

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... constructional schemas are enforced by constraints. The Efik case extends the observed range of phrasal morphology by demonstrating that constructional schema constraints and phonological constraints can interact to de- termine a construction's surface tones.