Verbs in Makwe do not have lexical tone. Depending on tense, five different melodies can be assigned to the stem. Some tenses do not assign a melodic H tone whereas others assign a single H tone to stem-initial, stem-penult or stem-final position. The remaining tenses assign two H tones: one to stem-initial and the other to stem-final position. Tone spreading processes apply to H tones that are not in verb-final position. Verb-final H tones are subject to retraction or shift depending on their position within the phonological phrase.