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Papers by David Roberts

Nordic Journal of African Linguistics, 2019

This article assesses tonal oral reading errors in the 1982 orthography of Eastern Dan, a South M... more This article assesses tonal oral reading errors in the 1982 orthography of Eastern Dan, a South Mande language of Côte d’Ivoire. Fifty-seven adult participants orally read four narrative texts presented with and without tone marks. Subsequent linguistic analysis of tonal errors identified six possible causes: dialect diversity, homophony, tonal minimal pairs, alternating visually similar words, under-representation of longer words, and misspelled words. Extending the analysis to errors on individual tones reveals that the orthographic strategies for marking mid, low, extra-low and contour tones do not attract more tonal errors than any other tone. The paper concludes by acknowledging that many tonal errors are apparently not linguistically motivated at all and are probably due to lack of regular reading practice given the current stagnation in the literacy program.

Journal of West African Languages, 2019

This paper investigates the extent to which the tones of Kabiye verbal extensions are predictable... more This paper investigates the extent to which the tones of Kabiye verbal extensions are predictable from the surface tone patterns of the root to which they are attached, and/or those of any corresponding underived roots. Following Snider (2018), the analysis counts relative frequencies of phonotactic patterns to identify complex stems, and compares known complex stems with those that are suspect. This process reveals two kinds of stem-final [LABIAL] and [DORSAL] consonants: those that elide in the imperative which are analyzed as forming part of the underived roots, and those that do not elide which are considered to be extensions. As for stem-final [CORONAL] consonants, which are much more numerous, the same diagnostic is not available because no elision process is attested. Nevertheless, most of those in this set are best analyzed as having extensions with causative, intensive, transitive, diminutive and reversive values. As for the tonal tier, the most convincing hypothesis is that imperatives of underived verbs have two surface tone patterns (H, L) each of which fan out into three surface tone patterns (H, L, HL) when one, two or three extensions are added. The extensions themselves have one of three underlying tone patterns /-H, -L, -∅/, with the unspecified tone being necessary to resolve an adjacency issue.

Language Documentation & Conservation, 2020

Whether tone should be represented in writing, and if so how much, is one of the most formidable ... more Whether tone should be represented in writing, and if so how much, is one of the most formidable challenges facing those developing orthographies for tone languages. Various researchers have attempted to quantify the level of written ambiguity in a language if tone is not marked, but these contributions are not easily comparable because they use different measurement criteria. This article presents a first attempt to develop a standardized instrument and evaluate its potential. The method is exemplified using four narrative texts translated into Elip, Mbelime and Eastern Dan. It lists all distinct written word forms that are homographs if tone is not marked, discarding repeated words, homophony and polysemy, as well as pairs that never share the same syntactic slot. It treats lexical and grammatical tone separately, while acknowledging that these two functions often coincide. The results show that the level of written ambiguity in Elip is weighted towards the grammar, while in Mbelime many ambiguities occur at the point where lexical and grammatical tone coincide. As for Eastern Dan, with its profusion of nominal and verbal minimal pairs, not to mention pronouns, case markers, predicative markers and other parts of speech, the level of written ambiguity if tone is not marked is by far the highest of the three languages. The article ends with some suggestions of how the methodology might be refined, by reporting some experimental data that provide only limited proof of the need to mark tone fully, and by describing how full tone marking has survived recent spelling reforms in all three languages.

Eastern Dan has five level tones, six contours and many monosyllabic words, resulting in an extra... more Eastern Dan has five level tones, six contours and many monosyllabic words, resulting in an extraordinarily heavy functional load of tone. This led those first involved in orthography development to create a novel system for marking tone that uses punctuation symbols in wordinitial and wordfinal posi tion. This orthography also has considerable segmental overrepresentation and makes extensive use of umlauts to symbolize vowels. In a quantitative classroom experiment, we tested it against Valentin Vydrin's recent proposal for radical reform that advocates superscript diacritics for marking tone, biunique corre spondence for consonants and vowels, and special characters in place of umlauts. Sixtyeight participants with no previous exposure to written Eastern Dan were taught various combinations of tones and segments in parallel groups and their acquired skills were tested in dictation and oral reading tasks. The results point to an advantage for the experimental orthography that combines the punctua tion tone marking strategy with biunique segmental correspondence and spe

The shorter a word, the more likely it is to be lexically ambiguous. In the standard orthography ... more The shorter a word, the more likely it is to be lexically ambiguous. In the standard orthography of Kabiye, a tone language of Togo, numerous monosyllabic heterophonic homographs (tonal minimal pairs) and homophonic homographs occur in the imperative and six associated conjugations. This paper presents the complete catalogue of these verbs, and then examines them in natural contexts. It goes on to propose a morphographic spelling in which elided root-final labial consonants are written as superscript silent letters to help the reader identify the lexeme. This spelling is tested against a tonographic alternative in an oral reading experiment. The results show that those who learned the morphographic spelling gained more in reading accuracy from the addition of superscript silent letters than those who learned the tonographic spelling did from the addition of diacritics.

This paper presents a re-analysis of the tone of Kabiye nouns. It focuses on two tonal phenomena ... more This paper presents a re-analysis of the tone of Kabiye nouns. It focuses on two tonal phenomena that have apparently not been reported elsewhere in Gur languages: root melodies associating to whole words and tonal overwriting. All singular suffixes are analyzed as being underlyingly toneless and receiving their surface tone by means of the root melody associating to the entire word, as though blind to the morpheme boundary. Association of tones to trimoraic words is dealt with by positing that the OCP is inactive. The non-singular (plural, collective and liquid) suffixeswith one exceptionare underlyingly HL. The analysis of these forms distinguishes between non-overwriting suffixes, in which the word level tone is merely the sum of its parts, and overwriting suffixes, in which the tone of the suffix overwrites the final tone(s) of the root melody.

The experiment reported here tests the Lexical Orthography Hypothesis, that is, the notion that t... more The experiment reported here tests the Lexical Orthography Hypothesis, that is, the notion that the output of the lexical phonology is the most promising phonological depth for an exhaustive representation of tone by means of diacritics in the orthography of a tone language. We conducted a controlled classroom experiment with 97 secondary school pupils learning written Kabiye, a Gur language of northern Togo. After testing their baseline skills in writing the standard orthography, the pupils participated in an eleven-hour transition course spread over three weeks in four parallel groups: DEEP (an experimental orthography representing the input of the lexical phonology), LEXICAL (representing the output of the lexical phonology), PHONEMIC (representing a level between the output of the lexical phonology and the output of the post-lexical phonology) and a control group. On the final day of the experiment, we tested their acquired skills in a dictation exercise. The results show that the LEXICAL group outperforms the other groups in three of the error types associated with adding diacritics, although they performed less well on one of the error types associated with writing long vowels. This initial evidence supporting the Lexical Orthography Hypothesis needs confirmation with reading and writing experiments on a variety of other tone languages.

The standard orthography of Kabiye (Togo) does not mark tone. In such a context, how can a resear... more The standard orthography of Kabiye (Togo) does not mark tone. In such a context, how can a researcher adequately assess the degree of ambiguity in the written language and make a valid contribution to the debate about how tone might be incorporated in the second generation of language development? This article approaches that question, not from the perspective of phonological analysis which has tended to dominate the literature, but from the point of view of the linguistics of writing. Applying Catach's (1984) model of lexical ambiguity for Kabiye, it advocates the development of a homograph corpus in which words, roots and affixes are included or excluded on the basis of semantic, morphological and dialectal criteria. A homographic prefix with pronominal, negative and immediative interpretations illustrates how the corpus is then applied to a frequency and distribution analysis of ambiguity in natural written contexts, and an analysis of oral reading errors in the classroom. A dictation task reveals that subjects who were taught a segmental modification of the negative prefix write with greater accuracy than subjects who were taught to add tone diacritics.

A strong emphasis on professional networking is crucial for any orthography researcher who wishes... more A strong emphasis on professional networking is crucial for any orthography researcher who wishes to influence the debate about how a particular language should be written. This principle is illustrated with a description of the professional network developed in the course of research on the orthography of Kabiye, one of the “national” languages of Togo. Following a model developed by Fijalkow (2000), the Kabiye social context is divided into five separate but interrelated spheres. Each are described in turn, both in terms of their own profile and their relationship to each. The second part examines the linguist’s own relationship with each of the five spheres. Such an approach is recommended for anyone involved in orthography development, particularly in social contexts where the researcher is in an advisory rather than a decision-making role.

Aucun chercheur en orthographe ne peut s'en passer d'un solide réseau de relations professionnelles s'il veut influencer le débat et les décisions prises. L'auteur démontre ce principe au moyen d'une description du milieu social dans lequel il a lui-même fait ses recherches sur l'orthographe du kabiyè, l'une des langues dites « nationale » du Togo. D'après le modèle de Fijalkow (2000), il divise le contexte social du kabiyè en cinq sphères, à la fois distinctes et liées les unes par rapport aux autres. Il décrit le profil de chacune, ainsi que sa relation avec la sphère voisine. Enfin, l'auteur se place lui-même dans le contexte social et examine ses propres relations sociales au sein de chacun des cinq sphères. Une telle approche sera d'une grande utilité pour tout chercheur impliqué dans la rectifcation d'une orthographe, surtout dans des contextes sociaux où lui-même n'est pas l'un des décideurs.

Discussions about tone orthography have long been hampered by imprecise terminology. This articl... more Discussions about tone orthography have long been hampered by imprecise terminology. This article aims to bring clarity by means of an explicit typology composed of six parameters. Each parameter is defined by a choice: domain, target, symbol, position, density and depth. The orthographer assesses each typological aspect individually, while always bearing in mind that the six parameters together generate a complex matrix of responses. The result is a precise and informative character profile for any Roman script tone orthography.

Some orthographies represent tone phonemically by means of diacritics; others favor zero marking.... more Some orthographies represent tone phonemically by means of diacritics; others favor zero marking. Neither solution is entirely satisfactory. The former leads to graphic overload; the latter to a profusion of homographs; both may reduce fluency. But there is a ‘third way’: to highlight the grammar rather than the tone system itself. To test this approach, we developed two experimental strategies for Kabiye: a grammar orthography and a tone orthography. Both are modifications of the standard orthography that does not mark tone. We tested these in a quantitative experiment involving literate L1 speakers that included dictation and spontaneous writing. Writers of the grammar orthography perform faster and more accurately than writers of the tone orthography, suggesting that they have an awareness of the morphological and syntactic structure of their language that may exceed their awareness of its phonology. We conclude that languages with grammatical tone might benefit from grammatical markers in the orthography.

Written Language & Literacy, 2012

This article describes the preparatory phase leading up to a tone orthography experiment in Kabiy... more This article describes the preparatory phase leading up to a tone orthography experiment in Kabiye (Gur, Togo). It aims to show the importance of integrating theory and practice when undertaking a classroom experiment. The first section applies certain principals from the theories of autosegmental and lexical phonology to the development of an experimental tone orthography and the pedagogical materials that were used to teach it. The second section describes four rounds of pilot tests that tested these principals in the classroom. These two tracks developed simultaneously until they coincided in test materials that were both theoretically and pedagogically sound. The article advocates the reporting of such preparatory work in order to optimise future experiment design.

Dans cet article nous décrivons la phase préparatoire qui a précédé une expérience formelle sur la graphie tonale du kabiyè (gur, Togo). Notre objectif sera de démontrer l’importance d’une approche unifiée reliant théorie et pratique lorsqu’il s’agit de mener une expérience sur le terrain. La première partie applique certains principes de la théorie de la phonologie autosegmentale ainsi que celle de la phonologie lexicale à l’élaboration d’une graphie tonale expérimentale et les matériaux pédagogiques destinés à l’enseigner. La deuxième partie décrit quatre séries de tests pilotes dont le but était de mettre ces principes à l’épreuve dans les salles de classe. Ces deux pistes ont évolué simultanément, jusqu’à ce qu’elles coïncident dans des matériaux expérimentaux aussi solides sur le plan pédagogique que théorique. L'article plaide pour la publication de tels travaux préparatoires dans le but d'optimaliser la méthodologie des futures expériences.

In many tone languages, decision makers have opted for zero representation of tone. This generate... more In many tone languages, decision makers have opted for zero representation of tone. This generates homographic tonal minimal pairs that may trigger oral reading miscues. But it would be wrong to attribute the source of all miscues just to tonal minimal pairs; there may be other aspects of the orthography’s profile that inhibit word recognition.
In the standard orthography of the Kabiye verb phrase, subject pronouns and modal morphemes are written attached to the root. The unforeseen secondary effect of this decision is that the identity of the root is often masked because the morpheme boundary is not explicit. A homograph analysis reveals that morphemic mismatches generate numerous tonal minimal pairs. But a miscue analysis reveals that the problem extends beyond these to any verb phrase that contains infrequent, alternating or multiple prefixes, whether or not they are homographs.
It follows that to disambiguate just tonal minimal pairs would only solve half the problem. A modification that highlights the morpheme boundary would directly address the real source of readers’ difficulties. The results of a dictation task in a classroom experiment indicate that root initial capital letters would be a promising solution.

In certain tone languages, orthography stakeholders are open to the possibility of some kind of p... more In certain tone languages, orthography stakeholders are open to the possibility of some kind of partial representation of tone. But how can the researcher know for sure which parts of the language need to be targeted for disambiguation? This paper proposes that analysis of written ambiguity can help to answer this question. It is a method involving three stages: the development of a homograph corpus, a frequency and distribution analysis of homographs in natural texts and a miscue analysis of oral reading performance. The method is applied to Kabiye (Gur, Togo), the standard orthography of which does not currently mark tone. The conditional clause is traced through each of these three stages, ending with a proposal for its modification. This method demonstrates the extent to which the Linguistics of Writing can enrich a debate that has long been dominated by utterance-based phonological analysis.

The effect of Crowding has long been recognised by cognitive psychologists engaged in examining t... more The effect of Crowding has long been recognised by cognitive psychologists engaged in examining the reading process. Yet it is not generally taken into account by most field linguists involved in the development of tone orthographies for emerging African languages. True, there is a general recognition that diacritic overload is unhelpful, but this has never been articulated with the help of the more precise terminology already on offer from the field of cognitive psychology. Using an experimental tone orthography developed for Kabiye (Gur, Togo) as an example, I postulate that an near-exhaustive representation of tone by means of accents will trigger Crowding. This is a hypothesis that has yet to be tested under clinical conditions. But the aim of this article is to call the phenomenon by its name for the first time and thereby stimulate further research. I also hope to demonstrate by means of this single example the gulf that exists between the cognitive psychology and linguistics. Once we recognise that the gulf exists, we can begin to build bridges.

ABSTRACT: There is an ongoing debate about how tone should be represented in the emerging orthogr... more ABSTRACT: There is an ongoing debate about how tone should be represented in the emerging orthographies of African languages. One of the most significant strands in the debate is a small but growing body of literature describing formal experiments which test the different options. In this article, I present an overview of the existing repertoire which covers ten experiments and three decades. I adopt a comparative approach, examining all the experiments in parallel. I focus in turn on aims, design, sample profile, sample size, experience, training, test materials, tasks, scoring, results and interpretation. In conclusion, I offer some practical advice for future experimenters. I also attempt to identify whether any consensus is emerging about the profile of an optimal tone orthography.

RESUMÉ : Le débat sur la représentation du ton dans les orthographes émergeantes des langues africaines a déjà fait couler beaucoup d'encre. L'un des plus importants volets dans ce débat est une littérature, modeste mais croissante, décrivant des expériences formelles entreprises pour tester les différentes options. Nous présentons un survol de ce répertoire qui couvre dix expériences et trois décennies. Dans cet article, nous adoptons une approche comparative, en examinant l'ensemble des expériences en parallèle. Nous nous focalisons sur les objectifs, la conception, le profil de l'échantillon, la taille de l'échantillon, le degré d'expérience, le niveau de formation, les matériaux expérimentaux, les tâches, le scoring, les résultats et l'interprétation. En conclusion, nous offrons quelques conseils pratiques pour de futurs expérimentateurs. Nous tentons également de dégager un consensus en ce qui concerne le profil d'une graphie tonale optimale.

Two orthographies have been developed for Kabiye, a Gur language spoken mainly in Togo. The first... more Two orthographies have been developed for Kabiye, a Gur language spoken mainly in Togo. The first aim of this paper is to provide an accurate historical summary concerning their development, teasing out some of the sociolinguistic issues which led to their separate evolution. Following this, I present the results of a comparative analysis, based on a text sample. I demonstrate five major types of difference: level of representation (shallow or deep), degree of consistency, dialect choice, diacritical tone marking and word boundaries. For each of these I explain by what criteria each party arrived at its decisions. Locally, I hope that this analysis will contribute to well-informed choices should the Kabiye orthography ever be rectified in the future. But beyond this, the Kabiye experience will be of interest to anyone developing orthographies in other languages. With access to a varied stock of case studies such as this one, we will be in a better position to refine the existing principles of orthography development which can then be applied cross-linguistically.

Nordic Journal of African Linguistics, 2019

Journal of West African Languages, 2019

Language Documentation & Conservation, 2020

Written Language & Literacy, 2012

Le kabiyè est parlé, estime-t-on, par plus d’un million de personnes dans les monts des environ... more Le kabiyè est parlé, estime-t-on, par plus d’un million de
personnes dans les monts des environs de la ville de Kara,
dans le nord du Togo, ainsi que dans une importante diaspora étendue dans le centre et le sud du pays, et ailleurs dans le monde.

Cet ouvrage a pour vocation de partager avec des lecteurs
de langue française la langue kabiyè et la culture qu’elle
véhicule. Il est destiné à tous ceux qui veulent apprendre
cette langue. Il peut aussi offrir des points de repère aux
locuteurs natifs désirant apprendre la forme écrite de leur
langue maternelle. Il intéressera également les linguistes
désirant mieux connaître la structure de la langue, ainsi que
les ethnologues cherchant un aperçu de sa culture.

Cet ouvrage a pour vocation de présenter la conjugaison verbale du kabiyè, une langue parlée, est... more Cet ouvrage a pour vocation de présenter la conjugaison verbale du kabiyè, une langue parlée, estime-t-on, par 23% de la population du Togo.

La conjugaison représente l’un des principaux défis dans l’apprentissage de la langue. Elle est présentée ici en orthographe standard telle qu’arrêtée par le Comité de Langue Nationale Kabiyè, avec l’ajout des accents pour indiquer les tons.

L’ouvrage présente 27 tableaux types, dont la plupart sont composés de 97 conjugaisons. Cette classification est suivie de deux index – kabiyè-français et français-kabiyè – qui répertorient quelques 810 verbes dans leurs formes impérative et infinitive. Chaque verbe renvoie le lecteur au verbe type correspondant. Cela permet de connaître la prononciation, l’orthographe et le sens de n’importe quelle conjugaison verbale.

Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, 2019

Paper presented at the Institut de Linguistique Appliquée, Université d'Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire le mardi 28 mars 2017., 2017

Paper presented at the 12th International Workhop of the Association for Written Language and Literacy, University of Cambridge, UK., 2019

Paper presented at the Grafematik: Graphemics in the 21st century from graphemes to knowledge, Brest, France., 2018

Paper presented at the International Workshop on Literacy and Writing systems: Cultural, Neuropsychological, and Psycholinguistic Perspectives, 18-21 February 2019, University of Haifa, Israel., 2019

This research project investigated the extent to which full tone marking contributes to oral read... more This research project investigated the extent to which full tone marking contributes to oral reading fluency, comprehension and writing accuracy, and whether that contribution varies from language to language. We ran a series of quantitative experiment closely modelled on Bird (1999) with 306 participants representing ten Niger-Congo languages in five countries (Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire). Participants orally read texts with full and zero tone marking, and added tones to unmarked texts. Speed, accuracy and comprehension were measured, and a variety of linguistic and demographic variables were tracked. A cluster analysis reveals that competence in reading and writing the orthography of a tone language has less to do with the linguistic profile of the language and its orthography and more to do with the demographic profile of the participant. This is true whether or not tone is fully marked, as parallel analyses of the two conditions show almost 100% similarity.

Paper presented at the Grafematik: Graphemics in the 21st century conference Brest, France, 14 June 2018., 2018

Eastern Dan has five tones, six contours and is largely monosyllabic, so the functional load of t... more Eastern Dan has five tones, six contours and is largely monosyllabic, so the functional load of tone is exceptionally heavy. The orthography responds to this by employing the distinctive Ivoirian tradition of marking tone fully by means of punctuation in word-initial and -final position. In addition, the segmental orthography has considerable over-representation and makes extensive use of umlauts to symbolize vowels. In a quantitative classroom experiment, we tested a recent proposal for radical orthography reform that advocates superscript diacritics for marking tone, biunique correspondence for consonants and vowels, and special characters in place of umlauts. Sixty-eight participants with no previous exposure to written Eastern Dan were taught various combinations of tones and segments in parallel groups and their acquired skills were tested in dictation and oral reading tasks. The results of writing, reading speed (list and text), and reading errors (list) all point to an advantage for the experimental orthography that maintains the existing tone marking strategy, but ensures biunique segmental correspondence and uses special characters for marking vowels. This experiment provides some initial evidence that marking tone with punctuation can be effective, especially for writers, in a language with an exceptionally heavy functional load of tone.

This paper presents a re-analysis of the tone of Kabiye nouns. It focuses on two tonal phenomena ... more This paper presents a re-analysis of the tone of Kabiye nouns. It focuses
on two tonal phenomena that have apparently not been reported elsewhere in Gur languages: root melodies associating to whole words and tonal overwriting. All singular suffixes are analyzed as being underlyingly toneless and receiving their surface tone by means of the root melody associating to the entire word, as though blind to the morpheme boundary. Association of tones to trimoraic words is dealt
with by positing that the OCP is inactive. The non-singular (plural, collective and liquid) suffixes – with one exception – are underlyingly HL. The analysis of these forms distinguishes between non-overwriting suffixes, in which the word level tone is merely the sum of its parts, and overwriting suffixes, in which the tone of the suffix overwrites the final tone(s) of the root melody.

The shorter a word, the more likely it is to be lexically ambiguous. In the toneless standard ort... more The shorter a word, the more likely it is to be lexically ambiguous. In the toneless standard orthography of Kabiye, a language of Togo, numerous monosyllabic heterophonic homographs (tonal minimal pairs) and homophonic homographs occur in the imperative and six associated conjugations. This paper presents the complete catalogue
of these verbs, and then examines them in natural contexts. It goes on to propose a morphographic spelling in which elided root-final labial consonants are written as superscript silent letters to help the reader identify the lexeme. This spelling is tested against a diacritic tonographic alternative in an oral reading experiment. The results show that those who learnt the morphographic spelling gained more in reading accuracy than those who learnt the tonographic spelling.

The standard orthography of Kabiye (Togo) does not mark tone. In such a context, how can a resear... more The standard orthography of Kabiye (Togo) does not mark tone. In such a context, how can a researcher adequately assess the degree of ambiguity in the written language and make a valid contribution to the debate about how tone might be incorporated in the second generation of language development? This article approaches that question, not from the perspective of phonological analysis that has tended to dominate the literature, but from the point of view of the linguistics of writing. Applying Catach's (1984) model of lexical ambiguity for Kabiye, it advocates the development of a homograph corpus, in which words, roots and affixes are included or excluded on the basis of semantic, morphological and dialectal criteria. A homographic prefix with pronominal, negative and immediative interpretations illustrates how the corpus is then applied to a frequency and distribution analysis of ambiguity in natural written contexts, and an analysis of oral reading errors in the classroom. A dictation task reveals that subjects who were taught a segmental modification of the negative prefix write with greater accuracy than subjects who were taught to add tone diacritics.

LLACAN, le 10 juin 2011. Opeŕation de recherche 1.2. « Modélisations de la description grammatica... more LLACAN, le 10 juin 2011. Opeŕation de recherche 1.2. « Modélisations de la description grammaticale » 1. Le kabiyè -Langue gur -Nord du Togo -1 million de locuteurs -Langue dite "nationale" -Forme ećrite depuis 1932 -Orthographe standardiseé dans les anneés 1980 -Comité de Langue Nationale Kabiyè -Langue à ton -Aucun marque de ton dans lʼorthographe

Séminaire sur l'orthographe du ton des langues centrafricaines, SIL Yaoundé, du 5 au 23 janvier 2... more Séminaire sur l'orthographe du ton des langues centrafricaines, SIL Yaoundé, du 5 au 23 janvier 2015, encadré par Dr Constance Kutsch Lojenga. Rapport final rédigé par Dr David Roberts en collaboration avec M. BETINA Maguelet-Bodoli (coordinateur du projet de traduction), M. NOUDJOUNDIMA Victor (coordinateur du projet d'alphabétisation), et M. BANTAR-DJIMTOULOUM Constant (traducteur). Plutôt il semble judicieux de cibler uniquement certains cas de ton grammatical ainsi que quelques lexèmes. Il s'agit de : « […] découvrir là où les lecteurs ont du mal à décortiquer le sens, d'établir pourquoi, et de ne rectifier que cela en laissant le reste de l'orthographe inchangé. Une métaphore venant du contexte médical nous semble approprié à faire comprendre cela. Il s'agit de la microchirurgie : une intervention chirurgicale d'une extrême précision, qui ne provoque pas de dommages collatéraux. Cela veut dire qu'on doit se prémunir contre la possibilité que, en éliminant certaines ambiguïtés, on en génère d'autres. […] On évite de proposer des solutions qui peuvent avoir des répercussions néfastes ailleurs, afin d'aboutir à une orthographe harmonieuse et limpide. » (Roberts 2008: 28)

A mes amis les membres du Comité de Langue Nationale Kabiyè.

Le débat sur la représentation du ton dans les langues africaines a longtemps été dominé par le p... more Le débat sur la représentation du ton dans les langues africaines a longtemps été dominé par le principe de la biunivocité. Cependant, le fait de marquer le ton phonémique intégral au moyen d'accents pose de nombreuses difficultés. D'abord, le débat quant au niveau d'opacité nécessaire pour aboutir à une représentation optimale reste encore irrésolu. En outre, une surcharge d'accents est susceptible de déclencher le masquage latéral. Enfin, il est loin d'être évident que le rendement fonctionnel du ton dans bon nombre de ces langues est suffisamment élevé pour justifier une représentation intégrale. C'est pourquoi, dans d'autres langues, on a rejeté les accents avec pour résultat une profusion d'homographes qui entraînent des méprises et des incompréhensions lors de la lecture.

Or, nous suggérons qu'il existe une « troisième voie » qui ne s’aligne ni sur l’un des extrêmes du débat, ni sur l’autre. Il s’agit d'une approche sémiographique qui met en relief la grammaire. Nous entamerons une analyse fréquentielle et une analyse des méprises de l'orthographe standard du kabiyè (gur, Togo). Nous prendrons également en compte le rôle de vision parafovéale dans le processus de la lecture. La résultante, la graphie grammaticale sera testée contre une graphie tonale dans une expérience quantitative incorporant des tâches de dictée, de rédaction et de lecture orale.

Le fait que les scripteurs écrivent plus vite et avec plus d'exactitude en graphie grammaticale qu'en graphie tonale suggère que leur conscience innée de la structure morphologique du kabiyè dépasse celle de sa phonologie. Ils maîtrisent mieux l'ajout sporadique des caractères complexes dans le tissu de l'orthographe standard que l'ajout intégral des accents simples sur sa partie supérieure. En outre, la performance en graphie grammaticale sur une construction donnée est étroitement liée à sa fréquence d'exposition en contextes naturels, mais cette familiarité ne confère aucun avantage en graphie tonale.

Puisse de telles découvertes ouvrir la porte à une plus grande créativité dans l'élaborationdes orthographes émergeantes des langues africaines par rapport à ce qui est permis dans le cadre strict de l'analyse phonématique avec son insistance rigide sur la biunivocité.

Ɛbɛ Laba : la revue semestriel de l'académie kabiyè, 2018

Ɛbɛ Laba : la revue semestriel de l'Académie kabiyè, 2014

SIL et LLACAN, le mardi 15 mai 2007 A paraître dans « b Laba? », la revue sémestriel du Comité de... more SIL et LLACAN, le mardi 15 mai 2007 A paraître dans « b Laba? », la revue sémestriel du Comité de Langue Nationale Kabiyè, 27.

Cet article est extrait de Ɛbɛ Laba ? la revue sémestrielle du Comité de Langue Nationale Kabiyè,... more Cet article est extrait de Ɛbɛ Laba ? la revue sémestrielle du Comité de Langue Nationale Kabiyè, 26, pages 18-21 i. Introduction Interrogez n'importe quel enseignant du kabiyè, et selon toute probabilité il vous ferez savoir que ses élèves sont parfois bloqués dans le courant de la lecture. Ce n'est pas nouveau. Depuis fort longtemps nous savons que l'une des raisons pour cette impasse est l'orthographe standard ne prend pas en compte le fait que le kabiyè est une langue à ton.

Une proposition pour effacer des ambiguïtés tonales dans l'orthographe du kabiyè David Roberts , ... more Une proposition pour effacer des ambiguïtés tonales dans l'orthographe du kabiyè David Roberts , LLACAN et SIL-Togo, 23 octobre 2005 Cet article est extrait de bɛ Laba ? la revue semestrielle du Comité de Langue Nationale Kabiyè, 25, pages 17-19

Matériaux pédagogiques pour l'Atelier sur la graphie tonale qui a eu lieu à SIL Kara, du 25 octob... more Matériaux pédagogiques pour l'Atelier sur la graphie tonale qui a eu lieu à SIL Kara, du 25 octobre au 11 novembre 2016. Leçon 10 : Downstep non automatique.