Accounting for the Morphophonological Alternations in Classes 1 and 2 of Bantu Languages of Zone A (original) (raw)
Related papers
2014
1024x768 This paper seeks to account for the synchronic sound changes observed in joining of noun class prefixes to nouns in Swahili, Lingala, Ciluba, and Zulu. The noun class prefixes of these Bantu languages were compared with the Proto-Bantu noun class-forms to identify sound changes the languages have undergone over time. It was observed that some sound changes did not obey synchronic rules. The aim of this study was to elaborate on diachronic rules, specifically telescopic rules, to explain why some sound changes in Bantu language evolution stand out as exceptions, giving the impression of violating the neo-grammarians’ claim about the regularity of sound change. A special focus is placed on the nasal place of articulation assimilation, which in some conditioning environments, is favourable for assimilation, but fails to occur in Swahili. The findings of this paper provide robust evidence for why the nasal phoneme of some noun classes does not assimilate in place of articulatio...
Noun morphophonemics and noun class restructuring: The case of Meru Gender 11/10
The article seeks to address the plural forms of class 11/10 nouns in Meru dialects. These are Bantu dialects spoken in the eastern province of Kenya. The dialects build the plural forms in this class in various ways. Sometimes the entire word is treated as a root and in other cases the word is considered to have two parts: a prefix and a stem. Forms that are considered to have a prefix and a stem can be further restructured. In some cases the singular forms have an underlying stem initial palatal consonant which is deleted in the surface phonetic form but surfaces in the plural, and in other cases the words are treated as having a stem initial vowel. It is interesting to note that this noun class restructuring can occur in one and the same dialect whereby a single lexical form has its plural realized in two or three different ways. The article will, therefore, not only seek to discuss different ways of forming the plural in this gender but also outline clearly the motivations behind such changes.
The proto-forms of the prefixes of classes 9/10 in Bantu languages have invariably been represented as *n-/*n-(Meeussen 1967: 97) and *ny-/*ny-(Guthrie 1971). Some scholars have proposed other forms, especially for Cl.10. Katamba (2003) has however noted that many of the contemporary Bantu languages have reduced these forms to N-/N-or Ø-/ Ø-. Thus, one finds many different manifestations of these class prefixes in the contemporary Bantu languages. This paper uses the basic descriptive theory to examine the nature and function of the prefixes of noun classes 9/10 in a selected number of Bantu languages. The main assumption of the study is that these noun class prefixes have made far-reaching evolution in their form and function due to several related phonetic and historical reasons, resulting in their reduction in some cases. The study, which is based on both primary and secondary data, reveals several types of evolutionary trends which have been followed by these prefixes.
Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: Focus on East Africa
Journal of the Language Association of Eastern Africa
Recent studies have developed a systematic approach to morphosyntactic variation among Bantu languages, taking well-known and widely attested construction types as a starting point and sketching their distribution across the family. One such approach, Guérois et al. (2017), utilises 142 morphosyntactic parameters or features, across a sample of some 50 Bantu languages (Marten et al. 2018). The present paper builds on this work and focusses on 10 parameters of variation where there is a significant difference between the values for East African Bantu languages and non-East African Bantu languages of the sample. The parameters relate to areas such as noun class morphology, agreement, and word order and so cover a wide range of morphosyntactic structures. The paper shows that the differences overall can be used for an initial characterisation of East Africa as a morphosyntactic area, with its own specific language change and language contact dynamics.
Directional asymmetries in the morphology and phonology of words, with special reference to Bantu
Linguistics, 2000
This paper is concerned with two types of word-level asymmetries and their interaction: leftright asymmetries and stem-word asymmetries. Two left-right asymmetries are examined from a wide range of languages, one morphological (the predominance of suffixation over prefixation), one phonological (the preference for anticipatory over perseverative phonology). Since phonological processes are often triggered by features which originate in roots, a second asymmetry is also addressed: the tendency for suffixes to be more tightly bound to roots than prefixes. Asymmetries between stem-vs. word phonology are examined in Bantu, where suffixes are incorporated into a derived stem domain, from which prefixes are typically excluded. This root+suffix stem domain is shown to be the locus of phonological activity in Proto-Bantu and throughout the large Bantu family, which divides into two typological zones: (i) Northwest Bantu languages, which impose a maximal size condition and stringent consonant distribution constraints on stems; (ii) Central Bantu languages, which do not restrict the size or consonant distribution of stems, but frequently impose a minimal size condition on words. The study presents a number of generalizations concerning such asymmetries and identifies questions for future research.
Class prefixes as specifiers in Southern Bantu
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory
We argue that a set of facts about the plural nominal class prefixes in Southern Bantu languages shows that some plural prefixes spell out a phrasal constituent, a Specifier bottoming out in a classifier-like noun. This leads us to adopt a theory of lexicalization that leads to the conclusion that all nominal class prefixes in Southern Bantu lexicalize Specifiers of this sort, and we argue that the relation between primary and secondary prefixes supports this conclusion. We also discuss the consequences of our conclusion for the pairing of prefixes and nouns and for the analysis of agreement.