[HO] Describing a Bantu Verbal Tone System (original) (raw)
Related papers
[HO] The Path to Predictability: Diachronic Aspects of Luhya Verbal Tone
Presentation Goals (i) Trace the course of a diachronic re-analysis of the lexical contrast between */H/ and */Ø/ verbs in Proto-Bantu (Stevick 1969) within languages of the Luhya (a.k.a. Luyia) cluster spoken in Western Kenya and (ii) identify some of the factors that catalyzed such re-analyses.
[HO] Kabras Verb Tone and the Limitative Stem in Bantu
This talk offers an overview of verbal tone patterns in the Kabras [lkb] variety of the Luyia [luy] macrolanguage. Kabras has a primary tonal contrast between H-toned and toneless moras, contour tones are generally avoided, phrase-final Hs are shifted to the penult, and Hs are deleted when they follow another H. This paper also discusses how an unbounded leftward spreading process, High Tone Anticipation, provides evidence for the Limitative Stem, a morpho-prosodic domain that includes the macrostem and a limited set of aspectual prefixes. This talk also identifies the ways in which the notion of the Limitative Stem simplifies the analysis of a tonally aberrant aspectual prefix in Kinande, another J zone Bantu.
An overview of Kabarasi verb tone
Language: Phonological Analysis, 2016
This article presents the results of a study of verbal tone patterns in Kabarasi [lkb], a Kenyan Bantu language of the Luhya [luy] group. Kabarasi tone has a number of features that are common to Bantu languages (Kisseberth & Odden 2003, Downing 2011, Marlo & Odden 2017), including a lexical contrast between /H/ and /∅/ verb roots and a rich system of tonal inflection. Long H spans that extend across several words may be created by a pair of iterative, mutually feeding rules. One of these rules only applies across word boundaries and exhibits look-ahead effects; the other motivates a novel morphophonological domain: the limitative stem.*
Conditioning factors in the realization of tone: Nyala-West Verbs
Indiana University Working Papers in Linguistics 8, 2009
Nyala-West (Bantu, Kenya) marks tense-aspect-mood-polarity and clause-type distinctions in verbs with grammatical H tones, called "melodic Hs". Nyala-West has six basic tonal melodies in which melodic Hs target three positions of the verbal stem: the first mora of the stem, the first mora of the second syllable of the stem, and the final mora of the stem. The present paper shows how certain aspects of the prosody of the verb stem, the presence or absence of H-toned affixes, and the application of several tonal processes influence the realization of the melodic H in two of the tonal melodies of Nyala-West.
Tone and Variation in Idakho and Other Luhya Varieties
2014
Bantu languages commonly signal tense, aspect, mood, polarity, and clause-type distinctions with tonal as well as segmental cues. The inflectional tonal melodies on verbs may be viewed as underlyingly floating H tones (henceforth ‘melodic Hs’) contributed by the morpho-syntax that are assigned by rule to different positions within the verb. Along with a small set of construction specific tonal adjustment rules, the number and position of melodic Hs distinguish one tonal melody from another. The present dissertation makes two contributions to the study of the special role that tone plays in Bantu verbal morpho-syntax. First, it contributes extensive novel documentation of the verbal tone system of Idakho: a variety of the Luhya cluster of Bantu languages spoken near Lake Victoria in western Kenya and eastern Uganda. Second, I show how aspects of the Idakho system and that of other Luhya varieties like it have contributed to the development of rich diversity within the verbal tone systems of Luhya. Part I comprises the descriptive component of the dissertation and emphasizes the impact of several factors known to influence verb tone in Bantu. Because many language consultants contributed to the project, the dissertation makes note of variation within and across speakers of Idakho. In Part II, I demonstrate the role that a preference for prosodically well-cued morphological boundaries has played in two striking tonal developments within the Luhya macrolanguage: the loss of a lexical tonal contrast reconstructed to Proto-Bantu and the introduction of tonal melodies in constructions for which there is no historical precedence for tonal inflection.
Verb tone in Bantu languages: micro-typological patterns and research methods
Africana Linguistica, 2013
This paper describes the process of studying the notoriously complex verbal tone systems of Bantu languages through the elicitation of systematic, paradigmatic data. The main thrust of this paper is the delineation of the factors known to influence tonal outputs in Bantu languages, providing background on the micro-typology of Bantu verbal tone systems, with discussion of how these considerations impact the data-gathering process.
This paper uses an autosegmental approach to explain tonal processes in the simple verb phrase of Kabiye (Gur, Eastern Gurunsi). It begins by cataloguing verbs into three tone classes, based on the tone of the imperative, the inflected form closest to the underlying form of the root. Then it explains the tonal derivations of the three main inflected forms (i.e. imperfective-present, imperfective past, perfective). Firstly, it shows that adding a L tone prefix triggers a spreading rule. Secondly, it shows that TAM suffixes are underlyingly toneless and receive their tone by means of a dissimilation rule. Thirdly, it demonstrates the existence of floating TAM prefixes, and explore their effect on L tone spreading.
The segmental and tonal structure of verb inflection in Babanki
In this study we provide a comprehensive phonological and morphological overview of the complex tense-aspect-mood (TAM) system of Babanki, a Grassfields Bantu language of Cameroon. Our emphasis is on the competing inflectional tonal melodies that are assigned to the verb stem. These melodies are determined not only by the multiple past and future tenses, perfective vs. progressive aspect, and indicative vs. imperative, subjunctive, and conditional moods, but also affirmative vs. negative and "conjoint" (CJ) vs. "disjoint" (DJ) verbal marking, which we show to be more thoroughgoing than the better known cases in Eastern and Southern Bantu. The paper concludes with a ranking of the six assigned tonal melodies and fourteen appendices providing all of the relevant tonal paradigms.