Outward-sensitive phonologically-conditioned suppletive allomorphy vs. first-last tone harmony in Cilungu (original) (raw)

We present a case study of grammatical tone allomorphy in Cilungu (Bantu). Tense/Aspect/Mood designations (TAMs) are realized via co-exponence of prefixes, suffixes, and floating tones. In a minority of TAMs, there is allomorphy with the floating tones. For example, in the Recent Past one allomorph involves floating tone targeting the final mora of the stem ("Equation missing") versus one targeting the stem’s second mora ("Equation missing"2). For all such allomorphic TAMs, the alternation is conditioned by the tone of subject agreement markers (SMs) at the left edge of the word. If the SM is high-toned the "Equation missing" variant occurs, but if it is toneless then "Equation missing"2 occurs. We present two competing accounts of these data. Under a morphological account, we posit contextual realizational rules with multiple suppletive exponents conditioned by SM tone. In contrast, under a phonological account a ‘first-last tone harmony’ app...