Phonetics and Phonology of Sub-Saharan Languages conference... · 2 Phonetics and Phonology of Sub-Saharan Languages ... Morphophonemic alternations in the initial ... 4 Phonetics

▌1

Phonetics and Phonology of Sub-Saharan Languages

A Conference in Honour of the Late Prof. Tony Traill (1939 - 2007)

Venue: Wits Club, West CampusUniversity of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

7 July – 10 July 2013

2 ▌ Phonetics and Phonology of Sub-Saharan Languages

ContentsOn using the right tool for the right job: what South African aphasiologists should know about the intersection between morphosyntax and phonology in Sesotho: Brent E. Archer ......................................... 1

The rephonologization of Portuguese loanwords in Kimpombo: A generative CV phonology model account: António Filipe Augusto (MA) ........................................................................................................................................... 3

Dhochi Monosyllables: Toni Borowsky ............................................................................................................................ 5

Clicks, Concurrency, and Khoisan: Julian Bradfield .......................................................................................................... 7

Excursus into the Reverse Vowel Shift in South African English: Alida Chevalier ............................................................ 9

Some Remarks on Kimbundu Tonal Phonology: Fernando O. de Carvalho ................................................................... 10

The phonetics of bilabial trills in Mangbetu: Didier Demolin ........................................................................................ 13

Clicks, stop bursts, vocoids and the timing of articulatory gestures in Rwanda: Didier Demolin, Clothilde Chabiron .. 15

Local reassembly: Nguni/Sotho/Khoesan system hybridity in Phuthi: Fr Simon Donnelly ............................................ 16

*NT As a Perceptual Constraint: Laura J. Downing & Silke Hamann .............................................................................. 17

An investigation into the (re-)emergence of regionality in White South African English: Deon du Plessis ................... 19

New data on click genesis: further evidence that click-initial words shared by Khoesan and Bantu languages of southern Africa can be mapped as historically emergent from non-click forms reconstructed for Proto-Bantu: Menán du Plessis ..................................................................................................................................... 21

Segmental and Suprasegmental Stability In Emai: Francis O. Egbokhare ...................................................................... 23

Morphophonemic alternations in the initial consonants of stems in Olunyole, a Luyia Bantu Language: William Lorin Gardner ................................................................................................................................................... 24

Khoisan sound systems in typological perspective: Tom Güldemann, Hirosi Nakagawa ............................................... 25

Vowel concatenation in Cuwabo: Rozenn Guérois ........................................................................................................ 26

Makhuwa, Cuwabo and their closest relatives: some new evidence: Rozenn Guérois ................................................. 27

Comparative lexical tonology of serial verbs in Haiǁom and ǂAakhoe: Prof. Wilfrid Haacke ........................................ 28

Classification of the Nyaneka [nyk] speech varieties of south-western Angola: Linda Jordan ..................................... 29

Comparing vowel hiatus resolution in ciNsenga and chiShona: An OT analysis: Maxwell Kadenge, Silverster Ron Simango .................................................................................................................... 30

Beyond Vowel Transfixation in Swahili Bantu: Ahmadi Kipacha .................................................................................... 31

C-V Coarticulation in Velar Plosives: Vicki Lynn Krebs, Yourdanis Sedarous .................................................................. 32

‘Exotic’ Consonants in Congolese Languages: Constance Kutsch Lojenga ..................................................................... 33

Domain-sensitivity in High Tone Spreading in two Xitsonga dialects: Seunghun J. Lee, Elisabeth Selkirk ..................... 35

The Dialects of Baraïn (East Chadic): Joseph Lovestrand ............................................................................................... 37

Clicks: Primordial or Derived?: Ian Maddieson ............................................................................................................. 38

On the Traill of some lesser known phonological rules of South African Englishes: Raj Mesthrie ................................ 39

The Back Vowel Constraint as Phonologization of Rarefaction Gestures in Click Consonants: Amanda Miller............. 40

A Constraint-Based Analysis of Re-Syllabification of Loanwords in Kikamba: A Bantu Language: Bernard M. Ndambuki, Ruth W. Ndung’u ...................................................................................................................... 41

Acoustic Evidence and the Phonology of Vowel Devoicing in Civili: Hugues Steve Ndinga-Koumba-Binza ................. 42

The Phonetic Status of (r) in Gĩkũyũ, A Kenyan Bantu Language: An Acoustic Analysis: Ruth W. Ndung’u, Martin C. Njoroge ............................................................................................................................. 43

Speech intelligibility in African languages: Its role in Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics: Claire Penn .......................... 44

Devoicing in Complex Click Clusters in ǂKx’ao-ǁ’aeː A Synchronic & Historical Analysis: Lee J. Pratchett ..................... 45

Broadly Speaking: A Phonetic Study of the differences between Broad South African English (Brsae) and Afrikaans English (Afke): Kara Schultz ........................................................................................................................... 46

Sociophonetics and Social Class: A Study of Coloured English in Cape Town using Automatic Vowel Measurement: Tracey Toefy .......................................................................................................................................... 47

Challenging Assumptions on Tonal Contrasts in Sesotho: An Acoustic-Perceptual View: DP Wissing & JC Roux .......... 49

DAY Sunday 7 July 2013

Monday 8 July 2013 Tuesday 9 July 2013 Wednesday 10 July 2013

GUEST SPEAKER08:00–09:00

Ian Maddieson‘Clicks: primordial or derived?’

Chair: Andrew van der Spuy

Amanda Miller‘The back vowel constraint as phonologization of rarefaction gestures in click consonants’

Chair: Maxwell Kadenge

Tom Gueldemann and Hirosi Nakagawa‘Khoisan sound systems in typological perspective’

Chair: Wilfrid Haacke

First session 09:00-10:30


Chair: ToniBorowsky

Claire Penn‘Speech intelligibility in African languages: Its role in Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics’

English Sociophonetics09:00–10:30

Chair: Raj Mesthrie

Ian Bekker‘Nursing the cure: an acoustic analysis of /ʊə/ in South African English.

Historical and Comparative Linguistics09:30–10:30

Chair: Lee Pratchett

Antonio Augusto‘The rephonologization of Portuguese loanwords in Kimpombo: a generative CV phonology model account.’

Niger-Congo Phonology09:30–10:30

Chair: ToniBorowsky

Laura Downing and Silke Hamann‘*NT as a perceptual constraint.’

Alida Chevalier‘Excursus into the reverse vowel shift in South African English.’

Simon Donnelly‘Local reassembly: Nguni/Sotho/Khoesan system hybridity in Phuthi.’

Deon du Plessis‘Beyond the glass ceiling: improving descriptive-phonetic techniques in South African English.’

Linda Jordan‘Classification of the Nyaneka [nyk] speech varieties of south-western Angola.’

Rozenn Guérois ‘Vowel concatenation in Cuwabo.’

Tea break 10:30 - 11:00

Second session 11:00–13:00


Chair: Claire Penn

Maxwell Kadenge and Ron Simango‘Comparing vowel hiatus resolution in ciNsenga and chiShona: an OT analysis.’


Chair: Ian Bekker

Kara Schultz‘Broadly speaking: a phonetic study of the differences between broad South African English and Afrikaans English.’

Historical and Comparative Linguistics 11:00–12:30

Chair: Simon Donnelly

Bernard Ndambuki and Ruth Ndung’u‘A constraint-based analysis of re-syllabification of loanwords in Kikamba’

Bill Gardner‘Morphophonemic alternations in the initial consonants, of stems in Olunyole, a Luyia Bantu language.’

Tracey Toefy‘Sociophonetics and social class: a study of Coloured English in Cape Town using automatic vowel measurement.’

Rozenn Guérois‘Makhuwa, Cuwabo and their closest relatives: some new evidence.’

Francis Egbokhare‘Segmental and suprasegmental stability in Emai.’

Raj Mesthrie‘On the Traill of some lesser known phonological rules of South African Englishes.’

Didier Demolin and Clothilde Chabiron‘Clicks, stops, bursts, vocoids and the timing of articulatory gestures in Rwanda.’

Ahmadi Kipacha‘The non-concatenative derivation in Swahili.’

Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic12:30–13:00

Chair: Ian Bekker

Toni Borowsky‘Monosyllables in Dhochi.

Phonetics and the Phonetics/Phonology interface12:30–13:00


Constance Kutsch Lojenga‘Exotic consonants in Congolese languages.

▌3

DAY Sunday 7 July 2013

Monday 8 July 2013 Tuesday 9 July 2013 Wednesday 10 July 2013


Ian Maddieson‘Clicks: primordial or derived?’

Chair: Andrew van der Spuy

Amanda Miller‘The back vowel constraint as phonologization of rarefaction gestures in click consonants’

Chair: Maxwell Kadenge

Tom Gueldemann and Hirosi Nakagawa‘Khoisan sound systems in typological perspective’

Chair: Wilfrid Haacke

First session 09:00-10:30


Chair: ToniBorowsky

Claire Penn‘Speech intelligibility in African languages: Its role in Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics’


Chair: Raj Mesthrie

Ian Bekker‘Nursing the cure: an acoustic analysis of /ʊə/ in South African English.

Historical and Comparative Linguistics09:30–10:30

Chair: Lee Pratchett

Antonio Augusto‘The rephonologization of Portuguese loanwords in Kimpombo: a generative CV phonology model account.’


Chair: ToniBorowsky

Laura Downing and Silke Hamann‘*NT as a perceptual constraint.’

Alida Chevalier‘Excursus into the reverse vowel shift in South African English.’

Simon Donnelly‘Local reassembly: Nguni/Sotho/Khoesan system hybridity in Phuthi.’

Deon du Plessis‘Beyond the glass ceiling: improving descriptive-phonetic techniques in South African English.’

Linda Jordan‘Classification of the Nyaneka [nyk] speech varieties of south-western Angola.’

Rozenn Guérois ‘Vowel concatenation in Cuwabo.’

Tea break 10:30 - 11:00

Second session 11:00–13:00


Chair: Claire Penn

Maxwell Kadenge and Ron Simango‘Comparing vowel hiatus resolution in ciNsenga and chiShona: an OT analysis.’


Chair: Ian Bekker

Kara Schultz‘Broadly speaking: a phonetic study of the differences between broad South African English and Afrikaans English.’

Historical and Comparative Linguistics 11:00–12:30


Bernard Ndambuki and Ruth Ndung’u‘A constraint-based analysis of re-syllabification of loanwords in Kikamba’

Bill Gardner‘Morphophonemic alternations in the initial consonants, of stems in Olunyole, a Luyia Bantu language.’

Tracey Toefy‘Sociophonetics and social class: a study of Coloured English in Cape Town using automatic vowel measurement.’

Rozenn Guérois‘Makhuwa, Cuwabo and their closest relatives: some new evidence.’

Francis Egbokhare‘Segmental and suprasegmental stability in Emai.’

Raj Mesthrie‘On the Traill of some lesser known phonological rules of South African Englishes.’

Didier Demolin and Clothilde Chabiron‘Clicks, stops, bursts, vocoids and the timing of articulatory gestures in Rwanda.’

Ahmadi Kipacha‘The non-concatenative derivation in Swahili.’


Chair: Ian Bekker

Toni Borowsky‘Monosyllables in Dhochi.



Constance Kutsch Lojenga‘Exotic consonants in Congolese languages.

Programme 7 July – 10 July 2013


Lunch 13:00–14:00

Third session 14:00-15:30


Chair: Tom Gueldemann

Brent Archer‘On using the right tool for the right job: what South African aphasiologists should know about the intersection between morphosyntax and phonology in Sesotho.’


Chair: Ian Maddieson

Didier Demolin‘The phonetics of bilabial trills in Mangbetu.’


Chair: Justus Roux

Hugues Ndinga-Koumba-Binza‘Acoustic evidence and the phonology of vowel devoicing in Civili.’

Khoisan15:00–15:30

Chair: Tom Gueldemann

Wilfrid Haacke‘Comparative lexical tonology of serial verbs in Haiǁm and ǂAakhoe.’

Joseph Lovestrand‘The dialects of Barain (East Chadic).’

Ruth Ndung’u and Martin Njoroge‘The phonetic status of (r) in Gĩkũyũ, a Kenyan Bantu language: an acoustic analysis.’

Julian Bradfield‘Clicks, concurrency and Khoisan.’

Bantu Tonology16:00–17:30

Chair: Ian Maddieson

Fernando Orphão De Carvalho‘Some remarks on Kimbundu tonal phonology.’

Vicki Krebs and Yourdanis Sedarous‘C-V coarticulation in velar plosives.

Tea break 15:30–16:00

Fourth session 16:00–17:00

Khoisan16:00–17:00

Chair: Amanda Miller

Menan du Plessis‘New data on click genesis: further evidence that click-initial words shared by Khoesan and Bantu languages can be mapped as historically emergent from non-click forms reconstructed for Proto-Bantu.

Bantu Tonology16:00–17:30

Chair: Laura Downing

Seunghun Lee and Elisabeth Selkirk‘Domain-sensitivity in high tone spreading in two Xitsonga dialects.’

Lee James Pratchett‘Devoicing in complex click clusters in ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae: a synchronic and historical analysis’.

Daan Wissing and Justus Roux‘Challenging assumptions on tonal contrasts in Sesotho: an acoustic-perceptual view.’

Break 17:00–19:00/19:30

Evening functions

Welcoming function and buffet supper19:00 onwards

Conference dinner19:30 onwards

▌1

On using the right tool for the right job: what South African aphasiologists should know about the intersection between

morphosyntax and phonology in Sesotho

Brent E. Archer [email protected]

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Word-retrieval difficulties are a common symptom of aphasia. Two models of word retrieval (WEAVER ++ and Dell’s Interactive Two Stage Model) (Levelt 1999, 223) inform the majority of research in this area. Despite a wide incidence of aphasia and anomia amongst speakers of languages other than English, very little research on word-finding deficits in non-English languages exists.

The current study focuses on naming difficulties in two speakers of Sesotho, a Bantu language spoken in South Africa. Sesotho is a noun class language; nouns are inflected for number through a system of prefixes (eg. lehapu ‘watermelon’ mahapu ‘watermelons). The two participants in this study were first language speakers of Sesotho. Both participants developed more phonologically-based anomia (word-finding difficulties) after strokes. In the case of T., anomia appeared to be the hallmark symptom, while S. experienced anomic moments as part of a broader expressive aphasic syndrome.

The aim of this AB single-case study was to determine the efficacy of various cueing techniques when providing therapy for Sesotho speakers with anomia. Two treatment techniques were selected: initial phoneme cueing, a widely described and used therapy technique for anomia (for example Nettleton and Lesser 1991, 140; DeDe Parris and Waters 2003, 465; Maher and Raymer 2004, 15; Best et al. 2002, 151) and a novel technique. In the context of Sesotho, initial phoneme cues might be termed ‘prefix-based cues’.These were contrasted with root-based cues.For the item lehapu (‘watermelon’), a prefix-based cue would be /l/ while a root-based cue would be /h/. The researcher developed and balanced 2X 200 item word lists using a variety of criteria. Each technique was allocated a word list. A confrontation picture naming paradigm was used to deliver the treatments. Assessment of pre and post treatment naming abilities yielded data. Effect sizes for the two treatment conditions were thus calculated using a statistical procedure mentioned in the single-case literature viz. Allison-MT (Brossart et al. 2006, 548).

These data suggest that although both techniques were associated with a non-trivial increase in naming ability, initial phoneme cueing is less effective at remediating anomia in Sesotho speakers than the provision of a cue based on the first phoneme of the uninflected form. Analysis of the current data and previous studies reveals that initial phoneme cueing may work for English speakers because of the morphosyntactic structure of English (i.e. prefixing is never used for inflecting nouns). Speakers of Bantu languages which employ different methods for encoding number may not show the same response to initial phoneme cueing. Of the two models discussed, Dell’s conceptualization appears to align more closely with the current findings. Participants performance under the two treatment conditions lend further credence to the notions of cascading and interactive feedback featured in this model.

The researcher concludes by arguing that communication therapy in a multilingual world should be informed not only by an understanding of models of word retrieval, but also by an awareness of the


parametric differences between languages. In this particular case, an appreciation of the interface between phonology and morphosyntax in Sesotho should guide practise.

Note: A version of this paper will be presented at the Linguistics Association of Canada and the US (LACUS) Conference to be held in Brooklyn, New York from 07/31 to 08/02.

References:

Best, Wendy, Ruth Herbert, Julie Hickin, Felicity Osborne and David Howard. 2002. Phonological and orthographic facilitation of word retrieval in aphasia: Immediate and delayed effects. Aphasiology 16 (1-2):151-168.

Brossart, Daniel, Richard Parker, Elizabeth Olson and Lakshmi Mahadevan. 2006. The Relationship Between Visual Analysis and Five Statistical Analyses in a Simple AB Single-Case Research Design. Behaviour Modification 30(5): 531-563.

DeDe, Gayle, Diane Parris and Gloria Waters. 2003. Teaching self-cues: A treatment approach for verbal naming. Aphasiology 17 (5): 465-480.

Ferguson, Christopher. 2009. An Effect Size Primer: A Guide for Researchers and Clinicians. Professional Psychology Research and Practise 40(5): 532-538.

Horvath, Theadore.1998. Basic Statistics for Behavioral Sciences. Boston; Little Brown and Company.

Levelt, Willem. 1999. Models of word production. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 3(6): 223-232.

Maher, Lynn and Anastacia Raymer .2004. Management of anomia. Topics in stroke

rehabilitation 11 (1), 10-21.

Nettleton, Julie and Ruth Lesser. 1991. Application of a cognitive neuropsychological model to therapy. Journal of Neurolinguistics 6 (2), 139-157.

▌3

The rephonologization of Portuguese loanwords in Kimpombo:A generative CV phonology model account

António Filipe Augusto (MA)Foreign Language Teacher Training Department

Head of English Department

Instituto Superior Ciências da Educação—ISCED/Luanda, Luanda, Angola

[email protected]

This paper looks at the rephonologization of Portuguese words in Kimpombo - a variety of Kikongo

spoken in Sanza Pombo which is one of the seventeen municipalities of the northern Angolan province

of Uíge. The main focus of the study is on how processes such as vowel and glide epenthesis, as well

as vowel deletion conspire to maintain the syllable structure of the receiving language – Kimpombo.

The findings of this study reveal that there are four main strategies that Kimpombo utilizes in order

to accommodate the new lexical items in the language to its syllable phonological structure; breaking

consonant clusters through epenthetic vowels (pedro /pedɾu/ -> [mpetulu]) - personal name),

breaking diphthongs and triphthongs and vowel sequences either through glide epenthesis (maria /

maɾia/ -> [madija] - personal name; sabão /sabɐw/ -> [sabawu] - soap) or vowel deletion (moisés

/mɔj’zeʒ/ -> [mozezi] - (personal name) , as well as by opening closed syllables by the means of an

epenthetic vowel (luz /luʒ/ -> [luzu] - light), since the phonological system of the language does not

allow complex onsets, codas and complex syllable nuclei. The epenthetic and deletion processes

processes are motivated by the fact that the acceptable syllable structure in Kimpombo is of the CV

structure. The generative CV- phonology model of syllable structure (Clements and Keyser, 1983;

Blevins, 1995) is applied to analyse the processes. All the examples used in this study are from the

researcher who is a mother tongue speaker of both Kipombo and Portuguese.


“NURSING THE CURE”: A Phonetic Analysis of /ʊə/ in South African English

Ian BekkerNorth-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, South Africa

[email protected]

This paper is focused on providing the results of a partially impressionistic and partially acoustic phonetic analysis of the CURE vowel (i.e. /ʊə/ as in cure, tour, sure) in South African English (SAfE) and, in particular, in the main L1 sociolect of this Southern Hemisphere variety, General SAfE. While other non-rhotic varieties of English have undergone (or are undergoing) the Second FORCE Merger, whereby CURE merges with /oː/ (e.g. cure is pronounced [kjoː]), it would appear, on the basis of the research reported on in this paper, that the Second FORCE Merger has been arrested in General SAfE (contra certain pronouncements in the extant literature and limited to certain lexical items such as sure, your and you’re) and that a partial merger is underway with rounded, fronted SAfE NURSE (i.e. [øː]) instead, particularly after a palatal or palato-alveolar segment in word-internal position e.g. insurance is pronounced [ɪnʃøːɹəns]. More generally, a parallel, although less consistent and less clear, phenomenon also appears to occur in post-palatal, word-final position, e.g. [məʧøː] for mature, and non-post-palatal contexts as well, e.g. in both tourist and tour, where again there appears to be evidence for a greater incidence of monophthongal NURSE-like values in word-internal (tourist) as opposed to word-final (tour) position. Overall, the evidence points to the conclusion that the monophthongisation of CURE in SAfE is not moving in the same direction as found in other non-rhotic varieties of English.

▌5

Toni Borowsky University of Sydney

[email protected]

Dhochi Monosyllables

In this paper we present an analysis of a secret language of Dholuo (Western Nilotic, Western Ken-ya) known as Dhochi. Secret languages involve some sort of conscious but systematic distortion of words, thereby creating a ‘code’ that is easily used by those who know it, but opaque to those out-side the group.1 They are deliberately unfaithful renditions of the languages upon which they are based. Any form of language disguise requires an interesting balance of unfaithfulness and faithful-ness. On the one hand a speaker must deliberately produce something unintelligible to outsiders, but on the other hand, the effectiveness of the game as a means of communication means that the deformed words must be easily retrievable.

I will present an analysis of reversing disguise/ games in OT, analogous to similar prosodic mor-phology operations such as Reduplication and Truncation (eg. McCarthy and Prince 1995, Benua 1996). The Analysis uses game specific correspondence constraints whose ranking accounts for the observed typology of games. Outputs are directly related to their bases through satisfaction of a ranked constraint hierarchy. In the discussion of the game forms we are relating the game form to its input,:the base word, which is the surface form.

Dhochi is an interchange/reversal ludling. In Borowsky and Avery (2009), we analyzed a dialect of the ludling using an OT constraint set that evaluated game forms in terms of faithfulness constraints such as LINEARITY, CONTIGUITY and markedness constraints on syllable structure. Additional data from another dialect of the ludling lends new insight into some of the forces driving the surface forms. In its simplest form, Dhochi reverses the order of the final two syllables of a word, as is illus-trated in (1) and (2) below.

1. ŋgɛgɛ gɛŋgɛ tilapia tilapia2. kisera kirase flirtation4. čɩŋ ŋɩč hand5. pi ip water6. diel lied 7. liech liech 8. wat taw

In monosyllabic forms we find some interesting variation but most frequently the segments in the word reverse. Some speakers, in contrast, transpose the final consonant to the beginning of the word as in 9-10.

9. diel ldie10. liech chlie11. wat tuwa

An intrusive, or excrescent vowel appears when a stop is transposed but no vowel appears when a sonorant is transposed. I’ll show that this is phonetic.


Bagemihl 1988/9 suggests that monosyllables either do not reverse, or they reverse totally. These data show a third strategy. Similar facts are observed for other languages also, most notably Rizzolo observes a similar strategy seen in a Serbian reversing game, Satrovacki and uses it to make a claim about empty onsets.

I will argue that the data observed in Dhochi argue strongly against the claim made by Rozzolo, and that his data too lends itself to a phonetic analysis. The transposed consonant cannot be incorpo-rated into an existing cluster because that would destroy similarity between the base and the output and instead it is released and this causes the percept of a vowel. source language, Dholuo. That is, constraints for which there is no ranking evidence in Dholuo are precisely those that result in variation in game forms. Thus we see that certain apparently odd outcomes are straightforward on the assumption that the reversing game is the result of a requirement that there be reversal of the foot. Sometimes, more than one foot reverses.

We conclude the paper with a discussion of the general problem of variation in language game out-puts and how this is related to the constraint ranking in the source language.

Selected References

Bagemihl, Bruce (1988). Alternative phonologies and morphologies. PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia.

Rizzolo O 2006 ‘The syllable is not a valid constituent: evidence from two Serbo-Croatian language

games’ in R Compton, M Goledzinowska & U Savchenko (eds) Formal Approaches to Slavic

Linguistics 15: The Toronto Meeting Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications: 264_281.

▌7

Clicks, Concurrency, and Khoisan

Julian Bradfield University of Edinburgh

[email protected]

Concurrent processing, in the simplest sense of doing different things in parallel, is self-evidently inherent in the mechanics of speech production – every speech act is an exquisitely synchronized execution of many muscles. This concrete concurrency has been lifted to the abstract phonological level in gestural phonology with its synchronized scores. Concurrency also appears explicitly in the development of autosegmental phonology, where timing is abstracted away, and only a high-level synchronization between tiers is seen. Nowadays, concurrency appears in the dominant computational theory in the form of parallel OT.

However, despite its use in these phonological theories, concurrency is seldom considered in what Dixon has called basic linguistic theory: phonemes, segments, maybe features. In this paper, we argue that Khoisan clicks should be seen as concurrent segments, and thus concurrent phonemes, even in a non-autosegmental theory. By introducing concurrent phonemes to basic linguistic theory, many of Khoisan’s claims to phonological exceptionality disappear, or at least change their nature from one of degree to one of kind – the phenomenon of many clicks becomes no more exotic than the phenomenon of tone, where linguists have always accepted the concurrency of tones with segments.

In Khoisan, and click languages more generally, work up until the 1970s (including, e.g., Snyman 1970), explicitly viewed each combination of click type and efflux/accompaniment as a separate phoneme. Traill (1985) started the revision of this view, by noting the number of rather obvious sequential clusters among the ‘phonemes’ of Taa (!Xoon). Thereafter, with work of Nakagawa, Güldemann and others, it has become generally accepted that sounds such as !kˣ’ are clusters. In Naumann’s (2009) inventory of Taa, he posits 40 click consonants and 70 click clusters. For some of these clusters, an alternative non-clustered analysis is proposed for N|uu by Miller et al (2009), which increases the number of phonemes again.

We propose that in addition to sequential clustering, the 40 ‘phonemic’ clicks should be analysed as parallel clusters, so that the click (front release) and the accompaniment (back release) are viewed as separate segments/phonemes. Thus, rather than 40 = 5 × 8 click phonemes, there are 5 clicks and 8 accompaniments (most of which occur independently, though there are some choices to be made about whether to recognize this).

There is both theoretical and psychological support for such a proposal. In terms of phonological theory, it is fairly straightforward to adapt traditional generative theories to include concurrent phonemes, and by so doing, we can give a better analysis of some of the interesting phonological phenomena of Taa: the Taa version of the Back Vowel Constraint, and the raising of /a/ before /i/, in the presence of some but not other clicks, and partly or wholly blocked by some but not other accompaniments. We can also use arguments about learnability, given the very small functional load of click ‘phonemes’ distinctions (especially the labial clicks) in the standard accounts. If time permits, we will also briefly describe how concurrent phonemes appear in theories that are already partly non-linear, such as autosegmental theories.

Psychologically, the fact that Taa has a native vocabulary for the ‘pure’ click sounds, in which the clicks


occur with a range of accompaniments, suggests strongly that native speaker intuition consciously recognizes clicks as independent phonemes. Naumann and others’ fieldwork experience supports this interpretation, though there are as yet no deliberate experiments.

Furthermore, the Taa vowel space, which is also highly complex under traditional accounts, is very amenable to concurrent phonemic analysis, and there is morphological support for this. Finally, we discuss applications from other language areas.

▌9

Excursus into the Reverse Vowel Shift in South African English

Alida ChevalierPhD Candidate

University of Cape [email protected]

The South African English Chain Shift (SAECS) has been described by Lass and Wright (1985, 1986). This chain shift involves the raising of KIT, DRESS and TRAP when compared to Received Pronunciation (Mesthrie 1993, 30). Reasons for this chain shift have been put forth by Lanham (1965), Lass and Wright (1985, 1986) and Branford (1994). Lanham (1965, 91) predicted the continuation of KIT, DRESS and TRAP raising. Bekker (2009) conducted a study of South African English vowels, comparing data he collected to descriptions and findings of an acoustic study of SAE by Webb (1983) and the impressionistic descriptions by Lass and Wright (1985, 1986), among others. His findings include proof of continued KIT-centralisation; completed DRESS-raising and TRAP-lowering.

Mesthrie (2012, 10) provides impressionistic evidence that concurs with Bekker’s findings regarding TRAP lowering, and suggests that KIT and DRESS are also lowering. This is indicative of a reversal of the SAECS documented by Lass and Wright, with acoustic proof from Bekker’s work that TRAP is indeed lowering. Given Bekker’s female-only sample interviewed prior to 2009, the younger people Mesthrie is exposed to in the university setting up until 2012, from where his impressions spring, are very likely further advanced in any possible shifting than Bekker’s informants. This new shift, The Reverse Vowel Shift (RVS), is the key element of my study of South African English.

Chain shifts of short vowels particularly have been documented in many countries outside of South Africa. Bekker (2009, 436) named the study of the ongoing participation of SAE in a shift similar to the South-east English Chain Shift (Torgersen &Kerswill 2004) as an area that would need further study in real and apparent time. The SEE Chain Shift therefore forms the basis of comparison with international trends in vowel shifting. In addition to this shift, two others that bear similarities are important: the Canadian Shift and the California shift. Boberg (2005, 148) reports KIT centralisation as well as the lowering and retraction of DRESS and TRAP in the Canadian Shift. The California shift (Kennedy & Grama 2012, 44) is similar to the Canadian Shift in that DRESS is lowering and TRAP is retracting. KIT in the California Shift is lowering, which might be the case in SAE.

Due to the sociophonetic framework of this study, data collection involves Labovian interviews recorded and analysed via PRAAT (using Forced Alignment and extractFormants). Data from female speakers already interviewed will be presented as an initial excursus into the extent of the Reverse Vowel Shift in SAE as found in Cape Town.


Some Remarks on Kimbundu Tonal Phonology

Fernando O. de CarvalhoGraduate Program in Linguistics

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

[email protected], [email protected]

The present work puts forth an analysis of Kimbundu (Bantu H20, Angola) tonal phonology. The main sources on Kimbundu phonology for the present work are Xavier (2010) a doctoral dissertation on the segmental and suprassegmental phonology of the language and Arvanites (1976), a rather detailed analysis of the tonal phonology of Kimbundu nouns.

The main question posed by this preliminary analysis is: to what extent is it possible to account for the tonal changes in Kimbundu nouns without recourse to the pre-specification (or pre-association) of syllables with particular tones, that is, on the basis only of general output constraints on the distribution of tones?

The following patterns are posited for underlying, pre-L and isolation and pre-H contexts (the contextual L and H tones are associated to suffixed pronouns):

A major difference from Arvanites’ account is that while in her study the pre-H patterns are analyzed as ‘underlying’ and those found in pre-L and isolation contexts are depicted as ‘surface’, we opt for considering the pre-H patterns as derived. Given this assumption, Arvanites 1976 is forced into some debatable conclusions in order to account for the changes in the prefix tones in many of the examples above, such as the postulation of a rule of ‘dissimilation from preceding pause’ as the process underlying the L → H change.

Aside from negative remarks such as these, there is no compelling positive reason to believe the pre-H patterns may be taken to be underlying. Indeed, given the evidence marshaled in favor of the idea that the L tone is relatively inert in Kimbundu (cf. Arvanites 1976, Xavier 2010) one expects that in pre-H context the underlying pattern has been somehow altered or blurred by the action of phonological rules, in particular, rules triggered by the phonologically active H tone that characterizes this context. As we propose in this work, taking the pre-H patterns to be derived allows one to account neatly for the Kimbundu tonal alternations, in ways that avoid some problems faced by Arvanites’ account.

▌11

In these terms, we are able to account for the derivation of his Tone Class 2 items by invoking (i) a dissimilative change H→ L (or rather the deletion of H) in the context of a suffixal H and (ii) the leftward spreading of the suffixal H to the root’s last syllable, a rule of H-spreading independently proposed by Xavier (2010):

We will assume here that Arvanites’ ‘M tone’ is actually a downstepped H, that is, !H. Consistent with this conclusion is Arvanites’ (1974: 134) observation that any sequence of two H tones will dissimilate as in (cf. Odden 1982: 187 for a similar process in Kishambaa):

This being so, the derivation of surface downsteps which occurs in pre-L context:

is blocked , or bled, by the previous application of H-deletion in the pre-H context:

In (5) above that prefixal H that triggers the downstep rule (3) in the pre-L context in (4) is deleted and hence therefore no downstep occurs.

The action of more general constraints and process - such as dissimilation, downstep and H-spreading - will be discussed and we will argue eventually the some of the surface L tones are underlyingly (or at least, at some pre-surface level) associated to particular tone-bearing units while other surface low tones result from default-inserting rules.


References:

Arvanites, L. (1976) ‘Kimbundu Tones: Tone Patterns in Two Contexts’. In: L. Hyman (ed.) Studies in Bantu Tonology. Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics 3.

Odden, D. (1982) ‘Tonal Phenomena in Kishambaa’. Studies in African Linguistics 13 (2): 177-208.

Xavier, F. (2010) ‘Fonologia Segmental e Suprasegmental do Kimbundu’. Doctoral Dissertation, University of São Paulo.

▌13

The phonetics of bilabial trills in Mangbetu

Didier DemolinGipsa-lab & Université de Grenoble, Alpes [email protected]

Bilabial trills are part of the phonemic inventory of a number of the world’s languages (Ladegoged & Maddieson 1996). These sounds are quite frequent in languages of the Central Sudanic family and especially in the Moru-Mangbetu group. Most languages show voiced bilabial trills [B] and/or prenasalized trills [mB] but some languages also show voiceless bilabial trills [B ] (Demolin, 1992, 2002, McKee 1991, 2007, Olson 2012, Thomas 1981). The description of these sounds is pretty well established but the explanation of their production needs some refinements. The paper describes the production mechanisms of these sounds and provides an explanation to their distribution in the languages where they appear. Data are mainly based on measurements made with Mangbetu speakers. The method involves acoustic, EGG, aerodynamic (oral airflow Of & intra oral pressure Ps) and video measurements. Acoustic and EGG data were recorded with 5 speakers, aerodynamic and video data with one speaker. All data but the video were recorded with the Physiologia recording system (Teston 1991). Two questions are addressed in this paper: (1) how are these sounds produced? (2) Why do bilabial trills occur preferably in front of high back vowels? Data recorded are contrasts between bilabial trills and their corresponding stops ([b vs. B & p vs. B ]), occurrences of [mb, mB] were also recorded in Mangbetu, a language in which the two sounds are allophones.

Results show that there are generally between 2 and 4 cycles of lip opening and closure (mostly 3) for bilabial trills with an average period of 31 ms (n=35 for each trill). Intra oral Ps reaches peaks of 22 hPa (about 22 cmH20, since 1 hPa is equivalent to 1 cmH20) for voiceless and 12 hPa for voiced trills. The peak is reached just before the first lip opening. This contrasts with stops where Ps peaks are normally between 8 hPa (voiceless stops) and 3 hPa (voiced stops). In order to generate the Bernoulli Effect (simplified as P + ½ r U² = constant, where P is pressure, r is the density of air and U the velocity of airflow volume) on the lips, DPs/Pa must be maximum for a moment. This is observed in the measurements where it can be seen that a high Ps is maintained during the period of lip vibration. The threshold below which lips stop vibrating seems to be around 10 hPa in the data. For the Bernoulli Effect to be generated on the lips, lips must be relaxed. This is triggered by the large Ps increase behind the lips before the first vibratory cycle. Video data show that during the lip closure, before the trills, cheeks and lips inflate under the influence of Ps. The increase in Ps eventually forces the air to escape between the lips. The acceleration of airflow and the local depression between the lips provoke a new approximation of the lips. As long as Ps is high enough behind the lips, there will be an oscillation of the lips. There is therefore no voluntary control on the lip relaxation.

Aerodynamic conditions help to answer the second question, which is: why are bilabial trills more frequent in front of high back vowels? Since high back vowels, or even other back vowels, are produced with a small constriction in the high back part the vocal tract, this facilitates maintaining a high Ps behind the lips. Indeed the tongue position for [u] makes a cavity between the velar region and the glottis which helps to maintain the high Ps necessary to make the lips vibrate. Therefore it is the vocal tract configuration behind the lips rather than the lip configuration which explains why bilabial are produced in front of high back vowels and why Ps is maintained during most the vowel.


Demolin, D. (1992). Le mangbetu: etude phonétique et phonologique. PhD Dissertation, Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Demolin, D. (2002). The search for primitives in phonology and the explanation of sound patterns: the contribution of fieldwork studies. In C. Gussenhoven and N. Warner (eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology 7. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 355-434.

Ladegoged, P. & Maddieson, I. (1996). The Sounds of the World’s Languages. Oxford. Blackwell.McKee, R.G. (1991). The interpretation of consonants with semi-vowel release in Meje (Zaire) stems.

In F. Rottland and L. N. Omondi (eds.) Proceedings of the Third Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, Kisumu, Kenya, Auguts 4-9, 1986.Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg.

McKee, R.G. (2007). Concerning Meegye and Mangbetu bilabial trills. In D.L. Payne and M. Reh (eds.), Advances in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics: Proceedings of the 8th Nilo-Saharan Colloquium, University of Hamburg, 181-189. Cologne. Rüdiger Köppe.

Olson, K. (2012). The distribution of bilabial in Africa. Paper presented at WOCAL 7, Buea, Cameroon, August 2012

Thomas. J.M.C. (1981). Les langues moru-mangbetu et leur classification. In Perrot J. (ed.) Les langues dans le monde ancien et moderne. Première partie Les langue de l’Afrique subsaharienne. Editions du CNRS : Paris.

▌15

Clicks, stop bursts, vocoids and the timing of articulatory gestures in Rwanda

Didier Demolin & Clothilde ChabironGipsa-lab & Université de Grenoble, Alpes

Rwanda and many other Bantu languages have complex sets of prenasalized consonants in their phonological inventory.

According to Jouannet (1983) Rwanda has three sets of complex nasals : (i) a set of voiced and voiceless prenasalized consonants, (ii) a set of voiced and voiceless labiovelarized prenasalized consonants [mbg, mvg, ndgw, nzgw, nZgw, Ngw, n hN w, nskw, nSkw, N hw], (iii) a set of voiced and voiceless palatalized consonants [mpfy, mb⎥, nd⎥, nstS, n8hy, N⎥]. The labiovelarized show a number of interesting realizations requiring an accurate phonetic description and a theoretical account. Variations in the temporal realization of gestures required to produce these complex nasal consonants show that their outcome can have important consequences. A good illustration of this point is given by the word /imga/ ‘dog’ that can phonetically be realized as: [im⃞ga] ~ [im↔ga] ~ [imbga]. In order to investigate the phonetic realizations of these complex nasals in Rwanda, a set of 30 words was selected. A group of 7 Rwandan speakers (4 women and 3 men) participated in recording sessions involving simultaneous acoustic and aerodynamic data (oral airflow Of, nasal airflow Nf and intra oral pressure Ps) using a Physiologia working station. Words were recorded in a carry sentence and repeated three times by each speaker.

Results allow discussing a number of important questions from the descriptive, diachronic and theoretical point of views. Sequences of front/back nasals [+labial]-[+velar] or [+alveolar]-[+velar] vary a lot in their phonetic output.

The sequence [m]-[N] can be realized as: [mg], [m⃞g], [m↔N] ; the sequence [n]-[N] vary as [ntN], [n⃞N], [n↔N]. These variations come from differences in the timing and coordination of the labial, alveolar and velar gestures involved in these nasal consonants. When gestures overlap in the sequence front/back nasal and if the front closure is released before the back velar closure, a burst appears. This is in fact a click burst but with lower intensity compared to clicks. If the two gestures involved in the sequence front to back nasals do not overlap, a small vocoid [↔] appears between the two nasal consonants. Another possibility, but less frequent, is the emergence of a stop after the nasal due to the oralization of the last part of the first nasal. This shows that differences in timing and coordination of articulatory gestures found in Rwanda’s complex consonants can trigger the emergence of acoustic features having consequences at the phonetic and phonological level. Traill (personal communication) observed that clicks and stops are quite close from an acoustic point of view. In this perspective clicks are similar to stops, the main difference being that clicks features have a much bigger intensity. These observations in Rwanda’s complex consonants are important from various perspectives: they help to understand the source of some common sound change and diachronic phenomena in Bantu languages. They also help to clarify issues on the timing and coordination of gestures and their acoustics consequences. Finally they help to understand and explain phonological processes found in Rwanda.

Jouannet, F. 1983. Phonétique et phonologie des consonnes du Rwanda, in Jouannet, F. (ed.) Le Rwanda langue bantu du Rwanda, Etudes linguistiques. Paris. SELAF, 55-73.


Local reassembly: Nguni/Sotho/Khoesan system hybridity in Phuthi

Fr Simon DonnellyCatholic Archdiocese of Johannesburg

[email protected]

Professor Anthony Traill spent most of his academic life exploring the staggering complexity of the phonetic and phonological systems in a single San language, !Xoo. While all non-Bantu African languages -- that is, Khoe and San -- are almost entirely withdrawn from contemporary South African geographical territory and are nearly completely isolated linguistically within the broader southern African geolinguistic space (Namibia, Botswana, Angola), the earlier presence of these languages within Nguni- and Sotho-speaking territory has left behind fragmented (but significant) linguistic traces -- chiefly phonetic and phonological, but also with limited morphological effects.

The most salient Khoe- or San-origin linguistic traces include click consonants and breathy phonation (including a range of originally breathy/depressed consonants, with the rarer breathy/depressed vowel phonation also used independently of consonant onsets).

Within Nguni Bantu languages, the Zunda subset bear the strongest inventory influence from Khoesan: Xhosa, Zulu , Ndebele, with lesser effects in the main Tekela subset: Swati. Of the Sotho Bantu languages, only Southern Sotho retains a (very limited) single-place click consonant subinventory. At the interface of Nguni and Sotho, however, lies a distinct Tekela Nguni language, Phuthi, remarkable for its deep phonological and morphological hybridity. This hybridity functions at two levels: (a) Nguni/ Khoesan interface: a three-place click inventory (Nguni); a breathy voiced stop inventory; unique lexicon. (b) Nguni/Sotho interface: Phuthi has seven phonemic vowels (cf Sotho); a strict Sotho-type ban on (non-click) NC clusters; strict CV- shape for noun class prefixes (except class 1a, 9); large numbers of Sotho/Nguni lexical doublets.

Particularly remarkable is that loaned phonological properties from both hybridity relationships have been extended with new (unattested elsewhere) phonological and morphological functions: (a) breathiness/depression is deployed morphologically (noun copulas; local assimilation in certain roots; lexically unique words that contain non-consonant triggered breathiness; and (b) superclose vowel height is deployed independently of Proto-Bantu (extra-)high source vowels: in axiomatic negatives, as well as in a perseverative superclose height harmony (unattested anywhere in the subcontinent); fresh Nguni lexis into which non-PB-original superclose vowels have been inserted. (c) an edge-triggered mid-vowel tenseness harmony (also unattested anywhere in the subcontinent).

In addition, extra-Nguni features are still incompletely integrated into Phuthi phonotactics. For example, despite a general *NC ban, prenasalised clicks in Phuthi are uncontroversial.

Thus, Phuthi occupies a unique, if marginal, Nguni/Sotho/Khoesan hybrid position among all Southern African languages, displaying layered multisystems (and indeed polysystematicity). And yet from these fragmented hybrid systems, a stable, mostly coherent Phuthi phonology and morphogy have been reassembled (although it must be noted that morphological and phonological signs of instability are in evidence).

This paper constitutes a brief overview of a single hybrid system, with colateral attention to closely related Nguni and Sotho languages, and more distant references to imported Khoesan properties.

▌17

*NT As a Perceptual Constraint

Laura J. Downing (Göteborgs univ.) & Silke Hamann (Univ. Amsterdam)[email protected] & [email protected]

Background: While it is uncontroversial that it is less marked for obstruent stops to be voiced, rather than voiceless, following a homorganic nasal consonant, Pater’s (1999) formulation of the OT constraint to account for this generalization – here called *NT – has been criticized almost from the beginning. As Pater himself acknowledges, a constraint simply banning nasal/voiceless obstruent sequences makes the implausible prediction that voiceless obstruents are optimally voiced following voiceless nasals. Work since Hyman (2001; see, too, Coetzee & Pretorius 2010; Gouskova et al. 2011; Solé et al. 2010; Solé 2012) has shown that *NT also incorrectly predicts that no language should devoice obstruents following a nasal, yet that is what we find in at least some dialects of Setswana.

Neglected *NT patterns: In this talk we take up another problem with the original *NT constraint, namely, that it has nothing to say about the common Bantu pattern (Kadima 1969, Kerremans 1980, Huffman & Hinnebusch 1998) in which postnasal voiceless stops are aspirated, so that the contrast between voiced and voiceless stops is enhanced, rather than neutralized, in postnasal position: NT NTh. It also has nothing to say about languages that not only contrast aspiration in stops but also have contrastive voicing (T, Th, D). In several of these languages, the postnasal pattern one finds is that a voicing contrast is maintained, while the aspiration contrast neutralizes: e.g., in Cinsenga, Chichewa (Miti 2001) and Tumbuka (Vail 1972), {NT, NTh} NTh ; NDND.

These problems are shared by Halpert’s (2010, 2012) analyses of NT alternations, which are formalized in terms of gestural (mis-)alignment within a homorganic NC sequence. She notes that homorganic sequences are shorter than non-homorganic and proposes that this motivates realignment of the gestures associated with the consonants. Postnasal aspiration of a voiceless consonant follows, in her account, from misaligning the open glottis gesture of the plain voiceless consonant and the release of the stop, as a result of shortening the stop closure. However, as Huffman & Hinnebusch (1998) argue, aspiration involves a greater glottal opening than plain voiceless stops, and simple gestural shift would not result in aspiration.

Our proposal: What we propose is that the range of laryngeal alternations in the NT context is better accounted for if *NT is recast in perceptual, rather than purely articulatory, terms. As work like Ohala & Ohala (1993) and Solé (2012) observes, a phonetically voiceless obstruent stop is easily perceived as voiced in postnasal position, as it has a weak release burst (and is short in duration). That is, postnasal voiceless stops minimally violate the following cue constraint: (1) *[weak burst]/T/ (Don’t map a weak burst in the auditory representation onto a voiceless plosive in the phonological representation, and vice versa).

It is unsurprising that one common phonological response to the cue constraint is for the voiceless stop to undergo voicing assimilation: reduced stops that occur between sonorants commonly undergo this kind of lenition. (See e.g. papers in Brandão de Carvalho et al. 2008.) In a perceptual account, it is equally unsurprising for aspiration of the voiceless stop to be another common phonological response. Aspiration strengthens perceptibility of voicelessness, enhancing the contrast with a postnasal voiced stop and maintaining this laryngeal contrast in the phonological system. This approach also accounts for languages where {NT, NTh} neutralize to NTh, as this process satisfies the voicing cue constraint.


Formal account: The difference between postnasal voicing languages and postnasal aspiration languages, then, follows straightforwardly from the high-ranked postnasal voicing cue constraint in (1) and different rankings of distinct laryngeal Faith constraints. Postnasal voicing is unfaithful to the stop’s input representation, as it violates Dep [voice]. Postnasal aspiration, in contrast, is faithful for [voice], but it violates dep [spread glottis].

▌19

An investigation into the (re-)emergence of regionality in White South African English

Deon du PlessisNorth-West University, Potchefstroom Campus

[email protected]

The status quo holds that White South African English (SAfE hereafter) historically varied according to

region; but synchronically only varies according to such factors as gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic

class (cf. Da Silva, 2008). However, some commentators have begun to entertain the possibility of

re-emerging, synchronic, regional variation in the accent. Bekker and Eley (2007) consider regional

variation as the possible origin of many phonologic variables in SAfE – which Lanham and Macdonald

(1979) also do, though they reject synchronic regional variation at that time. Wileman (2011) presents

evidence for a rise in variables that index the local identities of Cape Town and Durban. Bowerman

(2004) ventures a division of the variety into (Western) Cape, Natal, and Transvaal (Gauteng) English;

Lass (1990) even posits the existence of different sub-varieties within Cape Town. A complication to

this matter is Bekker’s (2009:80) assertion that original regionalisms should be separated out from

current innovations. Yet, in light of Lanham and Macdonald’s (1979) – and others’ – rejection of

regionality, which has held for some 30 years, a ‘revival’ of older variables should still be conceived

as a re-emergence of regionality. In this regard Wileman (2011:118-119) suggests that “certain older

regionalisms may have decreased in prominence as regional markers, whereas others … may have

increased in prominence as regional markers”.

This paper thus presents preliminary findings of a study-in-progress which investigates potential

re-emergent regional variation in White South African English. For this purpose, speech of native

speakers from Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg is considered. Interviews with subjects are

recorded for formant analysis in PRAAT (Boersma & Weenink, 2010). This paper argues that re-

emergent regionality is a product of Phase 5 Schneiderian phenomena. To wit, Schneider’s (2007)

Dynamic Model of the evolution of Postcolonial Englishes, which offers a framework for the

development of postcolonial English varieties, predicts such regional divergence during the fifth –

and final – of its phases. It remains unclear at which phase SAfE is in this model (Bekker, 2009), but

emerging regionality would evidence the advent of Phase 5, and vice versa. The study employs two

methodologies to inspect regional differentiation within SAfE. Firstly, the quantitative sociolinguistic

tradition originally developed by Labov (1972), with notable adjustments based on Eckert’s (2000)

work. Secondly, dialectometry based on the Levenshtein algorithm (cf. Heeringa, 2004; Nerbonne et

al., 1999). Preliminary findings support the definite, albeit furtive, progression of White South African

English into Phase 5 – progress which necessarily entails differentiation along regional parameters in

the speech community at large.


References

Bekker, I. 2009. The vowels of South African English. Potchefstroom: North-West University.

(Thesis – PhD.)

Bekker, I. & Eley, G. 2007. An acoustic analysis of White South African English (WSAfE)

monophthongs. Southern African linguistics and applied language studies, 25(1):107-114.

Boersma, P. & Weenink, D. 2010. PRAAT: doing phonetics by computer. www.fon.hum.uva.nl/PRAAT

Date of access: 29 May 2011. [Computer program.]

Bowerman, S. 2004. White South African English: phonology. (In Schneider, E., Burridge, K.,

Kortmann, B., Mesthrie, R. & Upton, C., eds. A handbook of varieties of English. Berlin: Mouton de

Gruyter. pp. 931-942.)

Da Silva, A.B. 2008. South African English: a sociolinguistic investigation of an emerging variety.

Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand. (Thesis – PhD.)

Eckert, Penelope. 2000. Linguistic Variation as Social Practice. Oxford: Blackwell.

Heeringa, W. 2004. Measuring dialect pronunciation differences using Levenshtein distance.

Groningen: University of Groningen. (Thesis – PhD.)

Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Labov, W. 2010. Cognitive and cultural factors. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. (Principles of linguistic

change, 3.)

Lanham, L.W. & Macdonald, C.A. 1979. The standard in South African English and its social history.

(In Görlach, M., ed. Varieties of English around the world. Volume 1. Heidelberg: Groos.)

Lass, R. 1990. A “standard” South African vowel system. (In Ramsaran, S., ed. Studies in the

pronunciation of English: a commemorative volume in honour of A.C. Gimson. London: Routledge.

pp. 272-285.)

Nerbonne, J., Heeringa, W. & Kleiweg, P. 1999. Edit distance and dialect proximity. (In Sankoff,

D. & Kruskal, J., eds. Time warps, string edits, and macromolecules: the theory and practice of

sequence comparison. 2nd ed. Stanford: CSLI Press. pp. v-xv.)

Schneider, E.W. 2007. Postcolonial English: varieties around the world. New York: Cambridge

University Press.

Wileman, B. 2011. Regional variation in South African English. Cape Town: University of Cape

Town. (Dissertation – MA.)

▌21

New data on click genesis: further evidence that click-initial words shared by Khoesan and Bantu languages of southern Africa

can be mapped as historically emergent from non-click forms reconstructed for Proto-Bantu

Menán du PlessisResearch Associate in the Department of Linguistics, Stellenbosch University

[email protected]

Abstract:

It has long been noted that most ‘click words’ found in Bantu languages of southern Africa are essentially Bantu, with the clicks merely replacing more conventional reflexes (Appleyard 1850). It has only recently been shown, however, that such Bantu-intrinsic click words frequently have corresponding forms in Khoesan languages, and may even occur amongst sets of words that are grammatically employed in the latter, thus suggesting deep embeddedness (Du Plessis, Pending).

Since the Bantu-intrinsic click words of Bantu languages in southern Africa often have well-accepted reconstructions, it has been possible to map the systematic pathways by which the clicks in the cross-linguistically shared words have emerged historically from Proto-Bantu roots, under certain conditions, in specifiable precursory phonetic environments. These abstract formulations have a predictive power in that they can account for some click words in Khoesan without counterparts in Bantu languages. The so-called ‘accompaniments’ (Traill 1985) of the clicks can be related to common morphophonetic elements in Bantu, such as the nasal component of certain prefixes, or else to ordinary elaborations of oral and nasal stops by means of aspiration or ejection, and voicing. Where they are not elided, medial consonants in click words pattern with the medial segments postulated for proto-forms; while the diverse colourations of vowels and vowel sequences in Khoesan correlate with typical features of initial and medial consonant reflexes in Bantu. One conclusion of this recent work has been that some of the reconstructions for proto-Khoe (Vossen 1997) reflect an incorrect directionality, being based on the assumption of a sub-set of words commencing originally with the palato-alveolar click, [ǂ], and having supposedly later outcomes in eastern varieties of the Kalahari branch that reflect a range of conventional alveolar and palato-alveolar affricates as initial segments in respective comparative series – where these affricates are assumed to have emerged through processes of ‘click loss’ (Traill 1986; Traill and Vossen 1997). In fact it must be the click forms (typologically more rare in any case) that are emergent, since they can be derived from Proto-Bantu roots, while the affricate-initial forms are often readily recognisable as Bantu, being sometimes even identical to equivalent words in languages of the Sotho-Tswana group.

The present paper now expands on these discoveries. In particular it will be shown that another sub-set of the reconstructions for Proto-Khoe, involving the (post)alveolar click, [!], must likewise be ‘upside down’. This evidence is also shown to support a preliminary hypothesis concerning the actual mechanism involved in the emergence of the clicks. (It was the absence of such an hypothesis that persuaded Traill and Vossen to opt for a model of click loss rather than click genesis.) Some wider implications of these findings will be discussed by way of conclusion.


References:

Appleyard, J. W. 1850. The Kafir Language. King William’s Town: Wesleyan Mission Printing Establishment.

Du Plessis, M. [Pending.] ‘The systematic occurrence of Bantu-intrinsic click words in Khoesan languages, discovered by reference to reconstructions for Proto-Bantu.’ [Currently undergoing review.]

Traill, A. 1985. Phonetic and Phonological Studies of !XOO Bushman. (Research in Khoisan Studies 1). Hamburg: Helmut Buske.

Traill, A. 1986. ‘Click replacement in Khoe.’ In R. Vossen and K. Keuthmann (eds), Contemporary Studies on Khoisan, 301-320. (Research in Khoisan Studies 5(2).)

Traill, A. and R. Vossen. 1997. ‘Sound changes in the Khoisan languages: new data on click loss and click replacement.’ Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 18 (1):21-56.

Vossen, R. 1997. Die Khoe-Sprachen: Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der Sprachgeschichte Afrikas. (Research in Khoisan Studies 12.) Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.

▌23

Segmental and Suprasegmental Stability In Emai

Francis O. EgbokhareDepartment of Linguistics and African Languages

University of Ibadan, [email protected]

Emai is an Edoid language spoken in Edo State in Southern Nigeria. The current paper examines the phenomena of tone and nasality stability following the application of vowel elision and glide formation in normal quick speech. It argues for a need to see glide formation as a form of stability of vowel features given the similarity in characteristics which it shares with nasality and tonal stability. Data on stability of tone, nasality and glide formation show the interaction of morpheme structure and sequence structure considerations with implications for the conceptualization of phonological representation.

Glide formation and vowel elision apply within (for glide formation) and across morpheme boundaries (for both glide formation and vowel elision). Glide formation may affect only close vowels that are preceded by a consonant and followed by an un-identical vowel within or across morpheme boundary. When a vowel is de-syllabified as a result of vowel elision and glide formation, its tone or nasality is retained on a following vowel within or across morpheme boundaries. This is however not the case if the immediately preceding tautomorphemic vowel retains an identical feature. Similarly, a close vowel may form a glide within or across a morpheme boundary if it is preceded by a consonant and an un-identical vowel. However, the segment is elided if the preceding vowel is identical with it. In this paper, we draw on the concept of Obligatory Contour Principle to explain the effect of identity of features in the stability of segments in the processes considered. We eliminate complexities in analysis, eliminate the need for an ordering constraint in rule formulation and unify processes such as vowel elision, vowel raising and glide formation as processes of deletion which affect different nodes in a hierarchical structure.


Morphophonemic alternations in the initial consonants of stems in Olunyole, a Luyia Bantu Language

William Lorin GardnerSIL Africa,

[email protected]

Olunyole [EJ33, nyd, Kenya] is an understudied variety of the Luyia macrolanguage. The noun class prefixes for Classes 9 and 10, underlyingly /iɲ-/ and /(ɛ-)tsiɲ-/, trigger homorganic prenasalization of stem-initial consonants and also voice obstruents /k t tʃ/ to /g d dʒ/. In addition, they strengthen the fricative /β/ to /b/ and the lateral /l/ to /d/. Furthermore, by Meinhof’s Law, a prenasalized voiced stop simplifies to a nasal when followed by a nasal or prenasalized stop in the next syllable, e.g.

1a. iɲ-kɔmbɛ iŋgɔmbɛ iŋɔmbɛ 1b. ɛ-tsiɲ-limi ɛtsindimi ɛtsinimi 9-cow AV-10-tongue cow tongues

Similarly, the 1sg (subject or object) marker /n-/ before consonant-initial verb roots or object markers triggers homorganic prenasalization, voices obstruents /k t ts tʃ/ to /g d dz dʒ/ and strengthens fricative /β/ to /b/ and lateral /l/ to /d/. However, voiceless fricatives /ɸ/, /s/ and /χ/ and trill /r/ remain unchanged, i.e. neither prenasalized nor becoming voiced

Many of these morphophonemic alternations are similar to (while others contrast with) processes which occur with noun class prefixes in other Bantu languages, in particular Shona languages [S10, sna] of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Relevant data will demonstrate these consonant alternations in both Olunyole and Shona, and proposals will be presented on how to represent the underlying sounds and describe the morphophonemic changes. For example, the final nasal consonants of the class 9/10 prefixes also cause various changes (e.g. voicing, hardening, pre-nasalization and/or aspiration) where the phonemic inventory allows.

Initial ReferencesFivaz, Derek. 1970. Shona Morphophonemics and Morphosyntax. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand.Fortune, G. 1955. An Analytical Grammar of Shona. London: Longmans, Green and Co.Gardner, William L. 2006. Olunyole Phonology Writeup and Grammar Sketch. Unpublished paper for Linguistic Field Methods Course at Biola University, La Mirada, CA. Gardner, William L. 2005. Prenasalized Stops and Other Consonant Mutations. Unpublished paper for Bantu Orthography Working Group, November 7-11, 2005, Dallas, TX. Gardner, William L. 2000. Consonant Mutation in Shona Languages. In SIL-Mozambique Working Papers, Vol. 2.Huffman, Marie K., and Thomas J. Hinnebusch. 1998. The phonetic nature of ‘voiceless’ nasals in Pokomo: Implications for sound change. In JALL 19:1-19.Myers, Scott. 1994. “Epenthesis, Mutation, and Structure Preservation in the Shona Causative.” In Studies in African Linguistics, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 185-216. Los Angeles: UCLA.

▌25

Khoisan sound systems in typological perspective

Tom Güldemann & Hirosi Nakagawa

[email protected]

[email protected]

Anthony Traill is widely known for having produced the first comprehensive phonetic and phonological analysis of the so-far most complex sound system in the Khoisan domain and possibly among the world’s languages, viz. of the Taa language complex, specifically its East ǃXoon variety (see particularly Traill 1985). However, in a number of articles (e.g., 1980, 1992, 1995, 2001), he also laid the foundation for the successful phonological comparison across Khoisan languages. It is this fruitful combination of the language-specific with the universal that characterizes his contribution to Khoisan linguistics as well as to general phonetic-phonological theory. Since his groundwork the knowledge on individual Khoisan languages has grown tremendously. In our talk we will explore several theoretical issues first addressed by him and show how his analytical approaches are still up-to-date in view of these modern data.

References

Traill, Anthony. 1980. Phonetic diversity in the Khoisan languages. In Snyman, Jan W. (ed.), Bushman and Hottentot linguistic studies (papers of seminar held on 27 July 1979). Miscellanea Congregalia 16. Pretoria: University of South Africa, 167-189.

Traill, Anthony. 1985. Phonetic and phonological studies of ǃXóõ Bushman. Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 1. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.

Traill, Anthony. 1992. A confusion of sounds: the phonetic description of ǃXũ clicks. In Gowlett, Derek F. (ed.), African linguistic contributions (presented in honour of Ernst Westphal). Pretoria: Via Afrika, 345-362.

Traill, Anthony. 1995. Interpreting ǀXam phonology: the need for typological cleansing. In Traill, Anthony, Rainer Voßen and Megan Biesele (eds.), The complete linguist: papers in memory of Patrick J. Dickens. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe, 509-523.

Traill, Anthony. 2001. Structural typology and remote relationships between Zhu and ǃXóõ. In Nurse, Derek (ed.), Historical language contact in Africa. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 16/17: 437-454.


Vowel concatenation in Cuwabo

Rozenn GuéroisDynamique Du Langage, Université Lyon 2

[email protected]

Vowel sequences and their implication on syllable structure and weight of Bantu languages have been much discussed from a theoretical point of view (Hyman 1985, Hayes 1989).

This paper presents original field data of Cuwabo, a Bantu language spoken in Central Mozambique (classified as P34 by Guthrie), and surveys derived vowel length triggered by the juxtaposition of vowels and the repercussions in terms of moraic representation and syllabic structure. For the different cases developed below, without entering into deep theoretical considerations, I assume, following Hyman (1985), Hayes (1989) and others, that syllable weight is a reflection of moraic structure.

Cuwabo has an inventory of five vowels, which exhibit contrastive length: i e a o u and ii ee aa oo uu, e.g. é-ʈúúri < *-túúdi ‘shoulder’ or -táánú < *-cáánù ‘five’. Interestingly, not all long vowels from the Common Bantu are long in Cuwabo, e.g. ní-béle < *-bɛɛdɛ ‘breast’, etc. Beside the phonemic length, bimoraic vowels can be derived from either the fall of a consonant (mú-ðúulu ‘grandchild’ < *-jʊkʊdʊ vs. o-ðúlu ‘sky’< *-jʊdʊ) or a juxtaposition of vowels. Syllables with a VV nucleus generally involve identical vowels, i.e. a long vowel.

In this talk, I will present the different strategies used in Cuwabo to resolve vowel hiatus resulting from morphological and syntactic rules. Vocalic processes such as assimilation (e.g. beeɖilé > ba+eɖilé ‘having walked’), deletion and lengthening (e.g. ɖeeɖága < ɖi+eɖága ‘I walking’ - participial), and glide formation (e.g. mwéerí > mú+erí ‘moon, month’) will be considered and exemplified. When relevant, the distinction will be made between cases where the vowels are juxtaposed across morpheme boundaries inside a word (lexical processes) and cases where they are juxtaposed across words boundaries (post-lexical processes). Finally we will see that when more than two vowels are juxtaposed, two scenarios are possible: either the three vowels are reduced to a single bimoraic syllable by coalescence, or they are organized into two separate syllables with a glide insertion.

References

Hayes, B. 1989. Compensatory lengthening in moraic phonology. LI 20, p.253-306.Hyman, L. 1985. A theory of phonological weight. Dordrecht: Foris.

▌27

Makhuwa, Cuwabo and their closest relatives: some new evidence

Rozenn GuéroisDDL, Université Lyon 2

[email protected]

Starting from the early 80’s certain considerations (mainly phonological) led various researchers to posit some sort of relationship between Makhuwa and the S30 languages of Southern Africa (Möhlig 1981; Louw & Finlayson 1991, etc.). The most forceful proposal was put forward by T. Janson (1991-92), who examines in detail the phonological correspondences between the two sets of languages (particularly the exceptional development *mb, *nd, *ŋg > p, t, k) and concludes to their genetic relationship1.

Strangely enough, Janson does not refer to Lobedu, although some data had been published by Tucker (1932). This language is particularly interesting since it shares with S30 languages the denasalization process, but not the devoicing (*mb, *nd, *ŋg > b, ɖ, g; see also Kotzé & Zerbian (2008) on the phonological system of Lobedu).

Recent research conducted by the present author (R. Guérois) on the hitherto very poorly known Cuwabo language of Mozambique has yielded a considerable amount of phonological data on the language and thus shown that beside sharing with Lobedu the denasalization-minus-devoicing evolution, it exhibits divergent reflexes of proto-Bantu items to a degree rarely encountered in other Bantu languages, apart from trade languages such as Lingala.

I will thus endeavour to set out the tabular correspondences of Cuwabo with the other Bantu languages of the wider region (Guthrie’s zones N, P and S) and then to propose a hypothesis about the possible presence of a “Sotho-Makhuwa” group in Southern Central Africa, its interactions with neighbouring groups and its ultimate expansion to the various locations where it is found today. The specific relationship of Cuwabo with its neighbouring languages will be examined in terms of what is known of its history since the Portuguese conquest.

References

Janson, T. 1991/1992. Southern Bantu and Makua. SUGIA, 12/13: 63-106

Kotzé, A.E. & S. Zerbian. 2008. On the trigger of palatalization in the Sotho languages. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 29(1): 1-28

Louw, J. A. & R. Finlayson. 1990. Southern Bantu origins as represented by Xhosa and Tswana. South African Journal of African Languages, 10, 4: 401-410

Möhlig, W.J.G. 1981. Stratification in the history of the Bantu languages. SUGIA, 3: 251-316

Tucker, A.N. 1932. Some little known dialects of SePedi, MSOS, 35

1 One could add the combination of the -ni locative suffix with a locative prefix (cl. 16, 17 or 18), which is unique to Makhuwa and S30 to the best of our knowledge. Cf. also Makxoa ‘Westerners’ in S30 languages.


Comparative lexical tonology of serial verbs in Haiǁom and ǂAakhoe

Prof. Wilfrid HaackeResearch associate, University of Stellenbosch

[email protected]

Haiǁom and especially ǂAakhoe are considered to be the most deviating dialects of Khoekhoegowab (“Nama/Damara”), with considerable lexical proximity to languages like Naro of West Kalahari Khoe. The syntax of ǂAakhoe deviates from that of mainstream Khoekhoegowab to the extent of impeding communication. But the fact that both Haiǁom and ǂAakhoe, like Khoekhoegowab, have undergone tonogenesis completely, i.e. have undergone tonal depression with complete transphonologisation of the voicing distinction to a tonological distinction, is a strong criterion to classify these lects as dialects of Khoekhoegowab. There are tonetic differences, however, in certain of the six citation melodies of radicals, some of which also occur in either Naro and Gǀui, or !Ora (Haacke 2008). The sandhi equivalents of the citation melodies of Haiǁom and ǂAakhoe are briefly reported on in post-lexical context, but without phonological categorization in Haacke (op. cit.).

The current debate on the reclassification of “Khoesaan” languages as four separate families by esp. Güldemann, has i.a. raised the question whether Khoe-Kwadi languages originally had serial verbs or whether they were adopted from neighbouring non-Khoe languages (esp. a Tuu substrate). While descriptions of serial verbs already existed for languages like (mainstream) Khoekhoegowab (Haacke), Khwe (Kilian-Hatz), Gǀui (Nakagawa), Naro (Visser), Kua (Chebanne & Collins), further papers were prompted by the debate on the above question (Rapold (forthc.); Haacke (forthc.)). Haacke (op. cit.) demonstrates that serial verbs do occur in i.a. Haiǁom and ǂAakhoe, and moreover argues that the fact that the juncture –a- prevalent in West Kalahari Khoe also occurs in northern Namibian serial verbs, but not in those of the Nama dialects of Khoekhoe, is further evidence that the Damara, ǂAakhoe and Haiǁom already spoke lects related to early (Kalahari Khoe) before they became exposed to Nama and, indirectly, Tuu influence. Tonological behaviour is not examined in that paper.

The present paper is to continue with the ongoing work by systematically describing the Sandhi forms of Haiǁom and ǂAakhoe and by examining the tonological rule application in their serial verbs. It is expected that differences in rule application will throw further light on the comparative situation of Haiǁom and ǂAakhoe vis-à-vis mainstream Khoekhoegowab on the one side, and West Kalahari Khoe languages on the other.

References

Haacke 2008. Tonogenesis in flagrante: Tonal Depression in Khoekhoe, Haiǁom, ǂĀkhoe, !Gora and Naro, in Ermisch, S. (ed.) Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium January 8-12, 2006, Riezlern/Kleinwalsertal. Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung No. 22. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe, p.153-183.

Haacke (forth.) The Occurrence of Verb Serialisation in Khoe Languages: Convergence or Divergence? in Güldemann, T. (ed.) proceedings of workshop on Genealogical and Areal Linguistic Relations in the Kalahari Basin at 20th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, July 2011, Osaka.

▌29

Classification of the Nyaneka [nyk] speech varieties of south-western Angola

Linda Jordan SIL International

[email protected]

Based on a comparative analysis of wordlist data, this paper presents a classification of the Nyaneka (R13) varieties spoken in south-western Angola, including Oluhumbe, Olumwila, Olungambwe, Oluhanda, Olunyaneka and Olucilenge. Marked by migration, language contact, borrowing, mixing and shift, the historical relationship between ethnolinguistic groups in this part of Angola is complex and not easily described. Lexical data can obscure the picture of true genetic relatedness. Though the current data yield several patterns with overlapping sets that make it challenging to establish sound correspondences, the patterns do present several clear correspondences across the six Nyaneka varieties, according to which they naturally fall into three subgroups. While acknowledging the common history that distinguishes the Nyaneka group from neighbouring Kavango (K30), Owambo (R20) and Herero (R30), this paper recognises the unique ethnolinguistic identities that compose Nyaneka and defines these subgroups that form the structure of its internal linguistic classification.

The Kavango – Southwest Bantu languages have received little attention after Anita Pfouts (2003) established them as a group, in the process separating Olungambwe from the rest of Nyaneka and classifying it as a separate language. Anthropological studies of these ethnolinguistic groups have taken precedence over linguistic studies since then, leaving the further classification of the area’s speech varieties up to conjecture. Far from being the most peripheral variety of Nyaneka, in the current data Olungambwe emerges as part of a subgroup with Olumwila and Olunyaneka, while the remaining three Nyaneka varieties can be divided into two further subgroups. This paper is a step toward documenting the natural divisions among these speech varieties in order to inform and support current language development efforts in south-western Angola, further defining the Nyaneka identity and the varieties it encompasses.


Comparing vowel hiatus resolution in ciNsenga and chiShona: An OT analysis

Maxwell Kadenge Linguistics Department, University of the Witwatersrand

[email protected]&

Silverster Ron SimangoEnglish Language and Linguistics Department, Rhodes University

[email protected]

This paper compares repair strategies used to remove vowel hiatus in ciNsenga and chiShona, two southern Bantu languages spoken in Malawi and Zimbabwe respectively. Both languages resolve hiatus through glide formation (1) & (2), secondary articulation (3) & (4), and deletion (5)-(7) in the nominal domain.

/u-aŋɡu/ [waŋɡu] ((1) cl1) ‘mine’ /i-aŋɡu/ [jaŋɡu] ((2) cl4) ‘mine’/mu-ana/ [m(3) wana] (cl1) ‘child’/ku-aŋɡu/ [k(4) waŋɡu] (cl15) ‘mine’/ʧi-aŋɡu/ [ʧaŋɡu] ((5) cl7) ‘mine’/li-aŋɡu/ [laŋɡu] ((6) cl5) ‘mine’ (ciNsenga)/ri-aŋɡu/ [raŋɡu] ((7) cl5) ‘mine’ (chiShona)

The similarity between the two languages, however, does not extend to the verbal domain where the two languages differ with respect to (i) tolerance of vowel hiatus and (ii) the specific strategies for resolving hiatus. First, when the first vowel (V1) is immediately followed by a stem-initial vowel (V2), hiatus is tolerated in ciNsenga (8) & (9) but not in chiShona where hiatus has to be resolved through glide epenthesis (spreading) (10) & (11).

/si-u-ka-ni-on-a/ [sukan(8) iona] ‘you (sg) will not see me’ neg-sm-fut-om-see-fv

/si-u-ka-ni-uʒ-a/ [sukan(9) iuʒa] ‘you (sg) will not tell me’ neg-sm-fut-om-tell-fv

(10) /ɦa-u-ʧa-ndi-on-a/ [ɦawuʧandiwona] ‘you (sg) will not see me’ neg-sm-fut-om-see-fv

(11) /ɦa-u-ʧa-i-udz-a/ [ɦawuʧajiwudza] ‘you (sg) will not tell it’ neg-sm-fut-om-tell-fv

Second, when V1 and V2 are both prefix vowels hiatus is resolved by deletion of V1 in ciNsenga whereas in chiShona hiatus has to be resolved through glide ([w] and [j]) epenthesis (spreading) only, unlike in nominals in which it is resolved through glide formation, deletion and secondary articulation. Our main findings are: (i) ciNsenga permits hiatus in limited contexts – specifically when V2 is verb stem initial – chiShona completely bans vowel hiatus regardless of morphosyntactic context and (ii) in ciNsenga verbs, when V2 is a prefix morpheme hiatus is resolved through elision of V1 while in chiShona verbs hiatus is resolved through glide epenthesis. We discuss the ciNsenga and chiShona facts within the framework of OT.

▌31

Beyond Vowel Transfixation in Swahili Bantu

Ahmadi KipachaDepartment of Business Studies and Humanities.

The Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology Arusha, Tanzania

[email protected]

AbstractThe extensive Semitism in Swahili Bantu system imposes, among other things, rather curious vocalic processes. Swahili Bantu adopted both a trilateral Semitic roots and a system of vocalic transfixation common to templatic languages. However whilst Semitic languages are characterised by a regular minimally three consonants (and glides) with three vowels (i u a) interdigitised to express inflection, Swahili Bantu with five vowels (a e i o u) has persistently adopted only Semitic consonantal roots for core concept and uses its canonical vowels for derivational functions. Still to explain are cases of common Swahili deverbative root vowels versus verbal roots that show some startling behaviour of the vowel within a word.

Verbal Roots Deverbative Roots e.g.aii aeeaiuauu

aaaaaaaaaaaa

taliki>talaka; wakili>wakalasamehe>samaha; kerehe>karaha salimu>salamalaumu>lawama

iii iiu

aaa /aai/iiaaaa

diriki>-daraka; bikiri>bakari; fitini>fitinakirimu>karama

uuuuii

aaaaai/uia

kufuru>kafara ;durusu>darasa: hubiri>habari; subiri>subira

What is a common /aaa/ pattern depicts? Why a verbal root in Swahili loans never ends with /a/ or /o/? Can we talk of a Bantu vocalic transfixation?

References:

Chacha, M. (2009). The Adaptation of Swahili Loanwords From Arabic: A Constraint-Based Analysis. The Journal of Pan African Studies, 2(8):1-16.

Lodhi, A. (2000). Arabic loans in Swahili. Orientalia Suecana, 49:71-81. Uppsala.

McCarthy, J. (1981). A Prosodic Theory of Nonconcatenative Morphology. Linguistic Inquiry 12: 373–418.

Versteegh, K. (2001). Linguistics Contacts between Arabic and other Languages. Arabica 48(4) :470-508.

Watson, J. (2002) . The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic. Oxford: Oxford University Press


C-V Coarticulation in Velar Plosives

Vicki Lynn [email protected]

Yourdanis [email protected]

Affiliated with The Ohio State University

Abstract

We present 114 fps lingual ultrasound data of 3 speakers’ productions of words containing the initial velar plosive, and the following [ɑ] and [i] vowels, in Mangetti Dune !Xung (N=95 for [k] in the [ɑ] context, N=36 for [k] in the [i] context). We traced the midsaggital tongue edge at the frame just prior to the [k] release, and measured the tongue dorsum (TD) and tongue root (TR) constriction locations (CL’s). The TRCL was measured 1 cm below the [k] peak. Results show that [k] in the [i] context has a 1.1 cm further forward TDCL than [k] in the [ɑ] context for one speaker, and 1.2 cm further forward for the second speaker. The results are similar to those found for English by Stevens and House (1963) for two of the three speakers. The TRCL is retracted 0.3 cm in [k] in the [ɑ] context compared with [k] in the [i] context for the first speaker, and 0.6 cm more retracted for the second speaker. A third speaker had a retracted TDCL and TRCL in both vowel contexts. These results confirm that [k] is less resistant to coarticulation. Results show that the tongue root is involved in dorsal front vowel coarticulation.

Krebs, Vicki Lynn, Sedarous, Yourdanis & Miller, Amanda. (2013). C-V Coarticulation in Velar Plosives. Submitted to The Proceedings of the Joint International Conference of Acoustics, 165th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America 2013.

▌33

‘Exotic’ Consonants in Congolese Languages

Constance Kutsch LojengaLeiden University and [email protected]

The north of the Democratic Republic of Congo is an area where languages of different language families converge. Languages belonging to the Ubangi subgroup of the Adamawa-Ubangi branch of Niger-Congo as well as languages belonging to the Central-Sudanic subgroup of Nilo-Saharan are bordering the northernmost Bantu languages. Some Nilotic languages are scattered in between.

This paper focusses on several unusual consonant sounds found in a number of those languages: a labial flap, labial trills, voiceless implosives, and the occurrence of sibilants and rhotics as syllable nuclei, in the absence of any other vowel.

I will concentrate on several topics of interest regarding each of these unusual consonant sounds, particularly focussing on articulatory aspects, their phonological status, on the question of whether it concerns an areal feature, and any historical development where it can be established.

The first one, the labial flap, must be considered an areal feature, since this sound is found across the boundaries of the language families in the area. In some languages, the labial flap is found frequently in core vocabulary; in others, it is mainly found in ideophones. (Olson and Hajek, 1999). There seems to be a development of ‘weakening’ of labial flaps into bilabial approximants in some languages [β ], even to the point of merging with [w].

Labial trills must also be considered an areal feature. In some languages, they are frequently occurring contrastive consonants; in others they are the realization of a high, back round vowel or semi-vowel following labial or labial-velar consonants. In the latter case, native speakers are hardly aware of the labial trill they produce. The origin of these trills seems to lie in the Mangbetu subgroup of Central-Sudanic, but they are also found in languages of other families spoken in the area (Olson 2012).

A contrast between voiced and voiceless implosives is only found in the Lendu subgroup of Central-Sudanic (Kutsch Lojenga 1991, 1994). I will talk about the articulatory aspects of this contrast, and its functional load in the Lendu speech varieties, which also have egressive stops and labial-velar stops. Voiceless implosives cannot be considered an areal feature, since they only occur in the Lendu group. It must be said that a contrast between voiced and voiceless implosives is also found in Sereer-Siin in Senegal (McLaughlin 2005).

Finally, ‘vowelless’ syllables, with a rhotic or a sibilant as their nucleus are found in most Lendu speech varieties. These rhotics or sibilants cannot be interpreted or analysed as being a vowel underlyingly. A historical vowel shift must have taken place in Lendu, resulting in the loss of one vowel, thereby creating at first an asymmetrical system. The consonantal nuclei are probably a remnant of this process (Kutsch Lojenga 1989).


The following are some basic references for each of the four topics:

Kutsch Lojenga, Constance. 1989. The secret behind vowelless syllables in Lendu. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 11: 115-26.

Kutsch Lojenga, Constance. 1991. Lendu: A new perspective on implosives and glottalized consonants. Afrika und Uebersee 74:77-86.

Kutsch Lojenga, Constance. 1994. Ngiti. A Central-Sudanic Language of Zaire. Köln. Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

McLaughlin, Fiona. 2005. Voiceless implosives in Seereer-Siin. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 35(2). 201–214.

Olson, Kenneth S. and J. Hajek. 1999. The Phonetic Status of the Labial Flap. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 29(2): 101-114

Olson, Kenneth S. 2012. The distribution of bilabial trills in Africa. Paper presented at WOCAL 7, Buea, Cameroon, August 2012

▌35

Domain-sensitivity in High Tone Spreading in two Xitsonga dialects

Seunghun J. Lee ZAS/Central Connecticut State Univ.

[email protected]

Elisabeth SelkirkUniversity of Massachussetts Amherst

[email protected])

Domain-related restrictions on H Tone Spread (HTS) in a dialect of Xitsonga that is spoken in Mozambique are described and analyzed in Kisseberth 1994 (Xitsonga-K), and reanalyzed in Selkirk 2011, who argues for a modular treatment of these domain-related restrictions involving (a) a constraint-based analysis of the formation of prosodic structure and (b) a constraint-based analysis of the relation between prosodic structure and tone. Recent investigation by this paper’s authors of a variety of Xitsonga spoken in Limpopo province, South Africa (Xitsonga-SA) provides support for this modular treatment. Xitsonga-SA and Xitsonga-K arguably display the same organization of sentences into phonological phrases (j) and intonational phrases (i). But, as will be seen in this paper, their grammars differ in the manner in which the right edge of j restricts HTS, as specifiable in a theory of domain-sensitivity in the constraints on HTS.

In both varieties of Xitsonga, lexically headed syntactic phrases match up with surface phonological phrases (j) due to the S-P constituency correspondence constraint Match(LexP,j), except if the phrase contains of only a single prosodic word (w), suggesting the ranking in Xitsonga of BinMin(j,w) >> MatchLexP (Selkirk 2011), cf. (1ab) vs. (2ab) below. Moreover, the markedness constraint StrongStart (Selkirk 2011, Elfner 2012) forces the nonisomorphic prosodic grouping of verb and first object in (3), explainable if MatchLexP >> Strong Start. Assuming this grammar of prosodic structure formation, in combination with a simple domain-sensitive phonology where HTS will be blocked when outranked by certain constraints on the tone-prosodic structure relation, provides a satisfying analysis of the distribution of HTS in Xitsonga-K, as illustrated in the representations in (1-3):

(1) a. CP[ V/TP[ V[ vaH-a-tisa]V NP[ N[xi-hontlovila ]N ]NP ]V/TP ]CP b.

i(

j(

w( vaH--tisa)

w w(xi-hontlovii-Hla )

w)

j )i

‘They are bringing a giant’ (2) a. CP[V/TP[ V[vaH-a-susa]V NP[ N[n-guluve [taHNP[ N[vonaH]N ]NP]NP ]V/TP ]C b.

i( j(w

(vaH--a-susa-H)w j

( w

(n-guluve)w w

(!taH voo!naH)w

)j

)i

‘They are removing their pig (= a/the pig of theirs).’(3) a. CP[V/TP[vaH-a-xavela]V νP[NP[N[ xi-phukuphuku] NP[N[ fole ]N]NP]νP]V/TP]CP b.

i(

j(

j(

w( vaH--xavela)w w(xi-phukuphu-H ku)

w)

j w

(foole)w )j

)i

‘They are buying tobacco for a fool’

Embodying j-domain-edge sensitivity in constraints like NonFinality(H, ..) (Kisseberth 1994) and


CrispEdgeR/L(H,..) (Ito & Mester 1999) permits a simple account of language-particular differences in HTS of the sort attested in Xitsonga-K and Xitsonga-SA. CrispEdgeL(H, j) prevents a multiply-linked H from spanning a left j-edge in (2) in both varieties. As for NonFinality, in both there is no effect at the w-level, as seen for Xitsonga-K in the verb in (2). In Xitsonga-K, NonFinality(H,j) can block H from spreading to the last syllable of both the i-final j in (1) and the i-medial j in (3).

(4) a. CP[V/TP[vaH-a-xavela]V νP[NP[N[ xi-phukuphuku] NP[N[ fole ]N]NP]νP]V/TP]CP

b. i(

j(

j(

w( vaH--xavela)

w w

(xi-phukuphuku-H)w

)j w

(foole)w )j

)i

‘They are buying tobacco for a fool’

In Xitsonga-SA, though, there is no NonFinality on the medial j in (4); instead H spreads up to the very edge of j. Nonfinality(H,i) will ensure that H spreads to only the penult in structures like (1), but it’s the j-edge sensitive CrispEdgeR(H,j) that must be responsible for the blocking of HTS thru the medial right j-edge in (4) in Xitsonga-SA.

References:Elfner, E. 2012. Syntax-Prosody Interactions in Irish. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Ito, J. & Mester, A. 1999. Realignment. In R. Kager, H. v.d. Hulst, and W. Zonneveld (eds.) The Prosody-Morphology Interface. 118-217. Cambridge University Press.

Kisseberth, C. 1994. On Domains. In Perspectives in Phonology, eds. J. Cole & C. Kisseberth, 133-166. CSLI Publications.

Selkirk, E. 2011. The Syntax-Phonology Interface. In: Goldsmith, J. et al. (eds.). 2nd ed. The Handbook of Phonological Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

▌37

The Dialects of Baraïn (East Chadic)

Joseph LovestrandSIL International

[email protected]

The Baraïn language is spoken in the Guera region of Chad (East Chadic, B3; or "Barein" [bva]). This community of approximately 6,000 speakers divide themselves into four distinct subgroups: Jalkiya, Giliya, Jalking, and Komiya. While two of the four are geographically and linguistically very close to one another (Jalkiya and Giliya), the other two speak dialects of the language that differ lexically and phonologically to such a degree that intercomprehension is not normally possible. In this situation, the speakers of these subgroups communicate with each other exclusively in Chadian Arabic–the language of wider communication. Wordlists gathered from each subgroup serve as the basis of this preliminary examination of the differences in each speech variety. The description covers phonological segments, tone, syllable structures, distribution of consonants, and lexical differences. One outstanding phonological feature is that none of the dialects have a bilabial implosive and only one has an alveolar implosive. Both of these segments were previously assumed to be universal in Chadic languages. This research was done in the context of a mother-tongue literacy program and draws the conclusion that two of the Baraïn varieties may be able to share literacy materials (Jalkiya and Giliya). However, the other two subgroups will undoubtedly need to develop separate materials.


Clicks: Primordial or Derived?

Ian MaddiesonUniversity of California, Berkley/ University of New Mexico

[email protected]

Tony Traill did a great deal to clarify our understanding of the production, perception and phonological patterning of clicks (e.g. Traill 1985, 1994, Ladefoged & Traill 1984) and to establish that sounds of this class, like any others, are subject to regular patterns of sound change (e.g. Traill 1986, Traill & Vossen 1997). But major puzzles remain, which may account for why clicks are often treated by laypeople and linguists alike as exceptional. What is the evolutionary origin of clicks? Why are they so areally limited in distribution? Why are they so dominant in the inventories of the languages in which they natively occur? While some have suggested that clicks are primordial sounds in human language (e.g. van Ginneken 1938, Stopa 1972, Kohler 1998, Knight et al 2003, and, by implication, Atkinson 2011); others have suggested that clicks might have an origin in processes that involve fortuitous overlap of closures at different locations (cf. Ohala 1995, Engstrand 1997). In fact, clicks fill slots in a ‘factorial typology’ of double articulations. Pulmonic labial-dorsal doubly-articulated stops (/kp/, /ɡb/) are common in Africa (quite apart from bilabial clicks), but pulmonic coronal-dorsal stops are only known in a few languages elsewhere, particularly in Yélî Dnye of Rossel Island, Papua New Guinea. The most common click types are in fact coronal-dorsal double articulations, involving dental, alveolar or post-alveolar constrictions combined with a velar or uvular closure. They differ from ‘simple’ pulmonic stops in having an additional vigorous intra-oral rarefaction gesture (Thomas-Vilakati 2010), and may also have complexities in laryngeal action and gestural timing (e.g. Miller et al 2010, Exter 2012).

Small negative air pressures can be generated by movements of the articulators in labial-velar stops (Ladefoged 1968, Maddieson & Ladefoged 1995); if intensified, this would be a potential source of bilabial clicks. In turn, the most likely source for labial-velar stops is probably fortition of a secondary articulation arising from a desyllabified vowel: Yoruba /kpa/ “beat, kill” likely originates from /*ku-a/. Diachronic fortition effects of this kind are well known from Central and Southern African Bantu languages, such as Kinyarwanda (Jouannet 1990), Shona (Maddieson 1990) and Ikalanga (Mathangwane 1999, Maddieson 2003), yielding forms such as /tkʷana/ “little child” from /*tu-ana/ (Zezuru Shona), and /dʒɡa/ “eat” from /*di-a/ where the historical sources are well-known. Coalescence of such complex onsets into single segments would plausibly create click segments. From this perspective, the Back Vowel Constraint (Traill 1985) could be the residue of the conditions that created different classes of clicks, rather than a condition on the compatibility of different articulations. If so, clicks would be secondary developments, rather than primordial consonants. At present, it is not possible to definitively establish this scenario — and it may never be possible — but, given the overall likelihood that human language began more simply and subsequently became more complex (Comrie 1992), this is a more appealing alternative to the idea that clicks are primordial.

This does nothing to explain why clicks are not found in languages outside Africa despite their widespread non-linguistic use (Gil 2011), nor why in many of the languages in which they occur they, as a class, are common. Globally, having longer words correlates with smaller basic vowel inventories (Maddieson 2011). ‘Khoe-San’ languages typically have rather short words but small basic vowel inventories. Developing clicks may be a way to combine these traits (or, to put it better, a historical pathway that creates this combination).

▌39

On the Traill of some lesser known phonological rules of South African Englishes

Raj Mesthrie University of Cape Town

[email protected]

Some phonetic and phonological rules of English in South Africa are well-known, and indeed shared with other varieties in far-flung places like Australia, the American South and other parts of Africa. For example the short front-vowel shift (Lass & Wright 1985) is well known in the Antipodes, and has reached an advanced stage in New Zealand. As far as second language varieties are concerned, vowel neutralization in Black South African English follows general tendencies discernible elsewhere in Africa (Simo Bobda 2001), whilst having some properties of its own. E.g. monosyllabic words in the TRAP set tend to merge with words of the DRESS set, but the vowel of polysyllabic TRAP words remains part of TRAP, STRUT, BATH. On the other hand the KIT-split (Wells 1982) – polarisation of realisations of /I/ in L1 English according to velar and glottal environments versus the rest – appears to be a South African speciality.

This paper will focus on lesser-known properties of individual varieties of South African English. These have been encountered in the author’s current sociolinguistic survey of English in 5 South African cities and four ethnicities and include the following:

“Canadian Raising” in Cape Town, first observed and named by Finn (2004), which refers to (a) the raising of the nucleus of the PRICE and GOAT diphthongs before voiceless consonants (to schwa in Canada) in contrast to elsewhere. The paper will provide some acoustic studies of selected Cape Flats (Coloured) speakers to suggest that Cape Town lowering might be a better term, since while structural similarities are striking, the phonetic details are less so.

(Recessive?) crossover between TRAP and DRESS among (Johannesburg?) Coloured and (b) Indian speakers in the environment of /l m n r/. These speakers generally have a raised TRAP, but lowered DRESS in the environment of certain sonorants.

Fudged aspiration of voiceless consonants among (c) certain South African Indian speakers, who aspirate /p t k/ differently from expected L1 patterns. For example, /p/ is unaspirated initially in park, people, pork, put, pick, perk but aspirated in pardon, pool, purse, pet, pat. The sociohistorical and structural reasons for this fudging will be explored.


The Back Vowel Constraint as Phonologization of Rarefaction Gestures in Click Consonants

Amanda Miller Ohio State University

[email protected]

The Back Vowel Constraint (BVC) is a C-V co-occurrence constraint that results in two allophones of /i/ following clicks: [əi] that follows alveolar and lateral clicks; and [i] that follows dental and palatal clicks (Traill 1985). Click consonants involve a lingual ingressive airstream mechanism. The lingual airstream mechanism is produced by rarefying air trapped between two constrictions: one anterior and one posterior. I present 114 fps lingual ultrasound data and aligned acoustic data, which yields an image of the tongue every 9 ms, from four speakers’ productions of words containing the four initial coronal types, and a following /i/ vowel, in Mangetti Dune !Xung. I present measurements of the “rarefaction gestures” which produce the lingual airstream mechanism: tongue body lowering, tongue dorsum and tongue root retraction. Results show that the alveolar and lateral clicks involve tongue dorsum / root retraction, while the dental click involves tongue dorsum / root advancement. The degree of tongue root retraction correlates with the vowel that is used by a particular speaker. Results suggest that the BVC is phonologization of rarefaction gestures, particularly tongue dorsum / tongue root retraction in the alveolar and lateral click types.

Vowels following clicks have two constrictions that are carried over through C-V coarticulation. I provide lingual ultrasound data showing the tongue shape every 9 ms over the first half of the vowel. In the dental and palatal click initial words, the anterior constriction has a greater constriction degree, making it acoustically dominant, while in the alveolar and lateral click initial words, the posterior constriction has a greater constriction degree, making it acoustically dominant. I analyze the BVC as a result of gestural hiding in the alveolar and lateral clicks, similar to Browman and Goldstein’s (1994) analysis of gestural hiding in English. I propose that the differences in tongue dorsum / tongue root coarticulation are determined by whether the first moraic slot in the root is specified for retracted tongue dorsum / tongue root.

▌41

A Constraint-Based Analysis of Re-Syllabification of Loanwords in Kikamba: A Bantu Language

Bernard M. Ndambuki and Ruth W. Ndung’uDepartment of English and Linguistics

Kenyatta UniversityP.O. Box 43844-00100

NairobiKenya

[email protected] / [email protected]

Abstract

Phonological modification of loanwords is an intrinsic process true to all languages. Loanwords imported from English into Kikamba often contain structures that violate phonological well-formedness of the borrowing language. Kikamba, like many Bantu languages, prefers open syllables: (C)V. On the other hand, English has closed syllables in addition to open syllables. English stand-alone syllables may have the structure: (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C). Therefore, the loanwords must be significantly re-syllabified in keeping with the pre-existing structures of the recipient system. Earlier studies on Kikamba loanword phonology have only concentrated on how the phonemes in the source language are realized in the recipient system without giving phonological explanations for the phenomenal changes in the syllable structure of the loanwords. In the constraint-based analysis carried out in this paper, the motivation for the syllable repair strategies that operate on loanwords is established. The mechanism used by the recipient system in repairing non-conforming syllables is explained within the framework of Optimality Theory. The research design adopted was descriptive within the framework of qualitative research design. The data was collected from two Kikamba FM radio stations and the loanwords for analysis were purposefully sampled. Qualitative methods were used to analyse the data. This involved putting an input in a tableau of violation where, through the interaction of markedness and faithfulness constraints, the output form is realized. The analysis reveals that high-ranked markedness constraints: NOCODA, *SYLLABIC-C and *COMPLEX trigger the syllable repair strategies in order to increase the well-formedness of the surface forms. Three main strategies: insertion, deletion and feature change are used to deal with the disallowed codas, syllabic consonants and consonant clusters. This paper shows that the syllable repair process can adequately be accounted for using the Optimality Theory without resorting to rule-based phonology. We recommend that language developers use the findings of this research to make informed decisions about the development of Kikamba since nativization is one of the strategies used by languages to develop their lexicon.


Acoustic Evidence and the Phonology of Vowel Devoicing in Civili

Hugues Steve Ndinga-Koumba-Binza

1Centre for Text Technology, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa 2Langue, Culture et Cognition (LCC), Université Omar Bongo, Gabon

[email protected]

Abstract

Devoicing can be defined as the process by which the normal amount of vocal vibration, known as voice, is reduced or restricted for a particular sound (cf. Richards & Schmidt, 2002: 582; Crystal, 1999: 85; Matthews, 1997: 96). The phenomenon is primarily of a phonetic nature, and was particularly evoked by Ndinga-Koumba-Binza (2000: 89-95) as a phonological process for the explanation of few vowel phonemes, i.e. /i/, /a/ and /u/, in unstressed position in Civili. The latter is a developing language of the Bantu phylum spoken in Gabon and few neighboring countries of central Africa.

Phonological analyses before Ndinga-Koumba-Binza (2000) argued that phonemes /i/, /a/ and /u/

respectively realized as [i], [a] and [u] in any phonetic environment but devoiced [ị], [ə] and [ụ] in a final position of the vowel in an isolated word or in a phrase without any further relationship between the three phonemes (Ndamba, 1977; Blanchon, 1990; Mabika Mbokou, 1999). Ndinga-Koumba-Binza (2000), instead, suggests that the three phonemes are devoiced not only due to the final position of the vowel in a word or phrase, but mainly due to the unstressed position of the syllable that contains the vowel. Meanwhile, all these authors’ claims are mainly based on impressionistic phonetic data and greatly dependent on the ear of the trained linguist. This paper seeks from acoustic data:

to prove whether the schwa [i. ə] is devoiced form of the vowel [a], and

to highlight the nature of devoiced vowels in Civili, extending the observation to the other ii. vowels of the language phonological system1.

With new phonetic data particular attention will be paid to the low pitch in the speech production. This study contributes to the overall accurate description of the vowel sound system of the Civili language.

1 The Civili phonological system contains 5 phonemic vowels, i.e. /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/ and /u/.

▌43

The Phonetic Status of (r) in Gĩkũyũ, A Kenyan Bantu Language: An Acoustic Analysis

Ruth W. Ndung’uKenyatta University, Department of English and Linguistics,

P.O. Box 43844-00100 Nairobi, Kenya. Email: [email protected]

Martin C. NjorogeKenyatta University, Department of English and Linguistics,

P.O. Box 43844-00100 Nairobi, Kenya. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

The phonetic status of some speech sounds presents a challenge in some African languages, especially those whose phonology has not been studied extensively using speech analyzers. Issues arise over the place or the manner of articulation of such phonemes. (r) is one of the speech sounds in Gĩkũyũ that presents a challenge in terms of determining its manner of articulation. Though the occurrence of the speech sound (r) in Gĩkũyũ is undisputed, there is no consensus on its phonetic description. The question this article sought to answer is whether the speech sound is a trill, a tap or an approximant. In the Gĩkũyũ phonemic inventory (r) is classified as a voiced, alveolar trill, [r]. This article is based on a descriptive research that adopted a qualitative design. Data were collected from forty eight native speakers of Gĩkũyũ. The variables taken into consideration were age, gender, education and dialect. Data was collected using two research instruments: a wordlist and guided conversations. The two research instruments took care of the occurrence of (r) in word initial and word medial positions. The data were analysed using the WaveSurfer speech analyser program and native listeners acoustic cues to determine the manner of articulation. The analyses were presented using graphical representation in waveforms. The findings indicate that (r) is an alveolar approximant and not a trill or a tap. The recommendation of the authors is that there is need to revise the Gĩkũyũ phonemic inventory in order to capture the correct manner of articulation. There is also need for speech research on sounds whose phonetic status is disputed such as the pre-nasalized stops so as to describe them accurately too.


Speech intelligibility in African languages: Its role in Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics

Claire Penn Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology,

University of the Witwatersrand [email protected]

Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics is now a well-established field dedicated to the study of speech and language disorders. Speech intelligibility is an important index in this field, marking not only the severity of a communication disorder but also a major goal of effective intervention. In addition, problems with speech intelligibility have major psychosocial consequences for a speaker.

One of the populations for whom speech intelligibility issues present a major problem is a group of patients with head and neck cancer who have undergone resection and reconstructive surgery. The incidence of head and neck cancer is particularly high in South Africa and because of huge inequities in health system, and difficulties with access and early detection, frequently affects speakers of African languages. The need for appropriate speech intelligibility measures in African languages is high. Generally intelligibility measurements rely on scaling procedures and orthographic transcription. There is generally poor inter- rater reliability for rating scales and poor correlation between transcriptions and estimates of intelligibility.

This paper reports on a seminal PhD study completed by Marlene Carno- Jacobson and co- supervised by Tony Traill on the development of speech intelligibility material for the evaluation of outcome after surgery in head and neck patients. The relationship between intelligibility , surgical history and instrumental measures of speech production was explored in 13 participants representing five South Eastern Bantu languages. The study derived three models of speech intelligibility which provide insight into the prime role of the tongue as agent of intelligibility and the need for a more refined conceptualization of compensatory behaviours.

Advances in the field of clinical speech intelligibility in the local context which have drawn from this seminal work, will be further discussed.

▌45

Devoicing in Complex Click Clusters in ǂKx’ao-ǁ’aeː A Synchronic & Historical Analysis

Lee J. PratchettHumboldt University of [email protected]

[email protected]

ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae is a South-eastern Ju variety of the Kx’a family, spoken by former hunter-gatherer San in eastern Namibia and western Botswana. In addition to Indo-European and Bantu languages, ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae is in intense contact with Naro (Khoe-Kwadi family), and to a lesser extent Taa (Tuu family). This presentation focuses on voicing in click clusters: extremely rare segmental typology even within Khoesan languages, shared only by Kx’a and Tuu languages.

In this paper I examine phonological variation with regards to pre-voiced click clusters in South-eastern Ju dialects, demonstrating a tendency in ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae for such segments to become devoiced. For exampleː ‘to be pregnant’ gǃkoo (Juǀ’hoan) > ǃkoo (ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae); ‘take out’ gǃxa (Juǀ’hoan) > ǃxa (ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae). Using recent field data, I argue that the devoicing of pre-voiced click clusters in ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae is multicausal: a combination of lenition and language contact. Although devoicing of complex segments does occur across all Ju varieties, it occurs with more regularity and with greater frequency in ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae than in the other varieties. This suggests either lenition or language contact has a greater influence on ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae than on other dialects. By comparing ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae, related Ju varieties and Taa (Tuu family), and drawing from a dataset reflecting a wide spectrum of sociolinguistic factors, I propose that a sound change is currently underway in the ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae dialect.

A historical analysis is also necessary to explain the lexical distribution between South-eastern Ju dialects and Naro. A substantial percentage of the lexicon with pre-voiced click clusters in Ju is shared with Naro, where it is systematically devoiced. For example: ‘be spotted’ gǃxom (Juǀ’hoan), ǃxom (ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae and Naro). In this paper I will account for the distribution of historically related lexicon in Naro with an analysis analogous to the sound change proposed in ǂKx’ao-ǁ’ae. I hypothesise that a sound change took place in the development of the language of the Naro San, thereby suggesting a link to a common ancestor in the history of the two languages.

In summary, this paper contributes to a better understanding of voicing in click clusters and reaffirms why its further study can offer much to debates on contact and inheritance. As the late Anthony Traill noted, “[it] is implausible to describe the uniformity in phonological innovations and the distribution of segments in the lexicon simply as an areal feature resulting from an extremely long period of contact” (Traill 2001).

Traill, A. 2001. Structural Typology and Remote Relationships between Zhu and ǃXoo, in Nurse, Derek (ed.) Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, Band 16/17. Cologne, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. 437-454.


Broadly Speaking: A Phonetic Study of the differences between Broad South African English (Brsae) and Afrikaans English (Afke)

Kara SchultzNorth-West University, Potchefstroom Campus

[email protected]

Broad South African English (BrSAE) and Afrikaans English (AfkE) are two White South African English (WSAfE) varieties that appear to share many phonetic features. According to Lanham and MacDonald’s (1979) argument for extensive exogenous change, this is due to the fact that social contact between the 1820 British Settlers in the Eastern Cape and the proto-Afrikaans speaking farmers of said area led to AfkE influencing the formation of BrSAE. However, this view is disputed by Lass and Wright (1986), who consider BrSAE a product of endogenous change for the most part.

This paper argues that BrSAE has definitely been influenced by AfkE, which is in keeping with Lanham’s argument. This is based on an impressionistic phonetic analysis of interviews with six BrSAE speakers and five AfkE speakers (all of whom grew up in the Eastern Cape and are between the ages of 40 and 55 years) and the subsequent comparison and discussion of a selection of the most salient variables identified in the literature, as well as the phonetic context of their occurrence. These include the use of the PRICE and MOUTH vowels, obstruent r, devoiced terminal /v; z; ʒ/ and /b; d; g/, breathy-voiced and epenthetic /h/, raised TRAP and DRESS vowels, as well as deaspirated word-initial /p ; t; k/, all of which are assigned numeric values based on the frequency and nature of their use.

Based on the results of the study, a definite correlation exists between BrSAE and AfkE with regard to these specific variables, although some appear to be less prevalent than in Lanham and MacDonald’s (1979) study. This might be due to the fact that, thirty-four years on, these variables have started falling away gradually in the speech of both BrSAE speakers and AfkE speakers, whilst others (such as the BrSAE PRICE and MOUTH vowels, as well as the TRAP and DRESS vowels) are still being used extensively.

▌47

Sociophonetics and Social Class: A Study of Coloured English in Cape Town using Automatic Vowel Measurement

Tracey Toefy University of Cape [email protected]

The present study investigates the extent to which post-apartheid socio-educational change has impacted upon the spoken norms of younger Coloured people: is class replacing race as the primary determinant of vernacular English norms? A legislative change 1991 resulted in the removal of racially-based admissions in South African schools, allowing more affluent (i.e. middle-class) speakers to access the best of the country’s educational and related resources for the first time in South African history. In this paper, preliminary findings are presented from sociophonetic research on vowel quality in the variety of English spoken by Coloured youth in Cape Town. The paper contrasts the bath and trap vowels of working-class and middle-class speakers.

Forty speakers, aged 19 to 28, were interviewed, and the interview recordings transcribed. The data was analysed using novel methods of Automatic Vowel Measurement, which is comprised of two separate processes: a) Forced Alignment of audio and text files using P2FA (Jiahong & Liberman 2008); b) automatic extraction of formant measurements in a program called extractFormants (Evanini 2009). 8,540 tokens were normalized using Nearey’s (1977) log mean algorithm. Findings from the analysis were compared with the few available phonetic reports on this variety.

The bath set shows little distinction between speakers of different social classes, and is realized in the region of raised [ɑ]. This is consistent with older accounts of the variety (Finn 2004; Mesthrie 2007) and could be interpreted as loyalty to more traditional norms. Contrarily, the trap set shows evidence of a class split: working-class speakers retain raised [ɛ] – the variant historically used by Coloured speakers (Wood 1987), while middle-class speakers use a lower, centralized [æ], which corresponds with a trend amongst ‘White’ SAE speakers who are lowering their trap vowel (Bekker 2008). Middle-class Coloured speakers thus show some divergence from traditional Coloured vowel qualities, attributable to their upbringing in a deracialised socio-educational setting.

References

Bekker, Ian. 2008. The Vowels of South African English. Unpublished PhD thesis, North-West University.Evanini, Keelan. 2009. The permeability of dialect boundaries: a case study of the region surrounding Erie, Pennsylvania. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Finn, Peter. 2004. Cape Flats English: phonology. In A Handbook of Varieties of English: Volume 1. Schneider, Edgar W, Burridge, Kate, Kortmann, Bernd, Mesthrie, Rajend and Upton, Clive (Eds.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter 965-984.Mesthrie, Rajend. 2007. Is Port Elizabeth half-way between Durban and Cape Town? – A preliminary account of the English of Coloured and Indian communities in four South African cities. Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of Southern Africa Conference. University of Potchefstroom, July 2007.Nearey, Terrence. 1977. Phonetic Feature Systems for Vowels. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Alberta. Reprinted 1978 by the Indiana University Linguistics Club.


Wood, Tahir M. 1987. Perceptions of, and attitudes towards varieties of English in the Cape Peninsula, with particular reference to the ‘Coloured Community’. MA thesis, Rhodes University.

Yuan, Jiahong and Liberman, Mark. 2008. Speaker identification on the SCOTUS corpus. In Proceedings

of Acoustics 2008.

▌49

Challenging Assumptions on Tonal Contrasts in Sesotho: An Acoustic-Perceptual View

DP Wissing & JC RouxCentre for Text Technology, North-West University, Potchefstroom

[email protected], [email protected]

This paper primarily focuses on the functioning of an assumed and widely accepted low tone /

high tone contrast as a cue to differentiate between second and third person singular grammatical

morphemes in Southern Bantu languages. The accurateness of impressionistic tonal assignment

has been the topic of different debates in the past, which also highlighted the relationship between

phonetic data and phonological analyses (cf for instance, Roux, 2003). This paper cursorily addresses

one such issue and then reports on the results of an ongoing systematic experimental study of tonal

phenomena in Sesotho at production as well as perceptual levels covering a large number of native

speakers of different age and gender groups. An anlysis of an utterance such as “o batlang?” (what

do you want? what does he/she want?) indicate (i) that young male speakers seldom use tonal

(pitch) contrast on the subjectival concord to differentiate (perceptually as well as in production)

between second and third person singular utterances, (ii) that other acoustic parameters, especially

intensity, seem to be playing an increasingly important role in the disambiguation process. In fact it

appears as if the acoustic ‘build up’ towards the first syllable of the verb –batla becomes a sufficient

cue to identify the intended meaning, hence limiting the functionality of tone on particular elements

/ syllables within the utterance. Communication obviously takes place in a particular context,

building on presuppostions etc, which, with other non verbal cues could also contribute to “correct”

interpretation. Two further questions arise from this research regarding the functional load of tone

and potential changing speech patterns within particular societies.

Reference:

Roux, JC, 2003. On the perception and description of tone in the Sotho and Nguni languages. in Cross-linguistic studies of tonal phenomena, S Kaji (ed) Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, pp 155-176.


Notes

▌51


Phonetics and Phonology of Sub-Saharan Languages

7 July – 10 July 2013

Documents

Phonetics and Phonology of Sub-Saharan Languages conference... · 2 Phonetics and Phonology of Sub-Saharan Languages ... Morphophonemic alternations in the initial ... 4 Phonetics