Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology

Plural exponence in the Nez Perce DP: a DM analysis

Amy Rose Deal
2016

This paper analyzes two patterns of number marking in the DP in Nez Perce (Sahaptian) within the framework of Distributed Morphology. The first involves under-realization of plural on nouns. Number has classically been understood as a feature inherent to nouns, rather than to adjectives that modify them. In Nez Perce, however, only a small set of nouns show number morphology, whereas number morphology is highly productive on adjectival modifiers. Adjectives in fact may realize the plural more than once per word—an instance of multiple exponence. I show that the puzzle of under-...

Kavitskaya presents at Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology

November 30, 2021

Darya Kavitskaya will have a co-authored poster at the 5th Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology (on Zoom) on December 6, at 7 am PST. Here is the link to the conference site: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/symposium-on-historical-phonology/eshp5/, and to the program: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/symposium-on-historical-phonology/pdf/eshp5-final-prog.pdf

Helms, Licata, and Weiher accepted at Journal of Experimental Phonetics

November 16, 2021

Annie Helms, Gabriella Licata, and Rachel Weiher's article "Influence of orthography in production and perception of /b/ in US Spanish" has been accepted for publication at the Journal of Experimental Phonetics. Congratulations!

Phonology

Florian A. J. Lionnet
Larry M. Hyman
2018

In this extensive article we survey the major recurrent and interesting phonological properties of African languages.

Common Bantoid verb extensions

Larry M. Hyman
2018

In this paper I survey verb extensions within different Bantoid languages and subgroups, comparing them to Cameroonian Bantu zone A. Extending my survey of Niger-Congo extensions (Hyman 2007), I show that there is a band of contiguous languages in the Grassfields area where a number of contrastive verb extensions have relative productivity (cf. the studies in Idiata & Mba 2003). Interestingly, the languages in question belong to several subgroups: Limbum (NE Eastern Grassfields Bantu), Noni (Beboid), Kom and Babanki (Ring Western Grassfields Bantu), Bafut and Mankon (Ngemba...

More reflections on the nasal classes in Bantu

Larry M. Hyman
2019

Although long considered to be a Bantu innovation, Miehe (1991) proposed that the nasal consonants present in Bantu noun classes 1, 3, 4, 6, 9 and 10 should be reconstructed in pre-Proto-Bantu, even possibly at the Proto-Niger-Congo stage. Since there has been no comprehensive response to Miehe, the two of us organized a workshop to look at the question in more detail. In this paper I update the problem from Hyman (1980b) and Miehe (1991), expanding the coverage and considering various scenarios that could have led to innovation (or loss). While there have been three hypothetical...

Lusoga noun phrase tonology

Larry M. Hyman
2019

In this paper I present a detailed analysis of the tonology of nouns and their dependents within the noun phrase in Lusoga, a Bantu language of Uganda. After considering different alternatives, I argue that Lusoga is best analyzed with an underlying privative /L/ which derives from an earlier *H, realized directly in Luganda, the closest related language to Lusoga. To establish the basic system I start with infinitives (which are nouns), then analyze the different tone patterns on nouns of different sizes and shapes, with and without an augment, simple and reduplicated. I then turn...

Number and animacy in the Teke noun class system.

Larry M. Hyman
Florian A. J. Lionnet
Christophère Ngolele
2019

In this paper, we trace the development of Proto-Bantu noun classes into Teke (Bantu B71, Ewo dialect), showing that formal reflexes of classes 1, 2, 5–9, and 14 are detectable. We further show that animacy, abstractness, and number allow us to determine the fate of classes 3, 4, 10, 11 and identify the following singular/plural genders: 1/2 (animate <PB 1/2, some 9/10), 1/8 (inanimate, <PB 3/4), 14/8 (abstract, <PB 14/8), 5/6 (<PB 5/6), 5/9 (<PB 11/10, with 10>9 merger), 7/8 (<PB 7/8), and 9/6 (<PB 9/6). Such reassignments provide a window into probing...

Synchronic vs. diachronic naturalness: Hyman & Schuh (1974) revisited.

Larry M. Hyman
2019

In this paper I review and update the proposals in Hyman & Schuh (1974) distinguishing synchronic and diachronic naturalness in tone rules and tone changes.

The segmental and tonal structure of verb inflection in Babanki

Pius Akumbu
Larry M. Hyman
Roland Kiessling
2020

In this study we provide a comprehensive phonological and morphological analysis of the complex tense-aspect-mood (TAM) system of Babanki, a Grassfields Bantu language of Cameroon. Our emphasis is on the competing inflectional tonal melodies that are assigned to the verb stem. These melodies are determined not only by the multiple past and future tenses, perfective vs. progressive aspect, and indicative vs. imperative, subjunctive, and conditional moods, but also affirmative vs. negative and “conjoint” (CJ) vs. “disjoint” (DJ) verbal marking, which we show to be more thorough going...