Tone shift and spread in Taita I

Numerous Bantu languages have processes of rightward shift or spread of H tone. Sometimes the process is quite simple: every H shifts once to the right (as in Cijita) or spreads once to the right (as in Kikerewe). The tonal system of Taita is more complex in that both shifting and spreading are foun...

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Autor principal: David Odden
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Publicado: LibraryPress@UF 2001
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:65e97289d5aa4d68a86acf6c809917582021-11-19T03:53:34ZTone shift and spread in Taita I10.32473/sal.v30i1.1073630039-35332154-428Xhttps://doaj.org/article/65e97289d5aa4d68a86acf6c809917582001-06-01T00:00:00Zhttps://journals.flvc.org/sal/article/view/107363https://doaj.org/toc/0039-3533https://doaj.org/toc/2154-428XNumerous Bantu languages have processes of rightward shift or spread of H tone. Sometimes the process is quite simple: every H shifts once to the right (as in Cijita) or spreads once to the right (as in Kikerewe). The tonal system of Taita is more complex in that both shifting and spreading are found in the language. Furthermore, the extent of tone shift or spread is not just one syllable; sometimes, H tone can shift or spread by two syllables. An analysis of the tonal system of the Dembwa dialect of Taita is given here. It is argued that the facts of the language are best described in terms of two rules of rightward spreading and a third rule of tone delinking. The argument for analyzing the tone system in terms of three interacting rules rather than one unified rightward movement process resides in the fact that the environments for the three processes only overlap partially. On the theoretical front, these results support a general decomposition of the process of tone shift into tone spread interacting with tonal delinking, rather than including the operation of shift in the formal repertoire of primitive phonological operations.David OddenLibraryPress@UFarticleBantutonetone shiftTaitaDembwaPhilology. LinguisticsP1-1091ENFRStudies in African Linguistics, Vol 30, Iss 1 (2001)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
FR
topic Bantu
tone
tone shift
Taita
Dembwa
Philology. Linguistics
P1-1091
spellingShingle Bantu
tone
tone shift
Taita
Dembwa
Philology. Linguistics
P1-1091
David Odden
Tone shift and spread in Taita I
description Numerous Bantu languages have processes of rightward shift or spread of H tone. Sometimes the process is quite simple: every H shifts once to the right (as in Cijita) or spreads once to the right (as in Kikerewe). The tonal system of Taita is more complex in that both shifting and spreading are found in the language. Furthermore, the extent of tone shift or spread is not just one syllable; sometimes, H tone can shift or spread by two syllables. An analysis of the tonal system of the Dembwa dialect of Taita is given here. It is argued that the facts of the language are best described in terms of two rules of rightward spreading and a third rule of tone delinking. The argument for analyzing the tone system in terms of three interacting rules rather than one unified rightward movement process resides in the fact that the environments for the three processes only overlap partially. On the theoretical front, these results support a general decomposition of the process of tone shift into tone spread interacting with tonal delinking, rather than including the operation of shift in the formal repertoire of primitive phonological operations.
format article
author David Odden
author_facet David Odden
author_sort David Odden
title Tone shift and spread in Taita I
title_short Tone shift and spread in Taita I
title_full Tone shift and spread in Taita I
title_fullStr Tone shift and spread in Taita I
title_full_unstemmed Tone shift and spread in Taita I
title_sort tone shift and spread in taita i
publisher LibraryPress@UF
publishDate 2001
url https://doaj.org/article/65e97289d5aa4d68a86acf6c80991758
work_keys_str_mv AT davidodden toneshiftandspreadintaitai
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