- Title
- An analysis of vowel harmony in ciNsenga and ciCewa: A comparative study
- Creator
- Simango, Silvester R
- Subject
- To be catalogued
- Date Issued
- 2013
- Date
- 2013
- Type
- text
- Type
- article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/469234
- Identifier
- vital:77222
- Identifier
- https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2013.815835
- Description
- This article presents an analysis of vowel harmony that occurs in the verbal system of ciNsenga and ciCewa. In these languages the nature of suffix vowels is determined by the nature of the root: mid vowels trigger the vowel /ε/ on the suffixes, non-mid vowels, on the other hand, trigger the vowel /i/ on the suffixes. An examination of monosyllabic verbs which, by definition, have no root vowel, reveals interesting patterns between different Bantu languages: in some languages such verbs consistently select suffixes with the vowel /i/ whereas in other languages such verbs select suffixes with the vowel /ε/. Drawing on insights from Underspecification Theory (Archangeli, 1984, 1988; Archangeli and Pulleyblank, 1989, 1994) the article argues that a unified and coherent account of vowel harmony can be made for these languages by positing that the languages are parameterised with respect to the harmonic feature specified in their underlying representations and the concomitant default rule needed to derive the surface representations
- Format
- 12 pages
- Format
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Southern African linguistics and applied language studies
- Relation
- Simango, S.R., 2013. An analysis of vowel harmony in ciNsenga and ciCewa: A comparative study. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 31(2), pp.139-150
- Relation
- Southern African linguistics and applied language studies volume 31 number 2 139 150 2013 1727-9461
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Taylor and Francis Online Terms and Conditions Statement (https://www.tandfonline.com/terms-and-conditions)
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RU Department of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Simango, Silvester Ron (Prof)
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