Developing an Areal View of Intonation in Eastern Bantu
Keywords:
Intonation, Tone, Eastern Bantu Languages, Focus, Questions, Pitch Range Expansion, Local and Global Effects
Abstract
This paper is an initial attempt at trying to synthesise the state-of-art in the study on intonation in Bantu languages. The goal is to specifically investigate what central features emerge in the comparison of four Bantu languages to allow us to formulate a hypothesis on areal features and variation in Eastern Bantu languages. The base language used for the comparison is Bemba, for which details of local intonational effects such as final lowering in utterances, as well as global effects, such as pitch range expansion in questions, are provided. These same questions are compared and contrasted with findings in the literature on Chichewa, Tumbuka and Shingazidja. The results show that there are a number of areas of symmetry and areas of contrast, which allow us to begin to define features where we can expect parametric variation in Eastern Bantu languages.References
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2. Batibo, H.M. (1991). The Tone Structure of Sukuma Nominal Forms. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere (AAP) 25: 31-54.
3. Bickmore, L., and Kula, N.C. (2013). Ternary Spreading and the OCP in Copperbelt Bemba. Studies in African Linguistics 42(2): 101–132.
4. Boersma, P. and Weenink, D. (2014). Praat: Doing Phonetics by Computer. Version 5.4, Retrieved on 6 November 2014 from http://www.praat.org/.
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6. Bresnan, J., and Mchombo, S. (1987). Topic, Pronoun, and Agreement in Chichêwa. Language 63: 741–782.
7. Buering, D. (2012). Focus and Intonation, in Russell, G., and Fara, D.G. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Language. London: Routledge, 103-115.
8. Chebanne, A., Creissels, D., and Nkhuwa, H. (1997). Tonal Morphology of the Setswana Verb. LINCOM Europa.
9. Cheng, L., and Downing, L.J. (2009). Where’s the Topic in Zulu? Linguistic Review 26: 207–238.
10. Clements, G.N. (1979). The Description of Terraced-level Tone Languages. Language 55: 536–558.
11. Clements, G.N., and Ford, K.C. (1979). Downstep in Kikuyu. Linguistic Inquiry 10: 179–210.
12. Clements, G.N. (1990). The Status of Register in Intonation: Comments on the Paper by Ladd and by Inkelas and Leben, in Kingston, J., and Beckman, M.E.(eds.) Papers in Laboratory Phonology I: Between the Grammar and Physics of Speech, 58-71.
13. Connell, B. (2001). Downdrift, Downstep, and Declination. Typology of African Prosodic Systems Proceedings.
14. Costa, J., and Kula, N.C. (2008). Focus at the Interface: Evidence from Romance and Bantu, in Ceclie de Cat and Katherine Demuth (eds.) The Bantu-Romance Connection. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 293–322.
15. Cruttenden, A. (1997). Intonation. (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
16. Downing, L.J. (2017). Tone and Intonation in Chichewa and Tumbuka, in Downing, L.J., and Rialland, A. (eds.) Intonation in African Tone Languages. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 365–392.
17. Downing, L.J. (2012). On the (non-)Congruence of Focus and Prominence in Tumbuka, in Nikki, A., Marlo, M., Purvis, T., and Morrison, M. (eds.) Selected Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 122-133.
18. Downing, L.J. (2013). Rethinking the Universality of the Stress-Focus Correlation, in Legère, K. (ed.) Bantu Languages and Linguistics: Papers in Memory of Dr. Rugatiri D. K. Mekacha. Bayreuth African Studies, Vol. 91: 47-67.
19. Downing, L.J. (2008). Focus and Prominence in Chichewa, Chitumbuka and Durban Zulu. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 49: 47–65.
20. Downing, L.J. (2006). The Prosody and Syntax of Focus in Chitumbuka. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 43: 55–79.
21. Downing, L.J., Mtenje, A., and Pompino-Marschall, B. (2004). Prosody and Information Structure in Chichewa. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 37: 167–186.
22. Downing, L.J., and Rialland, A. (eds.) (2017). Intonation in African Tone Languages. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
23. Frascarelli, M. (2000). The Syntax-Phonology Interface in Focus and Topic Constructions in Italian. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
24. Givón, T. (1972). Studies in ChiBemba and Bantu Grammar. Studies in African Linguistics. Supplement 3.
25. Givón, T. (1975). Focus and the Scope of Assertion: Some Bantu Evidence. Studies in African Linguistics 6.2: 185–205.
26. Gussenhoven, C. (2004). The Phonology of Tone and Intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
27. Guthrie, M. (1945). The Tonal Structure of Bemba. Unpublished PhD Thesis, SOAS, University of London.
28. Hamann, S., and Kula, N.C. (2015). Bemba. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 45.1: 61–69.
29. Hyman, L.M. and Monaka, K.C. (2008). Tonal and Non-Tonal Intonation in Shekgalagari. UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2008), 269–288.
30. Kabinga, M. (2010). A Comparative Study of the Morphosyntax and Phonetics of Town Bemba and Standard Bemba of the Copperbelt, Zambia. MA Thesis, University of Cape Town.
31. Kashoki, E.M. (1968). A Phonemic Analysis of Bemba. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
32. Kashoki, M.E. (1972). Town Bemba: A Sketch of its Main Chracteristics. African Social Research 13: 161-186.
33. Kasonde, M. A.R. (2009). Phonologie et Morphologie de la Langue Bemba. Munich: LINCOM.
34. Kateule, M. (2016). A Morpho-semantic Analysis of Locatives in Town Bemba. MA Dissertation, University of Zambia.
35. Kula, N.C. (2016). The Conjoint-disjoint Alternation and Phonological Phrasing in Bemba, in Hyman, L.M., and Jenneke van der Wal (eds.) The Conjoint-disjoint Alternation in Bantu. Berlin/NY: Mouton de Gruyter.
36. Kula, N.C. (2011). Constituent Questions in Bemba. Presentation at the Bantu Psyn Workshop on WH Questions, Lyon.
37. Kula, N.C. (2007). Effects of Phonological Phrasing on Syntactic Structure. The Linguistic Review 24: 201–231.
38. Kula, N.C. (2002). The Phonology of Verbal Derivation in Bemba. PhD Dissertation, University of Leiden. Utrecht: LOT Dissertation Series 65.
39. Kula, N.C., and Bickmore, L. (2015). Phrasal Phonology in Copperbelt Bemba. Phonology 32.1: 147–176.
40. Kula, N.C., and Cheng, L. (2007). Phonological and Syntactic Phrasing in Bemba Relatives. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 28: 123–148.
41. Kula, N.C., and Marten, L. (2019). Vowel Copying in Dciriku and Mwenyi: On the Interaction Between Phonology and Semantics, in Felix Banda (ed.) Theoretical and Applied Aspects of African Languages and Cultures. CASAS, 75-99.
42. Ladd, R.D. (1990). Metrical Representation of Pitch Register, in Kingston and Beckman (eds.) Papers in Laboratory Phonology I, 35–57.
43. Ladd, R.D. (2008). Intonational Phonology. (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
44. Lambrecht, K. (1994). Information Structure and Sentence Form.
45. Leben, W\.R. (1973). Suprasegmental Phonology. Doctoral Dissertation. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
46. Mann, M. (1977). An Outline of IciBemba Grammar, in M.E. Kashoki (ed.) Language in Zambia: Grammatical Sketches. Lusaka: Institute for African Studies.
47. Mwansa, J.M. (2011). The Acquisition of Object Markers in Bemba Speaking Children. PhD Dissertation, University of Leeds.
48. Mweshi, J. (2015). A Morphological Analysis of Bisa Nouns. MA Dissertation, Kenyatta University.
49. Mwita, C. (2016). A Morphosyntactic Verb Inflection for Tense and Aspect in Bemba. MA Dissertation, University of Nairobi.
50. Myers, S. (1996). Boundary Tones and the Phonetic Implementation of Tone in Chichewa. Studies in African Linguistics 25: 29–60.
51. Nespor, M., and Vogel, I. (1986). Prosodic Phonology. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
52. Odden, D., and Bickmore, L. (2014). Melodic Tone in Bantu: Overview. Africana Linguistica 20: 3–13.
53. Patin, C. (2007). La Tonologie du Shingazidja. PhD Dissertation, Université Paris 3.
54. Philippson, G. (1998). \HH and \HL Tone Patterns in Bemba and the Bemba Tone System, in Hombert, J.M., and Hyman, L.M. (eds.) Bantu Historical Linguistics. Stanford: CSLI Publications, 395–411.
55. Pierrehumbert, J. (1980). The Phonology and Phonetics of English Intonation. PhD Dissertation, MIT.
56. Pierrehumbert, J., and Beckman, M.E. (1988). Japanese Tone Structure. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
57. Rialland, A. (2007). Question Prosody: An African Perspective, in Gussenhoven, C., and Riad, T. (eds.) Tunes and Tones, Volume 1. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 35–62.
58. Rialland, A. (2009). The African Lax Question Prosody: Its Realisation and Geographical Distribution. Lingua 119.6: 928–949.
59. Riedel, K., and Patin, C. (2011). Question Structure and Intonation in Fipa. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 55: 141–160.
60. Sabel, J., and Zeller, J. (2006). wh-Question Formation in Nguni, in Selected Proceedings of ACAL 35: 271–283.
61. Selkirk, E. (1986). On Derived Domains in Sentence Phonology. Phonology 3: 371–405.
62. Selkirk, E.O. (2011). The Syntax-phonology Interface, in Goldsmith, J., Riggle, J. and Yu, A. (eds.) The Handbook of Phonological Theory, (2nd edition). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 435-484.
63. Sharman, J.C., and Meeussen, A.M. (1955). The Representation of Structural Tones, with Special Reference to the Tonal Behavior of the Verb in Bemba, Northern Rhodesia. Africa 25(4): 393–404.
64. Sharman, J.C. (1956). The Tabulation of Tenses in a Bantu Language (Bemba: Northern Rhodesia). Africa 26: 29–46.
65. Truckenbrodt, H. (1999). On the Relation Between Syntactic Phrases and Phonological Phrases. Linguistic Inquiry 30: 219–255.
66. Zerbian, S. (2006). Expression of Information Structure in the Bantu Language Northern Sotho. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 45.
67. Zubizarreta, M.L. (1998). Focus, Prosody and Word Order. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
2. Batibo, H.M. (1991). The Tone Structure of Sukuma Nominal Forms. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere (AAP) 25: 31-54.
3. Bickmore, L., and Kula, N.C. (2013). Ternary Spreading and the OCP in Copperbelt Bemba. Studies in African Linguistics 42(2): 101–132.
4. Boersma, P. and Weenink, D. (2014). Praat: Doing Phonetics by Computer. Version 5.4, Retrieved on 6 November 2014 from http://www.praat.org/.
5. Bolinger, D. (1978). Intonation Across Languages, in J.H. Greenberg (ed.) Universals of Human Language 2 (Phonology). Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 471–524.
6. Bresnan, J., and Mchombo, S. (1987). Topic, Pronoun, and Agreement in Chichêwa. Language 63: 741–782.
7. Buering, D. (2012). Focus and Intonation, in Russell, G., and Fara, D.G. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Language. London: Routledge, 103-115.
8. Chebanne, A., Creissels, D., and Nkhuwa, H. (1997). Tonal Morphology of the Setswana Verb. LINCOM Europa.
9. Cheng, L., and Downing, L.J. (2009). Where’s the Topic in Zulu? Linguistic Review 26: 207–238.
10. Clements, G.N. (1979). The Description of Terraced-level Tone Languages. Language 55: 536–558.
11. Clements, G.N., and Ford, K.C. (1979). Downstep in Kikuyu. Linguistic Inquiry 10: 179–210.
12. Clements, G.N. (1990). The Status of Register in Intonation: Comments on the Paper by Ladd and by Inkelas and Leben, in Kingston, J., and Beckman, M.E.(eds.) Papers in Laboratory Phonology I: Between the Grammar and Physics of Speech, 58-71.
13. Connell, B. (2001). Downdrift, Downstep, and Declination. Typology of African Prosodic Systems Proceedings.
14. Costa, J., and Kula, N.C. (2008). Focus at the Interface: Evidence from Romance and Bantu, in Ceclie de Cat and Katherine Demuth (eds.) The Bantu-Romance Connection. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 293–322.
15. Cruttenden, A. (1997). Intonation. (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
16. Downing, L.J. (2017). Tone and Intonation in Chichewa and Tumbuka, in Downing, L.J., and Rialland, A. (eds.) Intonation in African Tone Languages. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 365–392.
17. Downing, L.J. (2012). On the (non-)Congruence of Focus and Prominence in Tumbuka, in Nikki, A., Marlo, M., Purvis, T., and Morrison, M. (eds.) Selected Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 122-133.
18. Downing, L.J. (2013). Rethinking the Universality of the Stress-Focus Correlation, in Legère, K. (ed.) Bantu Languages and Linguistics: Papers in Memory of Dr. Rugatiri D. K. Mekacha. Bayreuth African Studies, Vol. 91: 47-67.
19. Downing, L.J. (2008). Focus and Prominence in Chichewa, Chitumbuka and Durban Zulu. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 49: 47–65.
20. Downing, L.J. (2006). The Prosody and Syntax of Focus in Chitumbuka. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 43: 55–79.
21. Downing, L.J., Mtenje, A., and Pompino-Marschall, B. (2004). Prosody and Information Structure in Chichewa. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 37: 167–186.
22. Downing, L.J., and Rialland, A. (eds.) (2017). Intonation in African Tone Languages. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
23. Frascarelli, M. (2000). The Syntax-Phonology Interface in Focus and Topic Constructions in Italian. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
24. Givón, T. (1972). Studies in ChiBemba and Bantu Grammar. Studies in African Linguistics. Supplement 3.
25. Givón, T. (1975). Focus and the Scope of Assertion: Some Bantu Evidence. Studies in African Linguistics 6.2: 185–205.
26. Gussenhoven, C. (2004). The Phonology of Tone and Intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
27. Guthrie, M. (1945). The Tonal Structure of Bemba. Unpublished PhD Thesis, SOAS, University of London.
28. Hamann, S., and Kula, N.C. (2015). Bemba. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 45.1: 61–69.
29. Hyman, L.M. and Monaka, K.C. (2008). Tonal and Non-Tonal Intonation in Shekgalagari. UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2008), 269–288.
30. Kabinga, M. (2010). A Comparative Study of the Morphosyntax and Phonetics of Town Bemba and Standard Bemba of the Copperbelt, Zambia. MA Thesis, University of Cape Town.
31. Kashoki, E.M. (1968). A Phonemic Analysis of Bemba. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
32. Kashoki, M.E. (1972). Town Bemba: A Sketch of its Main Chracteristics. African Social Research 13: 161-186.
33. Kasonde, M. A.R. (2009). Phonologie et Morphologie de la Langue Bemba. Munich: LINCOM.
34. Kateule, M. (2016). A Morpho-semantic Analysis of Locatives in Town Bemba. MA Dissertation, University of Zambia.
35. Kula, N.C. (2016). The Conjoint-disjoint Alternation and Phonological Phrasing in Bemba, in Hyman, L.M., and Jenneke van der Wal (eds.) The Conjoint-disjoint Alternation in Bantu. Berlin/NY: Mouton de Gruyter.
36. Kula, N.C. (2011). Constituent Questions in Bemba. Presentation at the Bantu Psyn Workshop on WH Questions, Lyon.
37. Kula, N.C. (2007). Effects of Phonological Phrasing on Syntactic Structure. The Linguistic Review 24: 201–231.
38. Kula, N.C. (2002). The Phonology of Verbal Derivation in Bemba. PhD Dissertation, University of Leiden. Utrecht: LOT Dissertation Series 65.
39. Kula, N.C., and Bickmore, L. (2015). Phrasal Phonology in Copperbelt Bemba. Phonology 32.1: 147–176.
40. Kula, N.C., and Cheng, L. (2007). Phonological and Syntactic Phrasing in Bemba Relatives. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 28: 123–148.
41. Kula, N.C., and Marten, L. (2019). Vowel Copying in Dciriku and Mwenyi: On the Interaction Between Phonology and Semantics, in Felix Banda (ed.) Theoretical and Applied Aspects of African Languages and Cultures. CASAS, 75-99.
42. Ladd, R.D. (1990). Metrical Representation of Pitch Register, in Kingston and Beckman (eds.) Papers in Laboratory Phonology I, 35–57.
43. Ladd, R.D. (2008). Intonational Phonology. (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
44. Lambrecht, K. (1994). Information Structure and Sentence Form.
45. Leben, W\.R. (1973). Suprasegmental Phonology. Doctoral Dissertation. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
46. Mann, M. (1977). An Outline of IciBemba Grammar, in M.E. Kashoki (ed.) Language in Zambia: Grammatical Sketches. Lusaka: Institute for African Studies.
47. Mwansa, J.M. (2011). The Acquisition of Object Markers in Bemba Speaking Children. PhD Dissertation, University of Leeds.
48. Mweshi, J. (2015). A Morphological Analysis of Bisa Nouns. MA Dissertation, Kenyatta University.
49. Mwita, C. (2016). A Morphosyntactic Verb Inflection for Tense and Aspect in Bemba. MA Dissertation, University of Nairobi.
50. Myers, S. (1996). Boundary Tones and the Phonetic Implementation of Tone in Chichewa. Studies in African Linguistics 25: 29–60.
51. Nespor, M., and Vogel, I. (1986). Prosodic Phonology. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
52. Odden, D., and Bickmore, L. (2014). Melodic Tone in Bantu: Overview. Africana Linguistica 20: 3–13.
53. Patin, C. (2007). La Tonologie du Shingazidja. PhD Dissertation, Université Paris 3.
54. Philippson, G. (1998). \HH and \HL Tone Patterns in Bemba and the Bemba Tone System, in Hombert, J.M., and Hyman, L.M. (eds.) Bantu Historical Linguistics. Stanford: CSLI Publications, 395–411.
55. Pierrehumbert, J. (1980). The Phonology and Phonetics of English Intonation. PhD Dissertation, MIT.
56. Pierrehumbert, J., and Beckman, M.E. (1988). Japanese Tone Structure. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
57. Rialland, A. (2007). Question Prosody: An African Perspective, in Gussenhoven, C., and Riad, T. (eds.) Tunes and Tones, Volume 1. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 35–62.
58. Rialland, A. (2009). The African Lax Question Prosody: Its Realisation and Geographical Distribution. Lingua 119.6: 928–949.
59. Riedel, K., and Patin, C. (2011). Question Structure and Intonation in Fipa. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 55: 141–160.
60. Sabel, J., and Zeller, J. (2006). wh-Question Formation in Nguni, in Selected Proceedings of ACAL 35: 271–283.
61. Selkirk, E. (1986). On Derived Domains in Sentence Phonology. Phonology 3: 371–405.
62. Selkirk, E.O. (2011). The Syntax-phonology Interface, in Goldsmith, J., Riggle, J. and Yu, A. (eds.) The Handbook of Phonological Theory, (2nd edition). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 435-484.
63. Sharman, J.C., and Meeussen, A.M. (1955). The Representation of Structural Tones, with Special Reference to the Tonal Behavior of the Verb in Bemba, Northern Rhodesia. Africa 25(4): 393–404.
64. Sharman, J.C. (1956). The Tabulation of Tenses in a Bantu Language (Bemba: Northern Rhodesia). Africa 26: 29–46.
65. Truckenbrodt, H. (1999). On the Relation Between Syntactic Phrases and Phonological Phrases. Linguistic Inquiry 30: 219–255.
66. Zerbian, S. (2006). Expression of Information Structure in the Bantu Language Northern Sotho. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 45.
67. Zubizarreta, M.L. (1998). Focus, Prosody and Word Order. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Published
2020-09-30
How to Cite
Kula, N. (2020) “Developing an Areal View of Intonation in Eastern Bantu”, Journal of Law and Social Sciences, 3(1), pp. 1-39. doi: https://doi.org/10.53974/unza.jlss.3.1.446.
Section
Social Sciences