LSAL 01: The Lexical Tonology of Kinande

The Lexical Tonology of Kinande

Ngessimo M. Mutaka
University of Yaoundé

This work discusses the lexical tonology of Kinande, a Bantu language spoken in Eastern Zaire, by focusing on the structure of the verb and the nominal form. The main claim is that a stratally organized phonology model is better equipped to deal successfully with the tonal behavior of the Kinande data. More specifically, it is argued that Kinande phonology consists of two lexical strata, P1 and P2. Although P1 is a postlexical stratum, it nevertheless exhibits some lexical properties. It is also argued that the stem undergoes rules of stratum one while the Infl formative, that is, the Subject Marker and the Tense markers in the verb form, participate in stratum two rules. At the same time, it is shown that, although the stem is formed at stratum one, the tonological system of Kinande makes a clear distinction between constituents of the stem like the Extensions and the constitutents of the Verb Final, i.e. the prefinal + the Final Vowel that are selected by certain tenses to be part of the stem. It is also argued that the Object Marker (OM), whose position is between the Infl formatives and the stem, is also derived at stratum one.

The different strata are argued to constitute independent blocks with their own properties. Stratum one is for example claimed to be cyclical and to correspond to rules which apply at the stem level. Stratum two is claimed to correspond to the word level rules. In the verb complex form, it is argued that, at stratum two, Infl is interpreted as a phonological word and that the macrostem (i.e. stem + OM) and the stem are preceived as phonological domains for tonological rules. This statum two is also claimed to be the place where the idiosyncracies about tenses are encoded. (Edited by Francis Katamba, Lancaster University).

ISBN 9783929075489. LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 01. 220pp. 1994.