Across-the-board tonal polarity in Kipsigis: Implications for the morphology-phonology interface Maria Kouneli (University of Leipzig) Yining Nie (New York University)
[email protected] [email protected] October 2020, to appear in Language Abstract Using novel data from Kipsigis (Southern Nilotic; Kenya), we present the first attested case of across-the-board paradigmatic tonal polarity. The nominative case forms of nominal modifiers (adjectives, possessives, and demonstratives) are segmentally identical to their oblique case counterparts but have the opposite tonal pattern across-the-board: nominative and oblique modifiers differ in not just one but EVERY tonal specification. Kipsigis polarity thus results in maximal tonal contrast between two morphologically related words. We show how the Kipsigis pattern may be captured in an item-and-process theory of morphology with dedicated exchange mechanisms and an item-and-arrangement theory that allows for morpheme-specific phonology; we suggest that an item-and-process approach may provide a more straightforward account.* Keywords: Morphology, phonology, tone, polarity, Kipsigis, Nilotic * Authors are listed alphabetically. We are grateful to our Kipsigis language consultants Sharon Chelangat, Mercy Chep, Nehemiah Cheruiyot, Boniface Kemboi, Donald Kibet, Enock Kipkorir, Emmanuel Kiprono, Wesley Kirui, Hillary Mosonik, Victor Mutai, Amos Ngeno, and Philemon Ronoh. Thank you to Maria Gouskova, Florian Lionnet, Jochen Trommer, and audiences at NYU and NELS 49 for their feedback at various stages of this work. We also thank Language editor Andries Coetzee and two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments. This research was supported in part by SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship #752-2016-0096 to the second author.