An Optimality Theory Analysis of Variation in the Bantu Zone C
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VOWEL HARMONIES OF THE CONGO BASIN: AN OPTIMALITY THEORY ANALYSIS OF VARIATION IN THE BANTU ZONE C by MYLES FRANCIS LEITCH B.A, Dalhousie University 1977 M.A., University of Texas 1982 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES Department Of Linguistics We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA November 1996 © Myles Francis Leitch 1996 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for ^reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada DE-6 (2/88) Abstract A central claim of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993, McCarthy and Prince 1993a) is that phonological variation can be modeled through the variable ranking of universal constraints. In this thesis, I test this claim by examining variation in the tongue root vowel harmony system in a number of closely related yet distinct Bantu languages of Congo and Zaire. The twenty-odd languages are drawn from each of Guthrie 1967's eight Bantu C. subgroups and are shown to vary along a number of dimensions. One is morphological, related to whether or not the harmonic element in the lexical root extends to prefixes and suffixes. This variation is shown to follow from the variable ranking of constraints that seek to ALIGN the harmonic feature, [retracted tongue root] ([rtr]) with the edges of the morphological domains STEM and WORD. A second parameter of variation concerns the relationship between high vowels and [rtr]. A third dimension involves the interaction of [rtr] with the low vowel [a] under harmony. Here, three patterns involving (i) low vowel assimilation, (ii) low vowel opacity, or (iii) low vowel transparency under harmony are shown to follow from the variable ranking of a few constraints. A significant theme that emereges in the study is recognizing and characterizing the distinct morphological and phonological domain edges involved in vowel harmony. An important contribution of this study is in bringing to light a language family where phonological tongue height, in this case expressed by the feature [low], is shown to be incompatible with tongue root retraction, as expressed in the feature [rtr]. Although the gestures of tongue body lowering and tongue root retraction are sympathetic in the articulatory dimension and in their acoustic effect, they are seen to be phonologically hostile, in fact, because of the redundancy relation between them. This redundancy-based phonological incompatibility is implemented via licensing-failure: [low] fails to "license" [rtr] because lowness implies retraction (Ito, Mester and Padgett 1994). ii Table of Contents Abstract » Table of Contents iii List of Abbreviations vi Acknowledgements vii 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 PHONOLOGICAL VARIATION AND CONSTRAINT INTERACTION 1 1.2 THE GUTHRIE 1967 BANTU CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM 6 1.3 OPTIMALITY THEORY MECHANISMS 9 1.3.1 Constraints and Constraint Tableaux 10 1.3.2 Faithfulness Constraints 13 1.4 VOWEL FEATURES: ORGANIZATION AND SPECIFICATION 13 1.4.1 Is [rtr] a Valid Vocalic Feature? 14 1.4.2 [rtr] vs. [atrj 19 1.4.3 General Feature Organization Assumptions 20 1.5 CHAPTER BY CHAPTER CONTENTS OUTLINE 23 7.5.7 Chapter 2 23 1.5.2 Chapter 3 23 1.5.3 Chapter 4 24 1.5.4 Chapter 5 24 1.5.5 Chapter 6 25 2. ALIGNMENT DOMAINS FOR VOWEL HARMONY IN BANTU C 27 2.1 OVERVIEW OF BANTU C MORPHOLOGY 27 2.7.7 Roots and [rtr] 27 2.1.2 Overview of Nominal Morphology 29 2.1.3 Stem and Word in Bantu C Verb Morphology 31 2.2 VOWEL HARMONY TUNED TO MORPHOLOGY: iNrriAL CHARACTERIZATION 35 2.2.1 Basic Harmony-by-Alignment Mechanisms 37 2.2.2 Stem Harmony Only: A Sketch ofBolia, C-30 41 2.2.2.1 No Word-Edge Alignment 46 2.2.3 Stem And Prefix Harmony: A Sketch OfNtomba C-30 48 2.2.3.1 Left Word-Edge Alignment 51 2.2.4 Stem And Final Vowels: A Sketch OfBabole: C-10 53 2.2.4.1 Right Word-Edge Alignment 54 2.2.5 Complete Harmony: Elembe-Nkutu / Losikongo 57 2.2.5.1 Right and Left Word Edge Alignment 60 2.2.6Nkundo: One-Syllable-to-the-LeftHarmony 63 iii 2.2.7 The Phenomena 63 2.2.7.1 Phonological Macrostem Hypothesis 68 2.2.7.2 Lexical Domain Hypothesis 69 2.2.8 Why [rtr] Rather Than fatrj? 75 2.2.9 Typology Issues in Harmony-by-Alignment 77 3. HIGH VOWELS IN HARMONY DOMAINS 82 3.1 HI / RTR AND PARSE HI 82 3.1.1 The Grounded Condition Hl/RTR 82 3.1.2 PAUSE Hi 84 3.2 Hi VOWEL EFFECTS IN [RTR] HARMONY 84 3.2.1 Distribution of High Vowels and Retraction 85 3.2.1.1 Align Asymmetries and PARSE [RTR] 85 3.2.1.2 Differences in Nouns and Verbs 91 3.2.1.3 Mituku High Vowels: A FR/RTR Asymmetry 97 3.2.1.4 Typology of High-Vowel Asymmetry Effects 100 3.3 OPACITY / TRANSPARENCY OF [HI] VOWELS 102 3.3.1 Hi Vowel Opacity Effects in Bantu C-10 103 3.3.2 Ntomba High Vowel Transparency 108 3.4 SUMMARY 120 4. LOW VOWELS IN HARMONY DOMAINS 122 4.1 Low VOWEL BEHAVIOR IN VERBAL SUFFIXES 123 4.1.1 The Assimilation Pattern For Low Vowels 123 4.1.1.1 Data for the Assimilation Pattern 125 4.1.2 Retention / Opacity Pattern for Suffixal Low Vowels 128 4.1.2.1 Nkundo (Hulstaert 1963) 128 4.1.2.2 C-50 Suffixal Lows 132 4.1.2.3 Ombo C-70 (Meeussen 1952) 134 4.1.2.4 Tetela C-70: [a] Retention And Opacity In [rtr] Domains 136 4.1.2.5 Londengese C-80: Low Retention and Transparency 137 4.1.3 Summary of Low Vowel Distributions 141 4.2 BANTU C LOW VOWELS UNDER HARMONY: THE ANALYSIS 143 4.2.1 Introduction 143 4.2.2 Characterizing [rtr] /[lo] Incompatibility in Bantu C 144 4.2.2.1 Negative Licensing in Japanese [son] / [vd] Interactions 147 4.2.2.2 Negative Licensing in Interactions between [lo] and [rtr] 150 4.2.3 Constraint Analysis of the Low Vowel Patterns in Verbs 155 4.2.3.1 Vocalic Feature Framework 156 4.2.3.2 Constraint Interaction for Low-Underparsing and V-Copy 158 4.2.3.3 Constraint Interaction for Low Vowel Retention / Opacity Pattern 164 4.2.3.4 Constraint Interaction for Retention / Transparency Pattern 167 4.2.3.5 A Low-Only Analysis of Bantu C Vowel Harmony? 169 iv 5. LOW VOWEL / RETRACTED VOWEL DISTRD3TJTION IN NOMINALS 174 5.1.1 Babole I: Symmetrical Non-occurrence offc/o] and [a] 174 5.1.2 Babole II: *[a...e/o]via [rtr]-Underparsing. 178 5.1.3 Nkundo Nominals: [e...a] is OK / [a...e] is Bad 183 5.1.4 C-50 Languages: Nominals Where [A...e/o]Are Good 191 5.1.4.1 C-50 Languages: General Properties 192 5.1.4.2 Low Vowel Nominal Patterns 193 5.1.4.3 Analysis of C-50 Low Vowel Nominal Patterns 196 5.1.4.4 Summary 200 6. COALESCENCE AND NON-HARMONIC RETRACTION 202 6.1 CASE STUDIES OF COALESCENT RETRACTION 203 6.1.1 Bolia 203 6.1.2 Nkengo 205 6.1.3 Lwankamba 207 6.1.4 Tetela 210 6.1.4.1 A Sketch of Tetela C-70 212 6.1.5 The Coalescent Retraction Problem 218 6.1.5.1 Coalescence is on a Different 'Level' 221 6.1.5.2 Coalescence and Harmony: Is [rtr] Indexing Needed Too? 226 6.1.5.3 Lexical and Post-Lexical Harmonies: Revision .230 6.1.5.4 Closing Remarks on Coalescent Retraction and Harmony 241 6.2 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 242 6.2.1 Musing 1. Empirical Breadth 243 6.2.2 Musing II: Distinguishing M-Domains and P-Domains 243 6.2.3 Musing III: Ambiguous Analyses and Marginal Classes 244 6.2.4 Musing IV: [rtr] as a Vocalic Feature 245 6.2.5 Musing V: Level-ordering and Phonological "Components" 246 6.2.6 Conclusion 246 References 248 Appendix A: 5 Maps - Geographical Distribution of Variation Features .... 259 Appendix B: Vowel Harmony Properties of Key Languages 265 List of Abbreviations MORPHOSYNTACTIC LABELS AGR Agreement APL Applicative CAUS Causative CMPL Completive COMP Comparative EXT Extension FM Formative Marker FUT Future FV Final Vowel NEG Negation OM Object Marker PASS Passive PST Past RECIP Reciprocal REV Reversive RFLX Reflexive SM Subject Marker STAT Stative NUMBER / PERSON DISTINCTIONS SU 1 sg First person singular subj ect SU2s Second person singular subject SUlpl First person plural subject OB3pl Third person plural object etc. PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES [front] [fr] [round] [rd] [back] [bk] [low] [lo] [high] [hi] [retracted tongue root] [rtr] [advanced tongue root] [rtr] [sonorant] [son] [voiced] [vd] vi Acknowledgments This thesis is dedicated to the Babole people of Congo. Without their gracious hospitality and patience over several years, the spark of curiosity that began this research might never have become a flame.