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INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. U M I films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type o f computer printer. The quality o f this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these w ill be noted. Also, i f unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. 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A PHONOLOGICAL GRAMMAR OF KUCHE The members of the Committee approve the masters thesis of Janet Evelyn Wilson David Silva J/arfefTJ^ jiw ■ Supervising Professor f J Donald A. Burquest Norris McKinney 7 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Copyright © by Janet Evelyn Wilson 1996 A ll Rights Reserved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. D E D IC A T IO N This thesis is lovingly dedicated to my husband Chuck Wilson. He has cooked and cleaned and washed and ironed while I devoted myself to w riting and revising. But more than anything else, he believed I could do it Janet Evelyn Wilson University of Texas at Arlington Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A PHONOLOGICAL GRAMMAR OF KUCHE by Janet Evelyn Wilson Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillm ent of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN LINGUISTICS THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON December 1996 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 1383507 Copyright 1996 by Wilson, Janet Evelyn All rights reserved. UMI Microform 1383507 Copyright 1997, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis represents the work and the ideas of many people. My language informant, Ms. Ruth Adiwu of Jos, Nigeria, spent hundreds of hours reading words onto tape and patiently listening to recorded text and translating for me. Mr. Gideon Asukutuk and Mr. Isaiah Ayhok also contributed time and effort in those early days of data collection. My advisor, Dr. David Silva, also contributed his experience and expertise. He took time to read and make valuable suggestions for revisions. My other committee members, Dr. Donald Burquest and Dr. Norris McKinney also helped to shape my thinking and encourage me during the w riting process. November 27,1996 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT A PHONOLOGICAL GRAMMAR OP KUCHE Publication No. ______ Janet Evelyn Wilson, M.A. The University of Texas at Arlington, 1996 Supervising Professor: David Silva The phonology of Kuche, a m inority language of Northern Nigeria, is described, w ith a view to proposing a practical orthography. A sketch of the morphology and syntax is presented; the noun class system is sim ilar to the systems found in Bantu languages of Eastern Africa. Syllables tend to be open, w ith nasalized vowels surfacing as nasal codas. Vowel harmony is a pervasive feature of the language: harmony based on all vowel features operates at the morpheme level and harmony based on tenseness operates at the word level. The last chapter outlines a tentative orthography proposed to replace an older, abandoned orthography developed earlier this century. The appendix lists more than 2,000 words of Kuche, transcribed phonetically, with English glosses. v i Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.................................................................................... v ABSTRACT............................................................................................................. v i LIST OF FIGURES.............................................................................................. v iii LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................. ix C ha p te r L INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 1 2. SYNTAX AND MORPHOLOGY .......................................................... 12 3. PHONEME INVENTORY ...................................................................... 37 4 SYLLABLE STRUCTURE ...................................................................... 50 5. VOWEL HARMONY .............................................................................. 98 6. ORTHOGRAPHY PROPOSAL ................................................................. 112 A ppendix ........................................................................................................... 128 References ............................................................................................................ 182 v ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF FIGURES F ig u re Page L Proto-Bantu Noun Class Semantics ....................................................... 15 2. Formant structure of tense /u/ and Lax /o/ .............................................. 103 3. Formant Structure of tense /y / and lax /y/ ............................................ 104 4 Two Instances of Formant Structure of Tense /w/ .............................. 105 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF TABLES Table Page 2.1. Noun Class P re fix e s .............................................................................. 13 2.2. Kuche Concord S yste m ......................................................................... 20 2.3. Expanded K uche Concord System ....................................................... 21 2.4. First and Second Person Pronouns ..................................................... 25 3.1. Kuche C o n so n a n ts ................................................................................. 42 5.1. N oun Class P refixes w ith A lte rn a tio n s ............................................. 110 5.2. Noun Class Prefixes w ith Archiphonemes ........................................... I l l 6.1. Suggestions for Letters for the Kuche Alphabet .................................. 121 6.2. Kuche Words w ith a Nasal Segment in the M iddle ......................... 127 ix Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Kuche is spoken by about 50,000 people (Crozier and Blench, 1992) in at least 17 villages northwest of Jos, Plateau State, in Northern Nigeria. The people call themselves Bache and they call their territory Kiche; however, the Hausa people call them Rukuba ("people of the rocks"), and that is the name by which their language is widely known. The most recent edition of the Ethnologue (Grimes 1992) lists the language simply as “Che,” omitting the noun class prefix. 1.2 Purpose The Bache people are eager to have their language in written form. Although Scripture portions were translated into Kuche earlier this century, there is no current indigenous written literature and no program to teach a w ritten form of Kuche in the local schools. The orthography used to translate the Scripture portions was developed by missionaries-a nurse and a dentist—with no linguistic training. That orthography makes use of the five English vowels that can be found on a typewriter, even though Kuche has at least eight vowel sounds. Word divisions are made to coincide with English word breaks, although Kuche pronouns are verb prefixes and suffixes rather than separate words. Tones and vowel length are not 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 marked, even though both carry a heavy functional load.