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DigitalResources SIL eBook 47 ® Tone in the Mbelime Verb System Christina M. Melick Tone in the Mbelime Verb System Christina M. Melick SIL International® 2012 SIL e-Books 47 2012 SIL International® ISBN: 978-1-55671-341-5 ISSN: 1934-2470 Fair-Use Policy: Books published in the SIL e-Books (SILEB) series are intended for scholarly research and educational use. You may make copies of these publications for research or instructional purposes free of charge (within fair-use guidelines) and without further permission. Republication or commercial use of SILEB or the documents contained therein is expressly prohibited without the written consent of the copyright holder(s). Editor-in-Chief Mike Cahill Managing Editor Bonnie Brown Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics Thesis Approval Sheet This thesis, entitled Tone in the Mbelime Verb System written by Christina M. Melick and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts with major in Applied Linguistics has been read and approved by the undersigned members of the faculty of the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics. _________________________________________ Dr. Michael Cahill (Mentor) _________________________________________ Dr. Steve Parker _________________________________________ Dr. Kenneth Olson _________________________________________ Date TONE IN THE MBELIME VERB SYSTEM By Christina M. Melick Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts with major in Applied Linguistics Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics June 2012 ©2012 Christina M. Melick All Rights Reserved CERTIFICATE I acknowledge that use of copyrighted material in my thesis may place me under an obligation to the copyright owner, especially when use of such material exceeds usual fair use provisions. I hereby certify that I have obtained the written permission of the copyright owner for any and all such occurrences and that no portion of my thesis has been copyrighted previously unless properly referenced. I hereby agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics from any and all claims that may be asserted or that may arise from any copyright violation. ______________________ Signature ______________________ Date THESIS DUPLICATION RELEASE I hereby authorize the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics Library to duplicate this thesis when needed for research and/or scholarship. Agreed:___________________________ (student signature) Refused:___________________________ (student signature) ABSTRACT TONE IN THE MBELIME VERB SYSTEM Christina Melick Master of Arts with a major in Applied Linguistics The Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, June 2012 Supervising professor: Dr. Michael Cahill This thesis describes the tonal system of verbs in Mbelime (ISO 639-3: mql), a Niger-Congo: Gur language spoken in northwestern Benin (Lewis 2009) and provides an analysis of this tonal system in Optimality Theory, a constraint-based phonological theory. Furthermore, the data is used to evaluate current theories of tone features, concluding that a theory which uses a relative register feature cannot accurately account for the combination of upstep and downstep that occurs in Mbelime. Although two previous works describe tone on Mbelime verbs (Rietkerk 2000; Neukom 2005), they disagree on some points of analysis and neither makes full use of autosegmental theory. Therefore, this thesis serves to clarify points of disagreement and provide a more thorough, theoretically-grounded analysis. Furthermore, Mbelime has three underlying tones as well as upstep and downstep, a rare combination of features, so this detailed analysis of Mbelime tone will benefit the field of linguistics. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A work of this magnitude would not be possible without the help of many others. I would like to first thank all of the members of SIL Togo-Benin who assisted me during my fieldwork in Benin. In particular, I am so thankful for the guidance and encouragement Sharon and Johannes Merz gave me with cultural knowledge and day-to- day living. My analysis of the data was also greatly improved by feedback from Phil Davison and the many conversations Rachel Wong and I had while doing fieldwork together in Cobly. After returning to the U.S., the feedback I’ve received from the members of my committee – Dr. Michael Cahill, Dr. Steve Parker, and Dr. Ken Olson – has been invaluable. I am also so grateful to the community members in Cobly who made me feel welcome and shared their lives, culture, and language with me – there are too many to name individually. I am especially thankful to have had such wonderful language consultants – Josephine Kombetto and a e Sanwekoua. I worked most often with a e, and his enthusiasm for the project and love of his language always brightened my day and were a great encouragement along the way. Finally, I’d like to thank my family, especially my mother Ann Melick, who have been there, cheering me on and praying for me throughout my whole life and particularly during the long, often difficult, proce of writing thi the i . I don’t know where I’d be without them. vii Table of Contents ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ x LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................ xii Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 1. Background: Mbelime .................................................................................................. 2 2. Review of the Literature: Tone in Gur languages ................................................... 10 2.1 Tonal inventories ................................................................................................ 11 2.2 Grammatical function of tone ............................................................................ 12 2.3 Tonal processes .................................................................................................. 14 2.4 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 18 3. Review of the literature: tone theory ........................................................................ 19 3.1 Bao (1999) .......................................................................................................... 20 3.2 Yip (2002) .......................................................................................................... 23 3.3 Snider (1999) ...................................................................................................... 26 3.4 Tone spreading ................................................................................................... 28 3.5 Downstep ............................................................................................................ 29 3.6 Upstep................................................................................................................. 34 3.7 Mid tone in three-tone languages ....................................................................... 41 3.8 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 42 4. A description of the Mbelime verb system ............................................................... 44 4.1 Methodology ...................................................................................................... 44 4.2 The Syllable Contact Law and maximal syllable templates .............................. 45 4.3 Aspectual morphology of Mbelime verbs .......................................................... 54 4.3.1 Overview of verbal morphology ........................................................................ 54 4.3.2 Class 1: – verbs ............................................................................................... 57 4.3.3 Class 2: – verbs .............................................................................................. 59 4.3.4 Class 3: verbs with no segmental suffix in neutral aspect.................................. 60 4.3.5 Class 4: – imperfective suffix ........................................................................ 62 4.3.6 Class 5: syllable structure alternation................................................................. 62 4.3.7 Class 6: –nɛ verbs ............................................................................................... 65 4.4 Tone on verbs ..................................................................................................... 66 4.4.1 Tone in the imperfective and neutral aspect....................................................... 68 4.4.2 Perfective: HL tone ............................................................................................ 78 4.4.3 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 81 4.5 Tonal Phenomena ..............................................................................................
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