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Phonological Characteristics of Eastern Grassfields Languages

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Phonological Characteristics of Eastern Grassfields Languages /DQJXDJHDQG&XOWXUH$UFKLYHV Phonological characteristics of Eastern Grassfields languages Stephen C. Anderson ©2006, SIL International and Stephen C. Anderson License This document is part of the SIL International Language and Culture Archives. It is shared ‘as is’ in order to make the content available under a Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativeWorks (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). More resources are available at: www.sil.org/resources/language-culture-archives. (corrected version of) Anderson, Stephen C. (2001) Phonological Characteristics of Eastern Grassfields Languages. In Nguessimo M. Mutaka and Sammy B. Chumbow, ed. Research Mate in African Linguistics: Focus on Cameroon, 33-54. Jnkm9QtchfdqJnoodUdqkf. Phonological Characteristics of Eastern Grassfields Languages Stephen C. Anderson, SIL-Cameroon 1. Introduction This paper1 presents a brief description of phonetic and phonological features common to Eastern Grassfields languages. It aims to give a quick introduction to researchers interested in this language family while referring them to the bibliography for descriptions that go into greater detail. Because of the author's familiarity with the Ngiemboon language, all examples in this paper will be from that language unless otherwise noted. Because of the genetic relationships, many of the details described in this paper will also hold true for the Narrow Grassfields language family in general. However, because Ngiemboon is a very conservative member of this family and has an unusually large number of phonological processes, the new researcher should not expect to find all of the detailed characteristics in related languages. The Eastern Grassfields languages in focus in this paper are described by Dieu and Renaud (1983) as including four major subgroups: North (Limbum, Yamba, Mfumte, etc.) Mbam-Nkam (Bamun cluster, Mungaka, Medumba, etc.) Ngemba (Bafut, Mankon, Bambili, Nkwen, Pinyin, Awing, etc.) Bamileke (Fe’fe’, Ghomala’, Yemba, Ngwe, Ngiemboon, Ngomba, Ngombale, etc.) This language family covers the entire Western Province of Cameroon and spills over into adjacent provinces, especially the Northwest Province. 2. Word Shape The number and kind of syllables found in words in Eastern Grassfields languages is usually constrained by their grammatical category. 2.1 Open Word Classes: Nouns and Verbs As in most Bantoid languages, nouns and verbs with only one root are limited to three syllables (with the first syllable normally being a prefix of some sort). However, contrary to most prototypical Narrow Bantu languages, these Eastern Grassfields languages have many nouns and verbs that have only two syllables and some that have only one. The obvious assumption is that these languages have gradually lost consonants and vowels from both ends of nouns and verbs, resulting in generally shorter words (at least according to the number of syllables). This historical erosion of consonants and vowels has had at 1 Various factors have contributed to the author's knowledge of this particular language family. Foremost has been the time spent analyzing the Ngiemboon language (formerly written “Ngyemboon”) between January 1974 and May 1985. The author also greatly benefited from taking his doctoral studies under Larry Hyman and Bernard Comrie. It is thus most appropriate that this chapter be published in a book dedicated to Larry Hyman, who did his doctoral dissertation on Fe’fe’, an Eastern Grassfields language. least two main results: more complex syllables than the prototypical CV open syllables of Narrow Bantu languages and extremely complex tonal perturbations as underlying tonal phenomena (which did not erode) influence surface pitch realizations. 2.2 Closed Word Classes Almost all grammatical markers that function as separate words consist of a single syllable, and most of those single syllables are open syllables. Grammatical words, therefore, do not contain the vast array of complex phonetic phenomena that can occur on noun and verb roots: palatalization, labialization, palatalization-labialization, “aspiration,” and long vowels (all of these are described further below). 3. Syllable Shape While Eastern Grassfields languages do not lack simple CV open syllables (which they inherited from the proto-language), they also contain significant numbers of other syllable types (due to various historical processes still under examination). 3.1 Closed Syllables Many noun and verb roots have lost final vowels resulting in monosyllabic roots with a single closed syllable. 3.2 Syllables with complex onsets Many noun and verb roots have also developed complex onsets as their disyllabic forms have shortened historically. These complex consonant onsets always include a class of semivowel consonants following the traditional initial consonants. These semivowels vary in number from the two basic ones (Zv\ and Zi\) to four (including also Z‚\ and Z‡\, see section 4.2.4 and 5.2.7 below). In addition, "aspiration" can function as a low level phonetic process (in Ngiemboon or Fe’efe’e) or as a separate contrastive unit (in Yemba) that further increases the number of consonants found in onset syllables (see section 4.2.5 below). 3.3 Homorganic syllabic nasals as noun or verb prefixes In addition to the complex syllable types mentioned above, several noun and verb prefixes have simplified over time from whole open syllables to prefixes containing a single homorganic syllabic nasal (carrying its own tone, even a contrastive tone when attached to verb roots). See section 4.2.9 below. In Limbum, some of these syllabic nasal prefixes have lost their syllabicity resulting in just prenasalized consonants (Fiore, 1987:30-31). 4. Consonant Systems This section presents phonetic and phonological phenomena found in the consonant systems of Eastern Grassfields languages. 4.1 Phonetic Consonants Factoring out the results of various “semivowel prosodies” (described in section 4.2.4 below) and “aspiration” (described in section 4.2.5 below), a typical chart of the remaining “basic” phonetic consonants might look like the following (Anderson, 1977:88, symbols changed to their IPA counterparts): Table of Basic Consonant Phones in Ngiemboon BiL L-D Den Alv Ret A-P Vel Uvl Glot Stops: Voiceless: o s8 j > Voiced: a c8 f Unreleased: o s p > Affricates: Voiceless: oe sr sR Voiced: au cy cY Fricatives: Voiceless: e r R w Voiced: A u y Y Nasals: l L m8 m M Unreleased: l M Liquids: k8 Q Semivowels: Unrounded: i " Rounded: # v Notes: Many complex phones resulting from palatalization, labialization and their overlap have been left off the preceding chart. These variations are discussed in section 4.2.4 below. Twenty-two complex phones resulting from “aspiration” of initial consonants have also been left off the preceding chart. They are shown in the chart in section 4.2.5 below. The dental consonant phones in Ngiemboon are often recorded as alveolar consonant phones in the phonologies of other Eastern Grassfields languages. The retroflexed consonant phones (only reported so far in Ngiemboon) are restricted to environments preceding high (rounded or unrounded) back vowels. See section 4.2.3 below. The alveopalatal fricatives and affricates are similarly restricted to environments preceding high back vowels in Ngiemboon. See section 4.2.2 below. The unreleased stops are restricted to word-final environments in most Eastern Grassfields languages. See section 4.2.8 below. The variety of nasal consonant phones is due to the homorganic nature of nasal consonant prefixes in Eastern Grassfields languages. See section 4.2.10 below. The four semivowels are described in detail in section 4.2.4 below. 4.2 Consonant Alternations 4.2.1 Following Syllabic Nasal Prefixes One of the most frequently noticed phonological processes in Eastern Grassfields languages is the alternation between initial consonants in noun and verb roots that have a syllabic nasal prefix and similar roots without such a prefix. One of the easiest ways to see this alternation in Ngiemboon is to examine the realis and irrealis forms2 of certain imperfective verbs (imperfective aspect marked below by vowel length), as below: (1) ALT. REALIS IRREALIS COMMON GLOSS o-a Zoh:\ Zlah:\ “to take” u-au ZuD:\ ZLauD:\ “to tremble” k4-c4 Zk4h:\ Zm4c4h:\ “to be late” - ZÏt:\ ZÚÂt:\ “to lift” y-cy Zyh:\ Zmcyh:\ “to fly” Y-cY ZYt:\ ZÛcYt:\ “to buy” -f Z¿>\ ZMf>\ “to grow up” i-fi ZiM`\ ZMfiM`\ “to hurt someone” v-fv Zvå:\ ZMfvå:\ “to be” While two of the last five pair are extremely difficult to differentiate phonetically (i.e. hearing the difference between a Zy\ and a Zcy\ or a ZY\ and a ZcY\ between a homorganic nasal prefix and a vowel), most of the other pairs are mentioned in most phonologies of Eastern Grassfields languages. 4.2.2 Alveopalatal Fricatives and Affricates Another common phonological process in Eastern Grassfields languages is the backing of alveolar fricatives and affricates to alveopalatal variants before various high vowels. In Ngiemboon, this backing takes place whenever the following vowel is a high back vowel (whether it is a rounded Zt\ or an unrounded \), as below: (2) ALT. ALVEOLAR GLOSS ALVEOPALATAL GLOSS r-R Zrn\ “friend” ZRt\ “hoe” y-Y Zyh\ “to fly” ZYt\ “to buy” sr-sR Zsrn\ “to push” ZsRt\ “to attach” cy-cY ZmcyD\ “to be heavy” ZÚcY \ “to steal” Larry Hyman called this process "spirantization" in Fe'e-fe'e (Hyman, 1972: 45-49). 4.2.3 Retroflexed Consonants In contrast to the widespread alveopalatal variants noted above, very few Eastern Grassfields phonologies have mentioned retroflexed consonants. Even though these are found in exactly the same environment as the alveopalatal variants mentioned in the preceding section, they are extremely difficult to hear. In Ngiemboon, various dental consonants become retroflexed whenever the following vowel is a high back vowel (whether it is a rounded Zt\ or an unrounded [ ]), as below: (3) ALT. DENTAL GLOSS RETROFLEXED GLOSS s4-% Zs4\ “father” %t\ “to stub” c4- Zm4c4h\ “to be late” ZÚÂt\ “to rain” k4- Zk4&l'\ “cloud” ZÏ l'\ “tongue” m4- Zm4(\ “to give” \ “to pass gas” 2 Realis vs.
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