Mandenkan, 59 | 2018, « Numéro 59 » [En Ligne], Mis En Ligne Le 01 Juin 2018, Consulté Le 10 Juillet 2021

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Mandenkan Bulletin semestriel d’études linguistiques mandé

59 | 2018 Numéro 59

Édition électronique URL : https://journals.openedition.org/mandenkan/1266 DOI : 10.4000/mandenkan.1266 ISSN : 2104-371X

Éditeur Llacan UMR 8135 CNRS/Inalco

Référence électronique Mandenkan, 59 | 2018, « Numéro 59 » [En ligne], mis en ligne le 01 juin 2018, consulté le 10 juillet 2021. URL : https://journals.openedition.org/mandenkan/1266 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/mandenkan. 1266

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SOMMAIRE

La catégorie des verbes statifs dans le système morphosyntaxique du soninké Denis Creissels

A sketch of dialectal variation in Mano Maria Khachaturyan

Texts for the corpus of Nko: collection, conversion, and open issues Andrij Rovenchak

A survey of word‑level replacive tonal patterns in Western Mande Christopher R. Green

Discussion

Word‑level replacive tonal patterns in mande nominal constructions: On Christopher Green’s binary typology Maria Konoshenko

Moving ahead with replacive tone in Mande: A brief response to Konoshenko Christopher R. Green

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La catégorie des verbes statifs dans le système morphosyntaxique du soninké Stative verbs in the morphosyntactic system of Soninke Стативные глаголы в морфосинтаксической системе сонинке

Denis Creissels

Introduction

1 Le soninké possède une classe de lexèmes dont les caractéristiques morphosyntaxiques sont comparables à celles des verbes statifs des langues mandingues.1 Comme son analogue dans les langues mandingues, la classe des verbes statifs du soninké regroupe quelques dizaines de lexèmes (j’en recense une trentaine dans cet article, et il y en a vraisemblablement d’autres), et les signifiés lexicaux des verbes statifs du soninké sont du même type que ceux des verbes statifs du mandingue. Or cette catégorie passe pratiquement inaperçue dans les deux grammaires de référence du soninké disponibles jusqu’ici. La grammaire de Yacouba Diagana (1994:98–101) comporte seulement une brève mention de trois verbes statifs qui ont la particularité d’avoir un emploi d’auxiliaire aspectuel ou modal (gàbá ‘être fréquent’, qáwà ‘devoir’ et sírì ‘devoir’), et mentionne comme une simple bizarrerie leur combinaison avec les marqueurs prédicatifs nàn et ntá (alors qu’il s’agit là précisément du critère d’appartenance à la catégorie des verbes statifs). Quant à Ousmane Moussa Diagana (1995:263–264), il est clair qu’il a entrevu l’existence de cette catégorie mais n’a pas tiré toutes les conséquences de ses observations, qui restent d’ailleurs incomplètes (du fait notamment qu’il ne mentionne pas l’existence d’une forme négative des verbes statifs).

2 L’objectif de cet article est donc essentiellement d’attirer l’attention sur la nécessité de prendre en compte cette catégorie dans la systématique des parties du discours du soninké.

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3 Les données traitées dans cet article sont tirées de l’enquête lexicale qui a fourni le corpus pour l’analyse phonologique du soninké du Kingi (Creissels 2016). Autrement dit, ces données peuvent avoir été inspirées par divers documents publiés, notamment les dictionnaires : (Diagana 2011 ; Smeltzer & Smeltzer 2001), mais dans tous les cas elles ont été vérifiées par un consultant locuteur natif du parler du Kingi, et le cas échéant adaptées selon ses indications. Je ne fais donc aucune hypothèse quant à la représentativité de ce qui est décrit ici relativement aux autres variétés du soninké. Je n’ai aucun indice qui tendrait à suggérer l’existence de variations importantes pour cet aspect particulier de la morphosyntaxe du soninké, mais je ne dispose pas non plus des données qui permettraient de dire précisément jusqu’à quel point ce qui est décrit ici s’appliquerait ou non aux autres parlers. En toute rigueur, dans la suite de cet article « le soninké » doit être compris comme une abréviation pour « les variétés de soninké qui fonctionnent comme celle que j’ai eu la possibilité d’analyser ».

4 L’article est organisé de la façon suivante. La section 2 discute la délimitation des quatre classes morphosyntaxiques de lexèmes du soninké désignées ici comme « noms », « verbes », « adjectifs » et « verbes statifs ». La section 3 décrit les différents types de constructions prédicatives du soninké selon la nature du terme en fonction prédicative. La section 4 discute la spécificité sémantique de l’emploi prédicatif de verbes statifs en contraste avec la prédication verbale et avec la prédication adjectivale. La section 5 propose un inventaire de verbes statifs. La section 6 discute le statut des verbes statifs dans le système de formation des mots du soninké. La section 7 récapitule les principales conclusions.

Classes morphosyntaxiques de lexèmes

Noms, verbes, adjectifs et verbes statifs

5 Comme on peut le constater d’après la liste de lexèmes simples classés par catégories qui figure dans (Creissels 2016), le soninké a deux types majeurs de lexèmes qui numériquement regroupent chacun un nombre de lexèmes très largement supérieur à celui des autres types de lexèmes que l’on peut reconnaître dans la langue : lexèmes nominaux et lexèmes verbaux. En outre, l’inventaire des lexèmes nominaux et des lexèmes verbaux peut être élargi à volonté au moyen d’opérations de morphologie constructionnelle (composition ou dérivation par affixation) qui pour la plupart ne sont pas limitées dans leur productivité.

6 À côté de ces deux catégories lexicales majeures, le soninké a la particularité de posséder deux classes de lexèmes qui regroupent toutes deux des lexèmes dont les signifiés sont du type qui caractérise les classes de lexèmes traditionnellement étiquetées « adjectifs » dans les grammaires descriptives. Comme nous le verrons plus loin, il y a un lien étroit entre ces deux classes au niveau des mécanismes de dérivation, mais en termes de caractéristiques tant morphologiques que syntaxiques, elles n’ont rien en commun. L’une présente des caractéristiques qui rappellent plutôt celles de la classe des verbes, tandis que l’autre a très nettement, de ces deux points de vue, des caractéristiques nominales.

7 Celle de ces deux catégories qui présente des caractéristiques morphosyntaxiques essentiellement nominales a toujours été étiquetée « adjectif » dans les travaux sur le soninké, et c’est ce terme que je continuerai d’utiliser ici. Pour celle qui présente des

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caractéristiques essentiellement verbales, j’utiliserai l’étiquette de « verbe statif », déjà utilisée pour une catégorie des langues mandingues aux caractéristiques très semblable à de nombreux égards.

8 Le choix de cette étiquette comporte toutefois un risque de malentendu, car elle peut suggérer que les verbes statifs seraient une sous‑classe de la classe des verbes dont la délimitation reposerait sur un critère sémantique. Avant de poursuivre, j’insiste donc sur le fait que la distinction entre verbes et verbes statifs est établie sur la base de critères strictement morphosyntaxiques. Dans « verbe statif », « statif » ne doit pas être compris comme une caractérisation du signifié lexical des lexèmes regroupés sous cette étiquette, mais plutôt comme se référant au fait que, à la différence des verbes, les verbes statifs ont une flexion qui se limite à l’expression de la polarité (positif vs. négatif), à l’exclusion de toute distinction de type aspectuel ou modal.

Les noms

9 Morphologiquement, les noms du soninké sont typiquement caractérisés par un paradigme flexionnel qui comporte segmentalement cinq formes différentes : • la forme non‑autonome, utilisée exclusivement lorsque le lexème nominal fait partie d’un lexème construit dans lequel il n’occupe pas la position finale, • le singulier non‑déterminé, • le singulier déterminé, • le pluriel non‑déterminé, • le pluriel déterminé.

10 À ceci s’ajoutent deux formes tonales particulières : • la forme du nom à ton grammatical BH est la ‘forme construite’ du nom, c’est‑à‑dire la forme utilisée si et seulement si le nom est la tête d’une construction génitivale ; • le singulier non‑déterminé à ton grammatical B s’utilise exclusivement pour la deuxième occurrence du lexème nominal dans la construction N wó N ‘chaque N, n’importe quel N’, dans laquelle le lexème nominal doit être répété.

11 L’exemple suivant illustre avec yíttè ‘arbre’ la totalité du paradigme flexionnel d’un nom soninké. Le n entre parenthèses rend compte du fait que la marque de détermination nominale inclut une nasale qui toutefois n’est apparente que si le nom n’est pas immédiatement suivi de pause.2

Tableau 1 : Paradigme flexionnel de yíttè ‘arbre’

forme non‑autonome yíttí‑

singulier non dét. yítté

singulier non dét. + ton gramm. B yìttè

singulier non dét. + ton gramm. BH yìtté

singulier dét. yíttè(n)

singulier dét. + ton gramm. BH yìttê(n)

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pluriel non dét. yíttú

pluriel non dét. + ton gramm. BH yìttú

pluriel dét. yíttù(n)

pluriel dét. + ton gramm. BH yìttû(n)

12 Les noms du soninké se répartissent en un certain nombre de classes flexionnelles. Ousmane Diagana (1995) en dénombre 21 pour le soninké de Kaédi. Certaines sont très productives, d’autres ne comportent qu’un tout petit nombre de noms, et sont susceptibles de disparaître par réaffectation des quelques noms qu’elles comportent à des classes plus productives. Toutefois la donnée de trois formes seulement suffit à prédire la totalité du paradigme : la forme non‑autonome, le singulier non‑déterminé et le pluriel non‑déterminé. À partir de là on peut prédire automatiquement les formes déterminées ainsi que les formes tonalement modifiées par un ton grammatical. Par exemple, la classe flexionnelle à laquelle appartient yíttè ‘arbre’ se définit par l’alternance entre i (forme non‑autonome), e (singulier) et u (pluriel). En ce qui concerne le schème tonal, on peut toujours prédire le ton de la forme non‑autonome à partir de celui de la forme du singulier, mais pas l’inverse.3 Quant au ton de la forme de pluriel, si le pluriel est formé par alternance vocalique, son ton est identique à celui de la forme de singulier ; si le pluriel est formé par suffixation, le suffixe de pluriel ‑nú ou ‑ní s’ajoute à la forme de singulier dont le ton ne subit aucune modification.

13 Syntaxiquement, les noms fonctionnent comme noyaux de groupes nominaux dont l’accès aux fonctions de sujet, objet, oblique et génitif est seulement limité par des questions de cohérence sémantique. Les lexèmes nominaux n’ont par contre pas accès à la position V dans la construction prédicative verbale S mp (O) V (X).4 Il y a bien quelques rares noms dont la forme coïncide avec celle d’un lexème verbal apparenté, mais le caractère à la fois exceptionnel et imprédictible de cette situation suggère de voir là un phénomène de conversion lexicalement déterminé.

Les verbes

14 Morphologiquement, la flexion verbale du soninké se limite aux deux distinctions suivantes, qui se croisent pour donner un paradigme de quatre formes fléchies : • la distinction entre le lexème verbal nu et une forme suffixée désignée ici comme « gérondif », • l’alternance entre le schème tonal lexical du verbe et le schème tonal entièrement B.

15 La flexion verbale est illustrée ci‑dessous avec trois verbes représentant les trois classes tonales de verbes dissyllabiques que connaît le soninké5 :

Tableau 2 : Paradigme flexionnel de qóbó ‘acheter’, gáagà ‘vendre’ et sìití ‘attacher’

‘acheter’ ‘vendre’ ‘attacher’

lexème nu qóbó gáagà sìití

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lexème nu + ton gramm. B qòbò gàagà sìitì

gérondif qóbó‑nó gáagà‑ná sìitì‑ní

gérondif + ton gramm. B qòbò‑nò gàagà‑nà sìitì‑nì

16 L’exemple (1) illustre la flexion tonale du verbe dans les phrases dont un terme est focalisé. Dans ce contexte, le verbe a son schème tonal inhérent s’il précède le terme focalisé, comme en (c), alors qu’il a le ton grammatical B s’il lui succède, comme en (a) ou (b).

(1a) Múusá yà‑n dà qálìsí‑n kìnì Hàatú yì.

Moussa FOC‑SUJ TR argent‑D donnerB Fatou POSTP

‘C’est Moussa qui a donné l’argent à Fatou.’

(1b) Múusá dà qálìsí‑n ñà kìnì Hàatú yì.

Moussa TR argent‑D FOC donnerB Fatou POSTP

‘C’est l’argent que Moussa a donné à Fatou.’

(1c) Múusá dà qálìsí‑n kínì Hàatú yà yí.

Moussa TR argent‑D donnerB Fatou FOC POSTP

‘C’est à Fatou que Moussa a donné l’argent.’

17 Les lexèmes verbaux ont accès à la position V dans la construction prédicative verbale S mp (O) V (X). Dans cette construction, il y a une relation particulière de conditionnement mutuel entre les positions mp et V : à l’exception de ntá, chaque marqueur prédicatif est compatible avec l’une seule des quatre formes fléchies du verbe (et réciproquement, chaque forme fléchie du verbe est compatible avec certains marqueurs prédicatifs seulement – parfois un seul).

Les adjectifs

18 Les adjectifs ne se distinguent pas des noms au niveau de leur flexion. Ils peuvent aussi occuper à eux seuls toutes les positions syntaxiques typiquement occupées par des noms, mais avec une restriction importante : exactement comme les adjectifs du français et des autres langues romanes, un adjectif soninké ne peut occuper à lui seul une position nominale (notamment la position de terme sujet, objet ou oblique d’une construction prédicative) que si le contexte permet de l’interpréter comme modifiant sémantiquement un lexème nominal non exprimé. Une phrase comme (2), où la position d’objet est occupée par un adjectif, ne peut s’utiliser que dans un contexte

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permettant de deviner le type d’entité auquel s’applique la qualification ‘blanc / blanche’ : tissu, cheval, vache, etc.

(2) À dà qúllè‑n qóbó.

3SG TR blanc acheter

‘Il a acheté le blanc / la blanche.’

19 Par contre, lorsqu’ils se combinent avec des noms qu’ils qualifient, les adjectifs entrent dans une construction particulière qui fait leur spécificité par rapport aux noms. En effet, ils forment avec les noms qu’ils qualifient des composés morphologiques dont la structure est différente de celle des composés dans lesquels un nom modifie un autre nom – exemple (3).

(3) À dà sélín‑qúllè‑n qóbó.

3SG TR poule‑blanc‑D acheter

‘Il a acheté la poule blanche.’

20 À l’exemple (3), sélìnŋê est à la même forme non‑autonome selí ́n‑ que dans des composés N + N tels que sélín‑kánpè ‘aile de poule’ ou selí ́n‑gáagaanà ̂ ‘vendeur de poules’, mais les composés dans lesquels un nom modifie un autre nom sont construits selon l’ordre ‘modifieur suivi du modifié’ (qui est aussi celui de la construction génitivale ou possession adnominale), tandis que les composés dans lesquels un adjectif modifie un nom sont construits selon l’ordre ‘modifié suivi du modifieur’.

21 En outre, dans leur emploi prédicatif, les adjectifs ne se comportent pas exactement comme les noms : comme nous le verrons en 3.6, c’est la même copule équative qui marque l’emploi prédicatif des noms et des adjectifs, mais la construction est différente.

22 Par contraste avec les langues mandingues, dans lesquelles une partie seulement des lexèmes correspondants forment des composés avec les noms qu’ils qualifient, il est important de souligner qu’en soninké, quelle que soit la nature morphologique précise des adjectifs (simples, dérivés par affixation ou composés), ils ne peuvent fonctionner comme modifieurs qualificatifs de noms que dans le cadre de composés dans lesquels le nom qualifié est à la forme non‑autonome, et auxquels s’applique la règle de compacité tonale qui vaut pour tous les autres types de composés nominaux. Comme on peut le voir à l’exemple (4), en soninké, lorsqu’un nom et un adjectif se succèdent sans former un composé, il ne peut pas s’agir d’une construction dans laquelle l’adjectif restreindrait le signifié lexical du nom qui le précède, mais uniquement d’une construction dans laquelle l’adjectif est en fonction de prédicat second, le nom auquel il succède étant nécessairement à la forme définie.

(4a) Ń́ dà yàxàrì‑ñáxálíntè‑n ŋàrí.

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1SG TR femme‑joyeux‑D voir

‘J’ai vu une femme joyeuse.’ (l’adjectif est en fonction de modifieur restrictif)

(4b) Yàxàré‑n ñàxàlìnté‑n dàgá.

femme‑D joyeux‑DBH partir

‘La femme est partie joyeuse.’(l’adjectif est en fonction de prédicat second)

Les verbes statifs

23 Les verbes statifs fonctionnent prédicativement dans une construction qui n’est pas différente de la construction prédicative verbale intransitive S mp V (X), avec toutefois les deux particularités suivantes qui les distinguent des verbes : • les verbes statifs n’ont pas de forme de gérondif, • comme nous le verrons plus en détail en 3.3, le paradigme des marqueurs prédicatifs compatibles avec les verbes statifs se réduit à deux éléments dont l’opposition se limite à exprimer la distinction « positif vs. négatif », à l’exclusion des valeurs aspectuelles ou modales que ces mêmes marqueurs prédicatifs expriment dans leur combinaison avec les verbes.

Constructions prédicatives

La construction prédicative verbale

24 La construction prédicative verbale peut être schématisée par la formule suivante, où S, mp, O, V et X* sont mis respectivement pour « constituant nominal sujet », « marqueur prédicatif », « constituant nominal objet », « verbe », et « un ou plusieurs termes obliques ».

25 S mp (O) V (X*)

26 Selon que le terme O est ou non présent, on peut parler de construction prédicative verbale transitive ou intransitive. Le soninké fait partie des langues dans lesquelles la distinction entre construction transitive et construction intransitive est formellement marquée. En effet, plusieurs valeurs de TAM s’expriment différemment selon que la construction est transitive ou intransitive : • à l’accompli positif, la position du marqueur prédicatif reste vide si la construction est intransitive, alors qu’elle est occupée par le marqueur de transitivité dà si la construction est transitive – ex. (5) ; • à l’impératif positif, si le sujet est singulier, la position du marqueur prédicatif reste dans tous les cas vide ; par contre si le sujet est pluriel, elle n’est vide qu’à l’intransitif, tandis qu’au transitif elle est occupée par le même marqueur de transitivité dà – ex. (6) ; • le marqueur prédicatif du subjonctif est nàn ou ˋn (en variation libre) si la construction est intransitive, nà si la construction est transitive – ex. (7) ;

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• à l’inaccompli positif, en présence d’un constituant focalisé ou d’un mot interrogatif, la position du marqueur prédicatif reste vide si la construction est intransitive, alors qu’elle est occupée par nà si la construction est transitive – ex. (8).

(5a) Hàré‑n dùgùtá.

âne‑D s’échapper

‘L’âne s’est échappé.’

(5b) Hàré‑n dà yúgò‑n dànbú.

âne‑D TR homme‑D donner_un_coup_de_pied

‘L’âne a donné un coup de patte à l’homme.’

(6a) Qà táaxú !

2PLB s’asseoir

‘Asseyez‑vous !’

(6b) Qà dà yìllé ké ró‑ndí !

2PLB TR mil DEM entrer‑CAUS

‘Faites rentrer le mil !’

(7a) Ì tí án nàn táaxú.

3PL dire 2SG SUBJ.INTR s’asseoir

‘On te dit de t’asseoir.’

(7b) Ì tí án nà Hàatú dèemá.

3PL dire 2SG SUBJ.TR Fatou aider

‘On te dit d’aider Fatou.’

(8a) À wá sállì‑ní.

3SG INACP prier‑GER

‘Il prie.’

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(8b) À Ø sállì‑ní yà.

3SG INACP.INTR. prier‑GER FOC

‘Ce qu’il fait, c’est prier.’

(8c) À wá hàrê‑n gáagà‑ná.

3SG INACP âne‑D vendre‑GER

‘Il vend l’âne.’

(8d) À nà hàrê‑n gáagà‑ná yà.

3SG INACP.TR âne‑D vendre‑GER FOC

‘Ce qu’il fait avec l’âne, c’est de le vendre.’

Marqueurs prédicatifs combinables aux verbes

27 On se limite ici aux marqueurs prédicatifs susceptibles de figurer dans une phrase indépendante. Les marqueurs prédicatifs présentés dans le Tableau 3 se combinent à la forme nue du verbe.

28 Les marqueurs prédicatifs présentés dans le Tableau 4 se combinent à la forme de gérondif du verbe.

Tableau 3 : Les marqueurs prédicatifs verbaux combinables à la forme nue du verbe

accompli positif, intransitif Ø

accompli positif, transitif dà

accompli négatif má

accompli récent háxà

accompli passé `ñígà

accompli passé négatif má ñìgà

projectif positif6 ná

projectif négatif ntá

subjonctif positif, intransitif7 nàn ~ ˋn

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subjonctif positif, transitif nà

subjonctif négatif nàn máxà

impératif positif, intransitif Ø

impératif positif, transitif8 Ø / dà

impératif négatif máxà

Tableau 4 : Les marqueurs prédicatifs verbaux combinables à la forme de gérondif

inaccompli positif 19 wá

inaccompli positif 2, intransitif Ø

inaccompli positif 2, transitif nà

inaccompli négatif ntá

inaccompli passé ˋñí

inaccompli passé négatif má ñì

progressif 10 háyí

29 Les marqueurs prédicatifs ma ́ et ntá ont la particularité d’imposer au verbe la forme à ton grammatical B, alors qu’avec tous les autres marqueurs prédicatifs susceptibles de figurer dans une phrase indépendante, l’emploi de la forme à ton grammatical B est conditionné par la présence d’un constituant nominal focalisé ou d’un mot interrogatif en fonction de sujet ou d’objet.

Marqueurs prédicatifs combinables aux verbes statifs

30 Les lexèmes appartenant à la classe des verbes statifs occupent la position V dans une construction prédicative dont la structure est celle de la prédication verbale intransitive, mais ils se combinent avec un couple unique de marqueurs prédicatifs (nàn ~ ǹ ‘positif’, glosé ‘ST’ et ntá ‘négatif’, glosé ‘ST.NEG’), et leur flexion se réduit à la flexion tonale « forme à ton lexical » (si le marqueur prédicatif est nàn ~ ˋn et que le sujet n’est pas focalisé) vs. « forme à ton grammatical B » (si le marqueur prédicatif est ntá, ou si le sujet est focalisé). Les exemples (9) et (10) illustrent quelques verbes statifs.

(9a) Ń qàràllènmú‑n nàn púnŋù tánñéré yì.

1SG élève.PL‑DBH ST être_supérieur soixante‑dix POSTP

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‘Mes élèves sont plus de soixante‑dix.’

(9b) Dèbì‑gòorì‑yé‑n naǹ pàsú jàatìgì‑gòorì‑yé‑n ŋà.

village‑éviter‑NMLS‑D ST être_meilleur logeur‑éviter‑NMLS‑D POSTP

‘Il vaut mieux éviter un village qu’éviter son logeur.’

(10a) Ó ntá gàbà Hàatú ŋàllí.

1PL ST.NEG être_fréquentB Fatou voir.GER

‘Nous ne voyons pas souvent Fatou.’

(10b) Ñèngèntàaxû‑n ntá lìnŋì Állà da.́

injustice‑D ST.NEG être_agréableB Dieu pour

‘Dieu n’aime pas l’injustice.’

31 Les deux marqueurs prédicatifs combinables avec les verbes statifs (nàn ~ ǹ ‘positif’ et ntá ‘négatif’) existent aussi en combinaison avec les verbes, mais appariés différemment, et avec d’autres valeurs sémantiques : • avec les verbes, le prédicatif positif nàn ~ ǹ a une valeur de subjonctif, et forme un couple avec le prédicatif négatif nàn máxà (et non pas ntá) ; • avec les verbes, le prédicatif négatif ntá combiné à la forme nue du lexème verbal a une valeur de projectif, et forme un couple avec le prédicatif positif ná (et non pas nàn ~ ǹ). 32 Le point crucial est que, combinés aux verbes statifs, nàn ~ ǹ et ntá se limitent à marquer la distinction de polarité (positif vs. négatif), et sont totalement dépourvus des valeurs aspecto‑modales qu’ils expriment avec les verbes.

La prédication non verbale de localisation

33 La copule de localisation wá (positif) / ntá (négatif) doit minimalement être combinée à deux termes. L’un précède la copule, et dans l’emploi prototypique de cette construction, il représente une entité qu’on localise. L’autre suit la copule, et il ne se distingue en rien des obliques qui succèdent au verbe dans la prédication verbale ; dans l’emploi prototypique de cette construction, il exprime la localisation du référent de l’autre terme.

(11a) Hàatú wá kónpè‑n dí.

Fatou COPLOC chambre‑D dans

‘Fatou est dans la chambre.’

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(11b) Hàatú ntá kónpè‑n dí.

Fatou COPLOC.NEG chambre‑D dans

‘Fatou n’est pas dans la chambre.’

34 La copule de localisation positive a une variante nà dans les phrases comportant un groupe nominal focalisé ou un mot interrogatif.

(12a) Kó nà kónpè‑n dí ?

qui COPLOC chambre‑D dans

‘Qui est dans la chambre ?’

(12b) Hàatú yà nà kónpè‑n dí.

Fatou FOC COPLOC chambre‑D dans

‘C’est Fatou qui est dans la chambre.’

(12c) Hàatú nà mínnà ?

qui COPLOC où

‘Où est Fatou ?’

(12d) Hàatú nà ké kónpé yà dí.

Fatou COPLOC DEM chambre FOC dans

‘C’est dans cette chambre qu’est Fatou.’

35 Il y a une relation évidente entre la copule de localisation et le marqueur prédicatif d’inaccompli dans la construction prédicative verbale, qui doivent toutefois être distingués dans une analyse synchronique. En effet : • ntá en tant que marqueur prédicatif d’inaccompli modifie la tonalité du verbe de la même façon que le marqueur prédicatif d’accompli négatif má, alors que dans son emploi copulatif, ntá n’exerce aucune influence tonale sur les autres mots présents dans la construction ; • à l’intransitif en présence d’un groupe nominal focalisé ou d’un mot interrogatif, le marqueur d’inaccompli wá a une variante zéro, alors qu’il n’y a rien de tel pour la copule de localisation.

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La prédication non verbale d’identification

36 La copule équative ˋní (positif) / ˋhé ~ hètí (négatif) figure dans une construction qui admet deux variantes selon que l’entité identifiée ou catégorisée est explicitement désignée ou reste sous‑entendue.

37 Si l’entité que l’on identifie n’est pas explicitement désignée, le constituant exprimant l’identification ou la catégorisation précède la copule équative, et dans une phrase positive indépendante, il doit être marqué du focalisateur ˋyá.

(13) Tàgé‑n ñà ní.

forgeron‑D FOC COPEQ

‘C’est un forgeron.’

38 Si l’entité que l’on identifie est explicitement désignée, la copule d’identification doit être précédée d’un constituant nominal et suivie d’un autre constituant nominal marqué de la postposition ˋyí ~ ˋyá ~ ˋŋá, mais la désignation de l’entité identifiée et l’identification n’occupent pas une position fixe dans cette construction. Dans les phrases positives indépendantes, l’un des deux termes doit être marqué du focalisateur ˋyá, et c’est la place du focalisateur qui est déterminante pour l’interprétation – ex. (14).

(14a) Ké yúgó nì tàgé‑n ñà yí.

DEM homme COPEQ forgeron‑D FOC POSTP

‘Cet homme est forgeron.’

(14b) Tàgé‑n ñà ní ké yúgó yì.

forgeron‑D FOC COPEQ DEM homme POSTP

‘Cet homme est forgeron.’

Adjectifs en fonction prédicative

39 Les adjectifs ont en commun avec les noms d’assumer la fonction prédicative en se combinant à la copule équative. Toutefois, la construction n’est pas identique à celle décrite en 3.5 pour les noms. En effet, dans la prédication adjectivale, la copule équative est obligatoirement précédée de deux termes, et la présence du focalisateur ne constitue pas une obligation.

40 Le premier terme de la construction prédicative propre aux adjectifs est un constituant nominal dont on prédique la propriété signifiée par l’adjectif, et le deuxième est l’adjectif en fonction de prédicat. Curieusement, l’adjectif en fonction de prédicat et le

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constituant nominal qui le précède sont mis en forme exactement comme le nom‑tête et son modifieur dans une construction génitivale.11 En effet, quel que soit son schème tonal inhérent, l’adjectif en fonction prédicative prend uniformément le schème tonal BH qui est aussi celui de la forme construite des noms, et s’il est précédé d’un pronom de troisième personne, celui‑ci prend la forme à ton H, exactement comme en fonction de possesseur adnominal. Par exemple, l’adjectif illustré en emploi prédicatif à l’exemple (15) a pour schème tonal lexical tóoxíntè.

(15a) Ñántò‑n bùnné‑n tòoxìnté‑n nì.

scorpion‑D piqûre‑DBH douloureux‑DBH COPEQ

‘La piqûre du scorpion est douloureuse.’

(15b) Á tòoxìnté‑n nì.

3SGH douloureux‑DBH COPEQ

‘C’est douloureux.’

Implications sémantiques de l’emploi de verbes statifs

41 Comme cela apparaîtra dans l’inventaire de verbes statifs fourni à la section 5, en soninké, il n’y a que très peu de verbes statifs qui ne soient pas en concurrence avec un adjectif et un verbe auxquels ils sont apparentés. En outre en soninké, comme cela est courant dans les langues d’Afrique de l’Ouest, le paradigme flexionnel des verbes signifiant des processus comporte des formes couramment étiquetées « accompli » (ou « perfectif ») largement disponibles pour se référer non seulement à l’aboutissement de processus, mais aussi à des états abstraction faite de toute implication quant à un processus dont ces états pourraient résulter. Ainsi, à l’exemple (16), l’accompli négatif de qótò ‘devenir difficile’ ne doit pas être compris comme ‘n’est pas devenu difficile’, mais plutôt comme ‘n’est pas difficile’, et on pourrait multiplier à l’infini de tels exemples.

(16) Nàn ñígé má qòtò.

INF.INTR manger.ANTIP ACP.NEG devenir_difficileB

‘Ce n’est pas difficile de manger.’

42 Dans ces conditions, on doit se demander ce qui peut conditionner l’utilisation de verbes statifs de préférence à l’accompli d’un verbe de processus, ou à une prédication adjectivale. O. M. Diagana (1995:263) évoque à juste titre les notions d’intensité et d’emphase. On pourrait ajouter la notion d’évaluation. En effet, il est tout à fait évident que dans les séances d’élicitation, les locuteurs sont particulièrement enclins à

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produire des verbes statifs lorsqu’on leur demande d’exprimer des comparaisons, comme à l’exemple (17).

(17) Kànjàané‑n tàrú‑n nàn gìilá gùwàané‑n qàllú‑n ŋà.

lièvre‑D oreille.PL‑DBH ST être_long écureuil‑D part.PL‑DBH POSTP

‘Les oreilles du lièvre sont plus longues que celles de l’écureuil.’

L’inventaire des verbes statifs

43 Comme semble le suggérer O. M. Diagana (1995:264), il n’est pas facile d’établir de façon précise l’inventaire des lexèmes du soninké susceptibles d’avoir le comportement typique des verbes statifs. En effet, comme cela apparaîtra dans l’inventaire ci‑dessous, l’immense majorité des verbes statifs du soninké sont apparentés à la fois à un verbe et à un adjectif dont ils diffèrent essentiellement par leur voyelle finale, et cette situation favorise indéniablement la création accidentelle de verbes statifs en plus de ceux dont l’usage est consacré. Ainsi, en situation d’élicitation, les consultants peuvent avoir du mal à évaluer s’il existe ou non un verbe statif correspondant à tel verbe ou adjectif, et revenir d’une séance à l’autre sur leurs jugements. C’est pour cette raison que, dans l’inventaire qui suit, j’ai choisi de ne pas donner la liste de tous les verbes statifs que j’ai pu obtenir en élicitation, et de me limiter à ceux qui sont aussi attestés par au moins une autre source dans une phrase où on ne peut les analyser que comme des verbes statifs.12 Par souci d’homogénéité des données, je ne tiens pas compte non plus de quelques verbes statifs que j’ai notés dans diverses publications mais que je n’ai pas obtenus dans ma propre enquête. Cet inventaire est donc certainement incomplet, et en outre il ne préjuge en rien de la possibilité de variations dans l’inventaire des verbes statifs d’un parler à un autre.

Verbes statifs « primaires »

44 Les verbes statifs énumérés à cette section se distinguent de ceux décrits en 5.2 par le fait qu’ils ne sont pas de manière évidente le produit d’une dérivation par affixation. Si « primaire » est toutefois mis entre guillemets, c’est parce que, comme cela a déjà été dit, la plupart des verbes statifs « primaires » entretiennent une relation avec un verbe et avec un adjectif, mais une relation qui n’a pas d’orientation évidente, car elle met essentiellement en jeu des alternances de voyelles.

45 • báanà ‘être égal’

(18) Á dò sèré tàná ntá bàanà iń màxá.

3SGH avec personne autre ST.NEG être_égalB 1SG pour

‘Pour moi il n’a pas d’égal.’

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46 cf. báané ‘un’, báanò ‘devenir identique’

47 • báráxátá ‘être gros, fier’

(19) Múusá yàn nàn bàràxàtà Sánbà yí.

Moussa FOC ST être_grosB Samba POSTP

‘Moussa est plus gros que Samba.’

48 cf. báráxàtê ‘gros’, báráxátó ‘grossir’

49 • dàrá ‘être gros, important’

(20) Kìidé‑n nàn dàrá, qà á gìngê‑n

baobab‑D ST être_gros mais 3SGH branche‑DBH

ntá ñàa‑nà làbù‑n‑qáré yì.

INACP.NEG faire‑GERB couteau‑EP‑manche POST

‘Le baobab est énorme, mais sa branche ne peut pas s’utiliser comme manche de couteau.’

50 cf. dàrê ‘important’, dàré ‘devenir important’, dàró ‘accorder de l’importance à’

51 • dèhá ‘être court, bas’

(21) Án nàn dèhá ín ŋà.

2SG ST être_court 1SG POSTP

‘Tu es plus petit (de taille) que moi.’

52 cf. deppê ‘court, bas’, dèhó ‘devenir court, bas’

53 • dìnká ‘être gros’

(22) Án nàn dìnká ín ŋà.

2SG ST être_gros 1SG POSTP

‘Tu es plus gros que moi.’

54 cf. dìnkâ ‘gros’, dìnkó ‘grossir’

55 • gàbá ‘être souvent quelque part, faire souvent quelque chose’

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(23) À nàn gàbá ké yítté yà wùré.

3SG ST être_fréquent DEM arbre FOC sous

‘C’est souvent sous cet arbre qu’il se trouve.’

56 cf. gàbê ‘nombreux, abondant, fréquent’, gàbó ‘devenir nombreux, abondant, fréquent’

57 • gìilá ‘être long, haut’

(24) Múusá nàn gìilá Dénbà yí.

Moussa ST être_long Demba POSTP

‘Moussa est plus grand (de taille) que Demba.’

58 cf. gìilê ‘long, haut’, gìiló ‘devenir long, haut’

59 • hàsú ‘être meilleur, aller mieux’

(25) Mènjàn‑círè‑n nàn pàsú wáaxí‑búrè‑n ŋá.

ami‑bon‑D ST être_meilleur frère‑mauvais‑D POSTP

‘Un bon ami vaut mieux qu’un mauvais frère.’

60 cf. hàsê ‘meilleur’, hàsó ‘s’améliorer’

61 • húnŋù ‘être supérieur’

(26) Ádámá nàn púnŋù Múusá yì qálìsí yà.

Adama ST être_supérieur Moussa POSTP argent POSTP

‘Adama a plus d’argent que Moussa.’

62 cf. húnŋò ‘dépasser’13

63 • jàwú ‘être rapide’

(27) Sí‑n nàn jàwú hàré‑n ŋà.

cheval‑D ST être_rapide âne‑D POSTP

‘Le cheval est plus rapide que l’âne.’

64 cf. jàyê ‘rapide’, jàwó ‘devenir rapide’

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65 • láatú ‘être loin’

(28) Áxá kùndá nàn láatú yèré yì bá ?

2PL quartierBH ST être_loin ici POSTP Q

‘Est‑ce que votre quartier est loin d’ici ?’

66 cf. láatè ‘éloigné’, láató ‘s’éloigner’

67 • línŋá, línŋí ‘être doux, agréable’

(29) Qátè‑n nàn línŋá ké lémíné dà.

chahut‑D ST être_agréable DEM enfant pour

‘Cet enfant aime le chahut.’

68 cf. línŋè ‘doux, agréable’, línŋó ‘devenir doux, agréable’

69 • lòxá ‘être petit, peu’

(30) Á nàhá‑n nàn lòxá.

3SGH utilité‑D ST être_peu

‘Ce n’est pas très utile.’

70 cf. lòxê ‘petit, peu’, lòxó ‘devenir petit, peu’

71 • mìsá ‘être mince, mesquin’

(31) Án nàn mìsá hárì huñá ́nŋè.

2SG ST être_mesquin même fonio.D

‘Tu es mesquin comme le fonio.’

72 cf. mìsê ‘mince, mesquin’, mìsó ‘devenir mince, mesquin’

73 • nèhá, nèwú ‘être facile

(32) Ké góllé nàn nèhá ké báanè yí.

DEM travail ST être_facile DEM un POSTP

‘Ce travail est plus facile que cet autre.’

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74 cf. nèyê ‘facile’, nèwó ‘devenir facile’

75 • ñérà ‘être égal’

(33) À sú nàn ñérà yàxàré‑n màxá.

3SG tout ST être_égal femme‑D pour

‘Tout cela est égal à la femme.’

76 cf. ñérò ‘devenir égal’14

77 • ŋáríñá, ŋáríñánŋá ‘être laid’

(34) Túrúnŋè‑n nàn ŋáríñá(nŋá) túunè‑n ŋá.

hyène‑D ST être_laid chacal‑D POSTP

‘L’hyène est plus laide que le chacal.’

78 cf. ŋáríñànŋê ‘laid’, ŋáríñánŋó ‘devenir laid’

79 • qáwà ‘se ressembler, aller bien ensemble’

(35) Á dò í yàqqê‑n ntá qàwà.

3SGH avec REFL épouse‑D ST.NEG s’accorderB

‘Lui et son épouse ne sont pas faits l’un pour l’autre.’

80 cf. qáwò ‘devenir semblable’15

81 • qáwà ‘devoir’

(36) Án ntá qàwà nà lémíné ké kátú.

2SG ST.NEG devoirB INF enfant DEM frapper

‘Tu ne dois pas frapper cet enfant.’

82 Ce verbe statif ne correspond à aucun adjectif ou verbe, mais il est probablement issu d’une dérive sémantique à partir de qáwà ‘aller bien ensemble’ – cf. (Creissels 2017).

83 • qáxásá ‘être amer’

(37) Ké sáhàré nàn qáxásá ké báanè yí.

DEM médicament ST être_amer DEM un POSTP

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‘Ce médicament est plus amer que cet autre.’

84 cf. qáxàccê ‘amer’, qáxásó ‘devenir amer’

85 • qòorá : (st.) être grand

(38) Ń kà‑n nàn qòorá dìinàntá án kà‑n ŋá.

1SG maison‑DBH ST être_grand plus_que 2SG maison‑DBH POSTP

‘Ma maison est plus grande que la tienne.’

86 cf. qòorê ‘grand’, qòoró ‘grandir’

87 • qótò, qótà ‘être dur, difficile, lourd’

(39) À nàn qótò án nà gùndù‑hó ŋàrí dó

3SG ST être_difficile 2SG SUBJ.TR brousse‑chose voir avec

yèré bànŋê.

ici côté.DBH

‘C’est difficile de voir des animaux sauvages par ici.’

88 cf. qótè ‘dur, difficile, lourd’, qótò ‘devenir dur, difficile, lourd’

89 • sáagá, sáagú ‘être courageux’

(40) Ké yúgó nàn cáagá ké báanè yí.

DEM homme ST être_courageux DEM un POSTP

‘Cet homme est plus courageux que cet autre.’

90 cf. sáagè ‘courageux’, sáagó ‘oser’

91 • sáláxá ‘être lisse, visqueux’

(41) Ké háté nàn cáláxá ké báanè yí.

DEM peau ST être_lisse DEM un POSTP

‘Cette peau est plus lisse que cette autre.’

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92 cf. sálàqqê ‘lisse, visqueux’, sáláxó ‘devenir lisse, visqueux’

93 • sírì ‘être bon’

(42) Qàncó‑n nàn círì tí lémúnu‑̀ n ŋá.

bouillie‑D ST être_bon avec enfant.PL POSTP

‘La bouillie de farine est bonne pour les enfants.’

94 cf. sírè ‘bon’, síró ‘devenir bon’

95 • sírì ‘devoir’

(43) Ó nàn círì dàgà‑ná kéetá.

1PL ST devoir partir‑GER maintenant

‘Nous devons partir maintenant.’

96 Ce verbe statif ne correspond à aucun adjectif ou verbe, mais il est probablement issu d’une dérive sémantique à partir de sírì ‘être bon’, selon un processus déjà évoqué ci‑dessus pour son synonyme qáwà – cf. (Creissels 2017).

97 • táwó, táwú ‘être chaud, rapide’

(44) Kìyé‑n nàn táwó.

soleil‑D ST être_chaud

‘Le soleil est ardent.’

98 cf. táyè ‘chaud’, táwó ‘devenir chaud’

99 • tìntá ‘être proche’, cf. tìntê ‘proche’, tìntó ‘s’approcher’

Verbes statifs dérivés par suffixation

100 Il existe en soninké une dérivation très productive d’adjectifs déverbaux au moyen d’un suffixe ‑nte : wáxà‑ntê ‘fou’ < wáxà ‘perdre la tête’, bònò‑ntê ‘abîmé’ < bòno ́ ‘abîmer’, ŋáalí‑ntè ‘brillant’ < ŋáalí ‘briller’, etc. Les adjectifs déverbaux de ce type ont une forme non‑autonome terminée en a : wáxántá‑, bònòntà‑, ŋáalintá ́‑, etc. Par exemple, múxúntè ‘caché’ (< múxú ‘cacher’) apparaît à la forme non‑autonome múxúntá‑ dans un composé comme múxúntá‑n‑gáagà ‘acheter en cachette’.

101 Pour certains de ces adjectifs déverbaux au moins, il existe un verbe statif de même sens dont la forme coïncide (au moins segmentalement) avec la forme non‑autonome de l’adjectif déverbal. Par exemple :

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Tableau 5 : Verbes, adjectifs déverbaux et verbes statifs

verbe adjectif déverbal verbe statif

bònòntê bònó ‘abîmer’ ‘abîmé’, ‘nuisible’ bònòntá ‘être nuisible’ f.n.aut. bònòntà‑

ŋáalíntè ŋáalí ‘briller’ ‘brillant’ ŋáalíntá ‘être brillant’ f.n.aut. ŋáalíntá‑

tóoxíntè tóoxì ‘se fâcher’ ‘féroce’ tóoxíntá ‘être féroce’ f.n.aut. tóoxíntá‑

(45) Hàabà‑n‑báanà‑n nàn bònò‑ntá jàrìnté‑n ŋà.

père‑EP‑un‑D ST abîmer‑DER lion‑D POSTP

‘Le demi‑frère est plus nuisible qu’un lion.’

(46) Ké hóróntó nàn tóoxí‑ntá ké báané yì.

DEM piment ST se_fâcher‑DER DEM un POSTP

‘Ce piment‑ci est plus fort que cet autre.’

Les verbes statifs dans le système de dérivation du soninké

102 Il ressort de l’inventaire donné à la section 5 qu’en règle générale, les verbes statifs sont en relation avec un adjectif de même sens, ainsi qu’avec un verbe qui signifie le processus aboutissant à l’état signifié par le verbe statif, et ces relations s’expriment essentiellement par une alternance de voyelles à la finale du lexème.

103 Pour les verbes statifs en relation avec un adjectif déverbal en ‑nte (cf. 5.2), la coïncidence entre le verbe statif et la forme non‑autonome de l’adjectif déverbal autorise une description, soit en termes de dérivation parallèle (le même dérivatif ajouté à un verbe donnant naissance à un adjectif et à un verbe statif), soit en termes de conversion des adjectifs déverbaux en verbes statifs.

104 Pour les verbes statifs primaires, l’analyse de la relation avec les verbes et adjectifs correspondants demande tout d’abord de récapituler les correspondances attestées dans l’inventaire donné en 5.1 :

Tableau 6 : Verbes statifs, adjectifs et verbes intransitifs

verbe statif adjectif verbe intransitif

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báanà ‘être égal’ báané báanó

báráxátá ‘être gros, fier’ báráxàtê báráxátó

dàrá ‘être gros, important’ darè ̂ darè ́

dèhá ‘être court, bas’ dèppê dèhó

dìnká ‘être gros’ dìnkâ dìnkó

gàbá ‘être fréquent’ gàbê gàbó

gìilá ‘être long, haut’ gìilê gìiló

hàsú ‘être meilleur’ hàsê hàsó

húnŋù ‘être supérieur’ — húnŋò

jàwú ‘être rapide’ jàyê jàwó

láatú ‘être loin’ láatè láató

línŋá, línŋí ‘être doux, agréable’ línŋè línŋó

lòxá ‘être petit, peu’ lòxê lòxó

mìsá ‘être mince, mesquin’ mìsê mìsó

nèhá, nèwú ‘être facile’ nèyê nèwó

ñérà ‘être égal’ — ñérò

ŋáríñá(nŋá) ‘être laid’ ŋáríñànŋê ŋáríñánŋó

qáwà ‘se ressembler’ — qáwó

qáwà ‘devoir’ — —

qáxásá ‘être amer’ qáxàccê qáxásó

qòorá ‘être grand’ qòorê qòoró

qótà, qótò ‘être dur, difficile, lourd’ qótè qóto

sáagá, sáagú ‘être courageux’ sáagè sáagó

sáláxá ‘être lisse, visqueux’ sálàqqê sáláxó

sírì ‘être bon’ sírè síró

sírì ‘devoir’ — —

táwó, táwú ‘être chaud’ táyè táwó

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tìntá ‘être proche’ tìntê tìntó

105 La régularité dominante est très clairement que la terminaison a pour le verbe statif correspond à une terminaison e pour l’adjectif, et à une terminaison o pour le verbe intransitif. Il est toutefois frappant de constater que les verbes statifs présentent plus de variété dans leurs terminaisons que les adjectifs et les verbes intransitifs qui leur correspondent : • parmi les adjectifs qui figurent dans la liste, un seul (dìnkâ ‘gros’) présente une terminaison autre que e ; • parmi les verbes intransitifs qui figurent dans la liste, un seul (dàré ‘devenir important’) présente une terminaison autre que o, et encore faut‑il noter que ce verbe peut être analysé comme le dérivé médiopassif régulier du verbe transitif dàró ‘accorder de l’importance à’ ; • parmi les verbes statifs qui figurent dans la liste, quatre présentent une terminaison u, deux présentent une terminaison i, et cinq autres manifestent une hésitation entre la terminaison a et une autre terminaison.

106 Compte tenu de ce qui se passe avec les verbes statifs dérivés par suffixation (qui, au moins segmentalement, sont homonymes de la forme non‑autonome de l’adjectif déverbal correspondant), il convient de souligner que très peu de verbes statifs primaires sont homonymes de la forme non‑autonome de l’adjectif correspondant. Les seuls cas nets dans les limites de mes données sont báanà ‘être égal’ (báané ‘un’ a pour forme non‑autonome báaná‑) et dìnká ‘être gros’ (l’adjectif correspondant, dìnkâ, a pour forme non‑autonome dìnkà‑). Les hésitations dans la voyelle finale de certains verbes statifs ainsi que dans la voyelle finale de quelques adjectifs à la forme non‑autonome rendent difficile une évaluation plus précise, mais parmi les adjectifs qui figurent dans cette liste, très peu m’ont été donnés avec la possibilité d’une forme non‑autonome se terminant par une voyelle autre que i, alors que i est très peu attesté comme terminaison possible de verbes statifs. La régularité dominante est l’alternance illustrée par gìilê ‘long’, qui a pour forme non‑autonome gìilì‑ et correspond au verbe statif gìila.́

107 Avant de revenir à la question des verbes statifs, il est aussi utile de dire quelques mots sur la relation entre adjectifs en e et verbes intransitifs en o, car cette relation vaut aussi pour beaucoup de couples adjectif / verbe sans verbe statif correspondant.

108 O. M. Diagana (1995:123–125) a recensé une cinquantaine d’adjectifs primaires16 (c’est‑à‑dire non analysables comme le produit d’une dérivation par affixation), et ces données ont été confirmées par l’enquête lexicale que j’ai moi‑même effectuée dans l’objectif de l’analyse phonologique du soninké du Kingi (Creissels 2016). Seuls cinq des adjectifs primaires (10 %) ne se terminent pas par e : dìnkâ ‘énorme’, dúurò ‘vide’, hákkà ‘plein’, kúrúnbà ‘nouveau’ et qàntô ‘gros’.

109 Quant à la relation entre adjectifs en e et verbes en o, O. M. Diagana (1995:260–264) l’analyse sous l’intitulé de « verbalisation adjectivale », ce qui implique qu’il considère comme allant de soi que la relation doit être orientée dans le sens « adjectif > verbe ». Il ne fournit d’ailleurs aucune justification de ce choix, qui est pourtant tout sauf évident.

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110 Une observation importante est qu’il y a très peu d’exceptions à la règle selon laquelle à chaque adjectif primaire correspond un verbe dont la terminaison est o. Les exceptions sont les suivantes : • les adjectifs de couleur bìnnê ‘noir’, dùnbê ‘rouge’ et qúllè ‘blanc’, qui correspondent aux verbes hìná ‘noircir’, dùnbú ‘rougir’ et qúrá ‘blanchir’ ; • dúurò ‘vide’ et kúrúnbà ‘nouveau’, pour lesquels le verbe correspondant est formé au moyen d’un suffixe ‑aaxu qui est par ailleurs productif pour la formation de verbes à partir de noms : dúur‑áaxú ‘se vider’, kúrúnb‑áaxú ‘renouveler’.

111 Ceci dit, l’hypothèse d’une dérivation orientée de l’adjectif vers le verbe se heurte toutefois à une difficulté importante du fait que dans pas mal de cas, l’adjectif est segmentalement plus complexe que le verbe, avec une gémination consonantique qui n’a pas d’équivalent pour le verbe correspondant (comme dans dèppê ‘court’ / dèhó ‘devenir court’).

112 Mais l’argument le plus fort contre l’hypothèse d’une dérivation orientée de l’adjectif vers le verbe est que seuls les adjectifs primaires correspondent à des verbes en o. Or s’il s’agissait réellement d’une dérivation adjectif > verbe, il n’y aurait aucune raison pour que les adjectifs dérivés par suffixation ne permettent pas eux aussi la formation de verbes en o.

113 En ce qui concerne maintenant le statut des verbes statifs primaires dans le système de dérivation du soninké, O. M. Diagana (1995:263–264) se contente d’évoquer une « verbalisation adjectivale en a » qui se distingue de la « verbalisation adjectivale en o » par le trait « + intensif ». Il n’envisage pas la possibilité que cette « verbalisation adjectivale » cible en fait une catégorie de lexèmes distincte de celle des verbes proprement dits. Il observe seulement en passant l’absence de valeur injonctive dans l’usage du marqueur prédicatif n(àn) avec les verbes statifs, en omettant d’ailleurs de mentionner le couplage avec le marqueur prédicatif négatif ntá, qui est pourtant essentiel.

114 Cette notion de « verbalisation adjectivale en a » est problématique à double titre : d’abord la catégorie visée n’est pas celle des verbes proprement dits, et ensuite les formes supposées être le produit de cette dérivation sont loin de se terminer uniformément en a.

115 Compte tenu de ce qui est l’objectif central de cet article (attirer l’attention sur la nécessité de prendre en compte une catégorie de verbes statifs dans la systématique des parties du discours en soninké), je ne chercherai pas ici à proposer une solution définitive à la question de savoir comment analyser formellement la relation entre les adjectifs et les verbes en o qui leur correspondent. Il me semble prudent de s’en tenir au moins provisoirement à l’idée que, à l’exception de qáwà ‘devoir’ et sírì ‘devoir’ (qui d’un point de vue strictement synchronique ne sont apparentés ni à un verbe, ni à un adjectif), les verbes statifs sont issus de radicaux abstraits au statut catégoriel sous‑spécifié, qui par dérivation équipollente donnent naissance, soit à des dyades « verbe statif / verbe intransitif » (comme par exemple húnŋù ‘être supérieur’ / húnŋò ‘dépasser’), soit à des triades « verbe statif / adjectif / verbe intransitif » (comme sírì ‘être bon’ / sírè ‘bon’ / síró ‘devenir bon’), tandis que d’autres radicaux abstraits au statut catégoriel sous‑spécifié donnent naissance par dérivation équipollente à des dyades « adjectif / verbe intransitif » (comme par exemple senné ̀ ‘pur, propre’ / senó ́ ‘devenir pur, propre’).

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Conclusion

116 Dans cet article, j’ai montré que le système des parties du discours en soninké (au moins dans la variété du Kingi) comporte une catégorie de verbes statifs dont les caractéristiques morphosyntaxiques sont à bien des égards semblables à celles des verbes statifs des langues mandingues. Le point essentiel est la compatibilité de ces lexèmes avec un couple unique de marqueurs prédicatifs, le couplage des deux marqueurs prédicatifs en question étant différent de ceux qu’ils forment dans le cadre de prédication verbale. Une différence importante avec les langues mandingues est toutefois le statut des verbes statifs dans le système de dérivation, car les triades « verbe statif / adjectif / verbe » mettant en jeu une simple alternance de la voyelle finale des lexèmes, qui constituent la règle générale en soninké, n’ont pas d’équivalent dans les langues mandingues.

117 Il resterait maintenant à effectuer sur d’autres variétés de la langue soninké les enquêtes permettant de déterminer jusqu’à quel point la description proposée ici est représentative de ce qui existe dans les autres variétés.

Abréviations et gloses

ACP accompli

ANTIP antipassif

B ton grammatical bas substitué au schème tonal lexical (verbes, noms et numéraux)

BH ton grammatical bas‑haut substitué au schème tonal lexical (noms)

CAUS causatif

COPEQ copule équative

COPLOC copule de localisation

D marqueur de détermination nominale

DEM démonstratif

DER dérivatif

EP nasale épenthétique

FOC focalisateur

GER gérondif

H ton grammatical haut (pronoms de troisième personne)

INACP inaccompli

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INF infinitif

INTR intransitif

NEG négatif

NMLS nominalisation

PL pluriel

POSTP postposition multifonction

Q marque de question totale

REFL réfléchi

SG singulier

ST marqueur prédicatif des verbes statifs

SUBJ subjonctif

SUJ marque de la fonction sujet pour les interrogatifs et les groupes nominaux focalisés

TR marqueur de transitivité

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Références bibliographiques

Creissels, Denis. 1985. Les verbes statifs dans les parlers manding. Mandenkan 10. 1–32.

Creissels, Denis. 2016. Phonologie segmentale et tonale du soninké (parler du Kingi). Mandenkan 55. 3–174.

Creissels, Denis. 2017. Similarity, suitability, and non‑epistemic modalities (volitionality, ability, and obligation). In Yvonne Treis & Martine Vanhove (eds.), Similative and equative constructions: A cross‑linguistic perspective, 79–89. John Benjamins.

Diagana, Ousmane Moussa. 1995. La langue soninkée : morphosyntaxe et sens à travers le parler de Kaédi (Mauritanie). Paris : Harmattan.

Diagana, Ousmane Moussa. 2011. Dictionnaire soninké‑français (Mauritanie). Paris : Karthala.

Diagana, Yacouba. 1994. Éléments de grammaire du soninké. 2 vols. Paris : Les documents de Linguistique africaine.

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Dumestre, Gérard. 2003. Grammaire fondamentale du bambara. Paris : Karthala.

Smeltzer, Brad & Susan Smeltzer. 2001. Lexique Soninké‑Français‑Anglais. Soninke‑French‑English Dictionary. Index Français‑Soninké, English‑Soninke. Bamako.

Vydrine, Valentin. 1990. Les adjectifs prédicatifs en bamana. Mandenkan 20. 47–90.

Vydrine, Valentin. 1999. Les parties du discours en bambara : un essai de bilan. Mandenkan 35. 73– 93.

NOTES

1. Sur les verbes statifs des langues mandingues, cf. (Creissels 1985 ; Dumestre 2003:169–178 ; Vydrine 1990 ; Vydrine 1999). 2. Dans cet exemple, du point de vue segmental, la relation entre le singulier et la forme non‑autonome se résume à un changement de voyelle finale (i ~ e) et il en va de même pour la relation entre le singulier et le pluriel (e ~ u). Toutefois, pour certains noms, la forme non‑autonome se déduit de la forme du singulier par la suppression de la voyelle finale et le remplacement de la consonne précédente ou du groupe consonantique précédent par une nasale (comme dans sámáqqè f.n.aut. sámán‑ ‘serpent’), ce qui s’explique par le fait qu’en soninké, la position de coda peut seulement être occupée par une nasale sous‑spécifiée ou par une copie de l’attaque de la syllabe suivante. Quant au pluriel, une partie des noms le marquent par l’adjonction de ‑nú (ou ‑ní) à la forme du singulier. 3. La règle est que la forme non‑autonome a un schème tonal entièrement B ou entièrement H selon que le ton initial de la forme de singulier est B ou H. 4. S = sujet, mp = marqueur prédicatif, O = objet, V = verbe, X = oblique. 5. Les verbes qui figurent dans ce tableau illustrent la formation régulière du gérondif, par adjonction d’un suffixe ‑nV́, mais un certain nombre de verbes dissyllabiques avec une consonne simple en position médiane font leur gérondif par une transformation de la consonne médiane, qui devient dans tous les cas géminée, accompagnée parfois de modifications des voyelles qui ont un caractère irrégulier (par exemple búgú ‘sortir’ a pour gérondif bákká). Sur la formation du gérondif, cf. (Creissels 2016). 6. Le projectif (terme emprunté à Yacouba Diagana, qui caractérise ce tiroir verbal comme signifiant « un projet dont la réalisation est souhaitée, voire exigée ») peut être vu sémantiquement comme une variété de futur. Ce tiroir s’utilise notamment pour donner des instructions à un interlocuteur, et il a aussi un emploi optatif (comme dans Hárì ná án kísì ! ‘Que Dieu te sauve !’). 7. Le subjonctif s’utilise en phrase indépendante pour formuler des injonctions concernant d’autres personnes que l’interlocuteur ou les interlocuteurs. Les deux variantes du marqueur du subjonctif dans la construction intransitive (nàn et ˋn ) sont en variation libre. Enfin, on doit noter que les mêmes marqueurs figurent dans la construction infinitivale, qui diffère de la construction prédicative verbale par l’absence de groupe nominal précédent le marqueur prédicatif. 8. A l’impératif positif transitif, on a Ø au singulier (la position de sujet restant vide) mais dà au pluriel, où la position de sujet est occupée par la variante qa ̀ du pronom de 2ème personne du pluriel qá. La forme tonale du pronom assure alors la distinction avec la 2ème personne du pluriel de l’accompli positif transitif. Par exemple, Qá dà dòròkén bòoxó , où qa ́ a son ton inhérent H, ne peut s’interpréter que comme une phrase assertive à l’accompli (‘Vous avez déchiré le boubou’), tandis que Qà dà dòròkén bòoxó , où un ton B s’est substitué au ton H de qa,́ ne peut s’interpréter que comme une phrase impérative (‘Déchirez le boubou !’),

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9. L’inaccompli positif 1 s’emploie dans une phrase ne comportant ni interrogatif, ni groupe nominal marqué comme focalisé, tandis que l’inaccompli positif 2 implique la présence d’un interrogatif ou d’un groupe nominal focalisé. 10. Háyí, forme grammaticalisée de l’impératif du verbe háyí ‘regarder’, peut par ailleurs exprimer une valeur ostensive en se combinant simplement à un constituant nominal de la même façon que ‘voici’ en français : Múusá háyí ! ‘Voici Moussa !’ (litt. ‘Regarde Moussa !’). 11. Le même phénomène s’observe lorsqu’un constituant nominal en fonction de sujet ou d’objet dans la construction prédicative verbale est suivi d’un adjectif en fonction de prédicat second. 12. Pour la même raison, certains des verbes statifs qui figurent dans la liste lexicale donnée en annexe de (Creissels 2016) n’ont pas été repris ici. 13. Il n’y a pas d’adjectif correspondant à ce verbe statif. 14. Il n’y a pas d’adjectif correspondant à ce verbe statif. 15. Il n’y a pas d’adjectif correspondant à ce verbe statif. 16. Le terme utilisé par O. M. Diagana lui‑même est « qualifiant pur ».

RÉSUMÉS

Cet article décrit une catégorie de mots du soninké jusqu’ici négligée dans les descriptions de cette langue. Les caractéristiques générales de cette catégorie sont comparables à celles des « verbes statifs » des langues mandingues. En particulier, ils assument la fonction prédicative en combinaison avec un couple unique de marqueurs prédicatifs (positif nàn vs. négatif ntá) qui sont attestés par ailleurs, mais appariés différemment, et avec des valeurs aspecto‑modales dont ils sont dépourvus dans leur emploi avec les verbes statifs.

This article describes a lexical category found in Soninke that has been neglected so far. The general characteristics of this category are similar to those of the "stative verbs" found in Manding languages. In particular, they fulfill the predicative function in combination with a single pair of predicative markers (positive nàn vs. negative ntá) also attested with the other verbs, but in different pairings, and with aspecto‑modal values of which they are deprived in their use with stative verbs.

В статье рассматривается лексикограмматический класс сонинке, которому до сих пор уделялось мало внимания в описаниях этого языка. В целом этот класс лексем близок по своим характеристикам к «стативным глаголам» языков манден. В частности, стативные глаголы в сонинке выступают в предикативной функции в сочетании лишь с одной парой предикативных показателей (утвердительным na◌̀n и отрицательным nta◌́), которые употребляются и в других функциях, но в ином парном соотношении, и в последнем случае они выражают не те же самые аспекто‑модальные значения, что при стативных глаголах.

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INDEX motsclesru языки манде, сонинке, части речи, стативные глаголы Mots-clés : mandé, soninké, parties du discours, verbes statifs Keywords : Mande, Soninke, parts of speech, stative verbs

AUTEUR

DENIS CREISSELS

Дени Кресель Université Lyon 2 denis.creissels@univ‑lyon2.fr http://deniscreissels.fr

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A sketch of dialectal variation in Mano Esquisse de la variation dialectale en mano Диалектное варьирование в языке мано

Maria Khachaturyan

1 This paper1 gives a preliminary account of the dialectal situation of Mano, a South Mande language. My main descriptive focus is Guinean Mano, I have been doing fieldwork on the language since 2009 and I have spent more than 14 months in the field, mainly in the city of Nzerekore and in neighboring villages. A description of the Guinean variety can be found in Khachaturyan (2015). The information on Liberian dialects was obtained in January 2018 during a short trip to three Liberian villages, Gbanquoi, Kpein and Flumpa, as well as from written sources: two language manuals: (deZeeuw & Kruah 1981; Neal et al. 1946), a Bible translation (UBS 1978) and some literacy materials (Zarwolo 2009).

2 The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 gives a sketch of the sociolinguistic situation. Section 2 provides some preliminary observations of the interdialectal differences in phonology. Section 3 gives some details on morphosyntactic variation. Section 4 presents differences in lexicon. The results are discussed in Section 5 where I explain, in particular, why some of the dialectal differences could be in fact an issue of contact with different languages: Kpelle, especially in the North of the Mano zone, and Dan in the South.

Sociolinguistic situation

3 According to Ethnologue2, Guinean Mano counts about 85 000 speakers being one of 34 indigenous languages spoken in Guinea. In Liberia, Mano is spoken by about 305 000 speakers, it is the fifth most spoken indigenous language of the country, out of 27 total. In rural areas in Guinea and Liberia Mano is spoken by adults and children, while in urban multilingual areas local vernaculars are often preferred. In Guinea, these local

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vernaculars are Kpelle and Maninka. Many Mano speak, at least to some extent, either French (Guinea) or English (Liberia).

4 In Guinea, Mano counts three “dialects”: Zaan (zà̰à̰), the easternmost “dialect” spoken around the Bossou town, Maa (maà ́), the central “dialect” spoken in the city of Nzérékoré and to the south of it, and Kpeinson (kpéŋ́sɔ̰̀), the South‑Western dialect spoken around the town of Diécké. The three varieties are fairly close to one another, Kpeinson being the closest to the Liberian variety spoken around Ganta. Diécké and Ganta are just a few kilometers apart, and there is quite intense communication between the two towns.

5 In Liberia, the dialectal variation is much more salient. According to the account by Zetterström, “[t]here are several different dialects of the Mano language spoken within Liberia. One dialect boundary goes through the northern part of the [Yamein] clan. Those who live north of this boundary speak like the Guinea‑Mano and this dialect is obviously strongly influenced by the Mandingo‑language. South of Sanniquelli there is another boundary, south of which there are at least two different dialects. The differences between these dialects are considerable and the Mano of the south often have difficulties in understanding those of the north” (Zetterström 1976: 16‑17). The dialectal classification provided by Liberian Mano themselves partially confirms Zetterström’s observations: the Northern dialect, Maalaa (maá ́ lāā), spoken around Sanniquellie; the Central dialect, Maazein (maá ́ zèŋ́) spoken in Ganta, as well as in Kpein and Flumpa, two of the three villages that I visited; and the Southern dialect, Maabei (máá bèí), spoken in Saklepea and in Gbanquoi, the third village I visited. The Northern and the Central dialects are fairly similar. Mano literacy materials and, very likely, the Bible translation are based on these two dialects. The Southern dialect is the most distinctive of all three and as compared to Guinean varieties. While the Northern and the Central varieties occupy about a third of the Mano territory, it is unlikely that the Southern variety will cover the remaining two thirds. Therefore, it is expected that there might be several other varieties spoken to the south of Gbanquoi.

6 While doing a dialectal survey of Liberian varieties I traveled with Pe Mamy, my primary language consultant, a speaker of the central Guinean dialect, Maa. Our guide was Leelamen Zarwolo, a speaker of the Central Liberian dialect and native of Flumpa, who also works to promote literacy in Mano and is affiliated with the Liberian Bible Translation and Literacy Organization (LIBTRALO) in Monrovia. While collecting the Swadesh list in Gbanquoi, a village in the Southern Mano zone, we were able to compare the variants and check for mutual intelligibility. In general, Pe Mamy, the speaker of the Maa dialect, had no much trouble understanding Liberian Mano, with the obvious exception of borrowings from English, a language he does not speak.

7 In Guinea, many Mano are fluent in local majority languages, Kpelle and Maninka, while in Liberia, especially in the South of the Mano zone, many Mano speak Dan.

8 In what follows, I will mostly focus on the comparison between the Maa dialect in Guinea and Southern Liberian dialect of Mano (SLM), which is the most distinctive of all the Liberian varieties if compared to Maa. Occasionally, I will provide some information on other dialects: Northern Liberian Mano (NLM), Central Liberian Mano (CLM), Kpeinson and Zaan.

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Phonology

9 According to preliminary observations, the segmental inventory in Guinean and Liberian varieties of Mano is identical. The inventories of the phonemes are given below in Tables 1 and 2. All Mano varieties have three tones whose functions are similar.

Table 1. Mano vowels

oral vowels nasal vowels

i uḭ ṵ

e o

ɛ ɔ ɛ̰ ɔ̰

a a̰

10 In addition, Mano features a syllabic nasal /ŋ/.

Table 2. Mano consonants

labial alveolar palatal velar velar labialized labio‑velar

implosive ɓ

plosives unvoiced p t k kw k͡p

plosives voiced b d g gw g͡b

fricatives unvoiced f s

fricatives voiced v z

sonants oral w l j

sonants nasal m n ɲ ŋ w̰

11 The differences concern the suprasegmental level: assimilation consisting in vowel and consonant adjustment of suffixes and enclitics, processes of fusion in several morphologically independent lexemes, and differences in patterns of phonotactics resulting from different assimilation rules and fusion patterns. In addition, as I will show in Section 4 regarding lexical correspondences, SLM shows a tendency towards vowel shortening and consonant elision in the intervocalic position in non‑derived morphological units. At this point, it should be considered an idiosyncratic process, as no regular correspondences can be established, but it correlates with other, more regular tendencies in phonetics.

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Assimilation

Vowel assimilation

12 Liberian and Guinean varieties of Mano have different patterns of assimilation of vowels and consonants. In the Maa variety, the verbal suffixes –à (gerund, counterfactual) and –á (conditional, irrealis), as well as the demonstrative ā (which has free variants yā and yāā) and the topicalizer ā assimilate to the previous vowel. In the Liberian varieties, including SLM, assimilating markers that I tested are: the gerund suffix –à and the demonstrative marker / topicalizer ā, which also undergo assimilation, although the pattern is different from Maa. In what follows, I only discuss the patterning of gerund suffix and the demonstrative / topicalizer.

13 In the Maa dialect, the vowel in the gerund marker ‑à obligatorily copies the nasality from the previous vowel, while the assimilation by the place of articulation is optional. The most common pattern in natural speech seems to be that the vowel in the gerund assimilates with semi‑open vowels (ɔ, ɛ, ɔ̰, ɛ̰), while the semi‑closed and closed vowels (o, e, u, i, ṵ, ḭ) typically do not trigger assimilation. As for the demonstrative marker, it assimilates by nasality. Whileassimilation by the place of articulation is accepted in elicitation, it never occurs in natural speech. The pattern of assimilation of the topicalizer ā, which is cognate with the demonstrative ā, is the same as for the gerund and the assimilation is frequent.

14 In contrast, in SLM, the vowel in the gerund assimilates with all vowels, copying nasality and place of articulation. In addition, in case it follows a closed vowel, an additional variant is available: the vowel of the gerund copies the nasality and labialization features and becomes semi‑open, thus, after /i/ or /ḭ/, the vowel of the gerund becomes /ɛ/ or /ɛ̰/, respectively, and after /u/ or /ṵ/, it becomes /ɔ/ and /ɔ̰/, respectively. As for the demonstrative ā and the topicalizer in SLM, after all vowels but /a/ or /a̰/, the vowel of the demonstrative becomes semi‑open with the same labialization and nasalization pattern as the previous vowel. Some examples of contrasting vowel assimilation in Maa and in SLM are given in Table 3.

Table 3. Vowel assimilation in Maa and SLM

Maa SLM

gerund pā ‘fill’ paā ̀ paā ̀

gerund ɓɛ̀lɛ̄ ‘grow fat’ ɓɛ̀lɛ̄ɛ̀ ɓɛ̀lɛ̄ɛ̀

demonstrative pɛ́ ‘thing.foc’ pɛ́ ā pɛ́ ɛ̄

topicalizer wɛ̀lɛ̀ ɛ̄ ‘get up’ wɛ̀lɛ̀ ɛ̄ wɛ̀lɛ̀ ɛ̄

demonstrative sɔ̄ ‘clothing’ sɔ́3 ā sɔ́ ɔ̄

demonstrative gɔ̰̄ ‘man’ gɔ̰́ ā̰ gɔ̰́ ɔ̰̄

topicalizer nɔ́ ‘only’ nɔ́ ɔ̄ nɔ́ ɔ̄

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demonstrative nɔ́ɔ̄ɓé ‘children’ nɔ́ɔ̄ɓé ā nɔ́ɔ̄ɓé ɛ̄

topicalizer píé ‘at’ píé ā píé ɛ̄

gerund ló ‘go’ lóà lóò

gerund sí ‘take’ síà síì, síɛ̀

demonstrative mī ‘person’ mí ā mí ɛ̄

topicalizer sí ‘take’ sí ā sí ɛ̄

gerund zúlú ‘wash’ zúlúà zúlúù, zúlúɔ̀

demonstrative lēēnɛ̀fú ‘young girl’ lēēnɛ̀fú ā lēēnɛ̀fú ɔ̄

15 To sum up, vowel assimilation in SLM is either full (in case of assimilation to open vowels and all vowels in the gerund form) or partial (in case of closed and semi‑closed vowels in all forms, where the assimilating vowel keeps the same quality of labialization and nasalization, but the degree of openness may be one or two steps removed: thus, the assimilating vowel becomes /ɛ/ when the preceding vowel is /e/ or /i/). In Maa, the assimilation is either full, or absent and only semi‑open vowels trigger assimilation by the place of articulation.

16 In addition, according to the description provided by deZeeuw and Kruah, the assimilation of the demonstrative marker by the place of articulation is optional. When it happens, however, it is always partial: the vowel becomes semi‑open (deZeeuw & Kruah 1981: 114). Thus, the system described by deZeeuw and Kruah is intermediate between the one in Maa and the one in SLM. It correlates with my observation that their description is based on the Northern or Central Liberian variety spoken in the area right in between Maa and SLM. In the Bible translation, the demonstrative never assimilates by place of articulation, the topicalizer assimilates only to the semi‑open vowels, while the gerund marker always fully assimilates. Therefore, the system reflected in the Bible translation is also situated in between Maa and SLM, although it is different from the assimilation described by deZeeuw and Kruah and, presumably, it is closer to Maa.

Consonant assimilation

17 In Mano, the syllabic nasal ŋ also triggers assimilation: while the nasal itself assimilates with the following consonant by place of articulation, the consonant adopts the nasality feature. The combination results in a nasal geminate. The most prone to assimilation is the combination of the first person singular non‑subject pronoun ŋ̄ and its syntactic head: be it a possessum in the inalienable possessive construction, a transitive verb, or a postposition.

18 Mano dialects differ with respect to what consonants can undergo nasalization. In SLM, only /ɓ/, /l/, /y/, and /w/ can nasalize, the result being [mm], [nn], [ɲɲ] and [ŋwŋw], respectively. In contrast, in my Maa data, I have examples where /d/, preceded by ŋ, turns to [nn], and also where /s/, /z/, somewhat unexpectedly, assimilate into [ɲɲ]4,

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and /gb/ turns to [ŋm], a sound which is attested nowhere else besides this form. In addition, /k/ and /g/ can also assimilate, resulting into a nasal velar geminate [ŋŋ] which otherwise occurs only in the intervocalic position. It seems that the assimilation is not regular, but rather concerns some of the most common combinations. Some examples of consonant assimilation are given in Table 4.

Table 4. Consonant assimilation

Maa SLM5

ŋ̄ ɓɛ́ì / ɓɛ́ɛ̀ 1SG friend [m̄m̄ɛ́ì] [mm̄ ̄ɛ́ɛ̀]

ŋ̄ lèē 1SG mother [n̄n̄èē] [nn̄ ̄èē]

ŋ̄ yí 1SG in [ɲ̄ɲ̄í]

ŋ̄ dàā 1SG father [n̄n̄àā] [n̄ dàā]

ŋ̄ súò 1SG call [ɲ̄ɲ̄úò] [n̄ súò]

ŋ̄ zíé 1SG uncle [ɲ̄ɲ̄íé]

ŋ̄ zò 1SG heart [ɲɲò]

ŋ̄ kɔ̀ 1SG hand [ŋ̄ŋ̄ɔ̀] [n̄ kɔ̀]

ŋ̄ gbáá 1SG side [ŋmáá]

Fusion

19 In both Maa and SLM, fusion is common between several items. In Maa, fusion typically concerns pronouns and is different from assimilation in being irregular and in involving regressive, rather than progressive, assimilation: kɛ̄ à do 3 SG → kāà; wɔ́ i ̄ COP.NEG 2SG → wɛ́í, wáí. It is rare that fusion would concern more than two morphological units, with the exception of the fusion of the gerund form with a postposition ká, which is so regular that it should be considered a special morphological form of the verb: dɔ̄‑à ká lay GER with → [dɔ̀á]. With the latter exception, typically Maa speakers do not use fused variants when speaking slowly.

20 In SLM, many cases of fusion between two or more (morphologically independent) items were attested. In contrast with fusion in Maa and with assimilation patterns in both dialects involving specific morphological units, the fused combinations in SLM involve a broader spectrum of units. The above‑mentioned assimilation follows strict rules, while fusion described in the present section involves a wider set of processes, including regressive assimilation, but also consonant elision, and the exact rules are yet unknown. The native speakers are very aware of this fusion process, and speakers of different dialects repeatedly pointed to each other's differences in pronunciation. Although SLM speakers can decompose the fused item into separate ones for the

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purposes of explanation and glossing, the fused variant may be used even when pronounced very slowly.

21 Some attested examples are presented in (1).

(1) a. yī ɛ̄ there TOP → [yɛ̄ ɛ̄]

b. óò ī 3PL.IPFV 2SG → [wéì]

c. sɔ̰́ɔ̰́ ká tooth with → [sɔ̰́ā̰]

d. ló mā ɓō go:FOC 1SG.PST>3SG implement → [ló māā]

e. bḭ́ āà night 3SG.PRF → [bḭ́ā̰à̰]

f. ŋ̄ wɔ̄ tá̰à̰ 1SG.PST lie ground → [ŋwà̰á̰à̰]

g. gà̰ mɔ̀ foot on → [gà̰ṵ̀]

h. ká lé mɔ̀ house mouth on → [kálɔ́ɔ̀, kálɔ́ṵ̀]

22 The most common processes attested are: elision of the intervocalic consonant (1c, 1d, 1f—1h) and vowel assimilation, both in place of articulation (1a, 1b, 1d, 1f, 1h) and nasality (1c, 1e, 1f), and both regressive (1a, 1b, 1f, 1h) and progressive (1c, 1d, 1e). In 1b and 1c there is a decrease in the number of moras. Note that in both 1g and 1h the postposition mɔ̀ changed into a low‑tone syllabic nasal /ŋ̀/ (pronounced as [ṵ̀]).

23 Fusion may cancel assimilation process. Thus, in the combination of the noun lēēnɛ̀fú ‘girl’ with a demonstrative the demonstrative is expected to assimilate and become [ɔ] (see the last example in Table 3). In a combination with a 3SG pronoun à, however, the assimilation did not occur, and the overall combination lēēnɛ̀fú ā à child.FOC DEM 3SG was pronounced as [lēēnɛ̀fuá ̄à].

24 As my analysis of the lexical correspondences will show (Section 4), the same features, elision of consonants and the decrease in the number of moras, characterizes some SLM reflexes in comparison with their cognates in other dialects.

Phonotactics

25 As a result of the fusion process, new syllable types are attested in SLM that are not attested in Maa. In particular, the abundance of CVVV structures is observed (cf. [bḭ́ā̰à̰], [ŋwà̰á̰à̰]). These units could be analyzed as combinations of two syllable structures, CV and VV or CVV and V, but thanks to the assimilation process they could be considered single metrical feet (Vydrin 2010).

26 Because of the elision of intervocalic consonants and assimilation patterns SLM features original combinations of vowels, such as combinations of semi‑closed and semi‑open vowels: kpɛ̀ē ‘to dawn’ (cf. Maa kpàlē), kéɛ̄ ‘this’ (cf. Maa kéā).

27 An interesting feature of Mano phonotactics is that combinations of back and front vowels, which are generally prohibited, are nevertheless possible after an (optionally) labialized velar consonant: cf., in Maa, k(w)ɔ̀ī ‘firewood’, k(w)ōí ‘behind’, k(w)ɔ̀nɛ̀ ‘eggplant’.

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(w) In the CVV combinations of this type, V2 is usually /i/, with one exception: k ɔ̀ɛ́ ‘near’. In fast speech such combinations are pronounced with both front vowels and a strong labialization: [kwɛ̀ī] ‘firewood’, [kwēí] ‘behind’, [kwɛ̀nɛ̀] ‘eggplant’, [kwɛ̀ɛ́] ‘near’. In SLM, the default variant is with a back – front combination and the labialization of the velar consonant is much weaker ([kɔ̀ī] ‘firewood’). Note that the native linguistic intuition strongly confirms the possibility of the back – front vowel combination, and also the optionality of labialization, which is reflected in the spelling of a Liberian village: Gbanquoi or Gbankoi. Although front‑back combinations are rare in SLM, they are not prohibited, in contrast with Maa: cf. sùē 'fingernail’ (SLM) vs seè ̄ (Maa).

Morphosyntax

28 The morphosyntax of all Mano dialects seems largely similar, although it may differ in minor details. I have collected several oral narratives in the SLM dialect, and in particular, the narrative chain and the complex clauses that occurred there (temporal and relative) were formed with exactly the same model as in Maa. Three features stand out: first, differences in the system of demonstrative markers. Second, the SLM dialect has a different stem for the third person sg. pronominal marker: ɛ, instead of e in all other Mano varieties for which data are available. And the third feature concerns a distinction in the pronominal paradigm concerning the first person non‑singular pronominal stems.

Demonstrative system

29 The Maa dialect has five demonstratives: tɔ́ɔ̄, dḭ̀ā̰, wɛ̄ ~ ɓɛ̄, yā ~ ā ~ yāā (there are also variants assimilated by place of articulation and nasality to the previous vowel, see Section 2.1) and kílīā ~ kílīɓɛ̄. Tɔ́ɔ̄ and dḭ̀ā̰ are proximal and distal demonstratives, respectively, and are typically used to draw attention to discourse new referents in the interactive scene. Kílíā ~ kílíɓɛ̄ are used as anaphoric markers. Although in discussions speakers interpret wɛ̄ as more proximal than yā (and translate them by French terms celui‑ci ‘this’ and celui‑là ‘that’, respectively), the two markers are largely interchangeable in discourse. When used adnominally, wɛ̄ and yā cover all the demonstrative functions suggested by Himmelmann (1996): they are both used in exophoric reference (marking referents present at the interactive scene), but they are especially common in endophoric functions, marking referents not present at the interactive scene, including discourse‑referential, anaphoric, recognitional, but also cataphoric functions. In addition, the marker kéā, in functions similar to wɛ̄ and yā, is used by some speakers of Maa and is typical for the speakers of Kpeinson.

30 In Liberian Mano, the visible demonstratives tɔ́ɔ̄ and dḭ̀ā̰ were not attested (although the reason could be that in Maa, they are typically used in conversations which were not recorded among the SLM speakers). In elicitation, the kéɛ̄ marker was suggested as a proximal marker, ā as distal and kílíɛ̄ (cognate of Guinean kílíā) as anaphoric, wɛ̄ was not mentioned even if I tried to directly elicit it. In the recorded texts, however, the wɛ̄ marker was used with highly prominent referents (especially in the recognitional function, where the referent is cognitively available without a prior mention), while ā was systematically used in the anaphoric function, including in the bridging context where the referent was introduced by some contextual relation.

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31 In the following excerpt from a narrative in the Zaan dialect, Guinea, the demonstrative wɛ̄ was used in the anaphoric function introducing the third mention of the noun nínà ‘devil’. 32 (2) 1. wáà gèè à lɛ̀ɛ̄ kélɛ̀ “nínà āà ī nā sí, āà ló á ká.”

33 ‘They say to him: a devil took your wife, he carried her away.’

34 2. lɛ̀ tɛ́ nínà ē ló à nā ká yí ā làá dɔ̄, áà ē ɲɛ̀ɛ̄ kpɔ̀ à ká, áà ē ɲɛ̀ɛ̄ kpɔ̀ à ká, làá gɛ̰̀.

35 ‘He does not know the place where the devil carried his wife, he looks for it, he looks for it, he cannot find.’

3. ló tɛ́ nínà wɛ̄ ā ɓō à nā ká ā

go FOC demon DEM 3SG.PST>3SG take.off 3SG wife with TOP

ā yà yílí gáná dò yí.

3SG.PST>3SG sit tree root INDEF in

36 ‘The devil having carried away his wife, he put her in the root of a tree.’

37 The following excerpt from a story told in the SLM dialect speaks about a group of young men and women and in particular about a woman among them who had no teeth. They went bathing in the water hole, and while they were doing that, a bird stole their clothes. The demonstrative ā (including its assimilated variant ɛ̄, see above) is used in the anaphoric function with nɔ́ɔ̄ɓé ‘the children, the youngsters’ and with mī ‘person’, referring to the woman. Wɛ̄, in contrast, is used with the pronoun àyē ‘him/ her’ referring, again, to the woman. The referent was already re‑introduced by the noun mī 'person’, so wɛ̄ does not serve the anaphoric function but is used to emphasize the prominence and topicality. In addition, wɛ̄ is used with the noun sɔ̄ ‘cloths’. Although the noun was introduced in the prior narrative, here the referent is different: the woman talks about her own cloths, and it is the first time she realizes that they are gone – therefore, it is, again, the prominence of the referent that determines the choice of the wɛ̄ marker.

(3) nɔ́ɔ̄ɓé ɛ̄, wɛ̀lɛ̀ wā ɓō yíí bà ā,

child.PL DEM stand.up 3PL.PST>3SG implement water in TOP

lɛ́ mí ā6 àyé wɛ̄ āà dɔ̄:

then person.FOC DEM 3SG.FOC DEM 3SG.PRF stop

“ŋ̀ sɔ́ wɛ̄ lɛ̄ mɛ́?”

1SG.POSS cloth.FOC DEM 3SG.EXI where

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38 ‘The kids, when they got out of the water, then that person, she said: my clothes (lit.: cloth), where are they?’

39 In Liberian dialects, the presence of anaphoric marking is considered the “norm”, reflected in normative Liberian literacy materials, where ā systematically marks non‑initial mentions of referents7. See an excerpt from (Zarwolo 2009):

(4) 1. Seè ́ ē ló kàā da‑̀ pìà yíí píé.

P.N. 3SG.PST go hook throw‑INF water at

40 ‘Se went to fish at the river (lit.: Se went throwing hook).’

2. Seè ́ ē mámá wàà kàā mɔ̀.

P.N. 3SG.PST bait enter hook on

41 ‘Se put bait on the hook.’

3. Seè ́ ē kàā ā dùò yíā bà.

P.N. 3SG.PST hook DEM throw water.DEM in

42 ‘Se threw the hook in the river.’

43 Note that such usage of ā is very unlikely to be a calque from English: English provides no model for the equally systematic avoidance of the anaphoric marking with the dependents of postpositions, as in ex. 4.2.

Third person sg. segmental base

44 All Mano dialects have a rich inventory of pronouns which employs a set of one to four segmental bases. Pronouns are often similar in segmental structure and differ in tone or vowel length. In the SLM dialect, the segmental base of the third person sg. pronouns is ɛ, rather than e, as in all other dialects, Guinean and Liberian.

(5) ɛ̄ ɛ̄ nā gɛ̰̀ lɔ́ɔ́í (SLM)

ē ē nā gɛ̰̀ lɔ́ɔ́í (all other dialects)

3SG.PST 3SG.REFL wife see market

45 ‘He saw his wife at the market.’

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46 Although in the literacy materials and in the Bible translation only the e variant is attested, deZeeuw and Kruah give both variants for the past series (1981: 128) and for the reflexive.

First person non‑singular pronouns

47 The manual of Liberian Mano by deZeeuw and Kruah (1981) gives two pronominal stems for the first person non‑singular pronouns. According to them, the opposition is based on clusivity: the ko stem is exclusive and the kɔa stem is inclusive.

48 According to my discussions with the speakers of Liberian Mano, there is indeed a distinction between two first person non‑singular stems, ko and, this time, kwa. The distinction, however, is rather number‑based. An illustrative context seems to be the inclusory construction, a type of conjunction construction which consists of a pronoun, referring to the entire set of participants, and a noun phrase referring to an included subset of participants. The following two examples are obtained in a discussion with a speaker of the Central Liberian Mano. The construction in (6) kò ɓī ‘you and I’ consists of the pronoun kò ‘we’ and the pronoun ɓī ‘you (sg.)’. Kò ‘we’ refers to the entire group of participants, while ɓī ‘you (sg.)’ is included in the group, the literal reading of the construction being ‘we, including you (sg.)’. Since the context is such that the addressee is explicitly included in the reference, the form kò cannot be considered exclusive. At the same time, the reading implies only two participants, so, according to the Mano speaker, the stem ko can be used, while kwa cannot be used in this context. In (7), there are more than two participants, which is indicated by the usage of the plural marker nì8. Since the second person pronoun refers to the entire group of participants, which now consists of three or more members, the form kwà was chosen by the speaker.

(6) kò ɓī

1PL.IP 2SG.EMPH

49 ‘you (sg.) and I (lit.: we including you (sg.))’

(7) kwà ī9 nì

1PL.IP 2SG PL

50 ‘you and I and some other people’

51 In natural speech, however, the kò pronoun can be used to refer to more than two participants:

(8) kò mɛ̄ŋ́ mìà nù

1PL.IP Maninka person.PL:CS PL

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52 ‘we and the Maninka’

53 Therefore, it is possible that the kwa stem is used with three or more participants and the ko stem can be used with two and more participants. More data is needed to specify the semantics of the pronouns.

54 In the Maa dialect of Guinea, the same pronominal form is used in both contexts.

(9) kò ɓī

1PL.IP 2SG.EMPH

55 ‘you (sg.) and I’

(10) kò ɓī nì

1PL.IP 2SG PL

56 ‘you and I and some other people’

57 In addition, the Maa dialect (and, probably, other Guinean dialects as well) has the kɔa stem for the first person plural pronouns which is used in specific series of pronominal auxiliaries, such as perfect (kɔ̄āà ‘1PL.PRF’) or prohibitive (kɔ́áá ‘1PL.PROH’), as well as in certain portemanteau series, fused with the third person sg pronoun à (kō ‘1PL.EXI’ vs kɔ̄ā ‘1PL.EXI>3SG’). According to my notes, in the Kpeinson dialect of Guinea, which is the closest to the Liberian dialects, the kwa stem is a free variant and can replace both ko and kɔa. Information on full pronominal inventories in SLM is not yet available.

Lexicon

58 The basic lexicon (at least, within the limits of the 100‑word Swadesh list) is largely the same in all Mano dialects that I have data on. In most cases, it is clear that we are dealing with the reflexes of the same proto‑lexemes. In SLM, however, generally due to the processes of consonant elision and vowel shortening, some reflexes look different (cf. in Maa, nānà ‘tongue’ and in SLM, nāà; in Maa, lēē ‘woman’ and in SLM, lē). The lexical item that shows the most variation is the word ‘fingernail’. In Zaan, in is sòō, in Maa, sèē, in Kpeinson, sìē, in SLM, sùē. In several lexemes, the Kpeinson dialect differs from other Guinean dialects and is closer to the Liberian varieties. Whenever CLM is different from SLM, it is closer to the Guinean varieties. Therefore, when it comes to lexical correspondences, there is a clear dialectal continuum.

59 Rare are the cases where a cognate of a lexical item in one dialect cannot be found in another dialect. Such cases are: tííkpé ‘small’, dɔ̀kɛ̄ ‘give’, tɔ́ɔ̄ ‘this, visible’ in Maa, which do not exist in Liberian varieties, where ɓéŋ́, péŋ́ are used for ‘small’, gbā and nɔ̄ for ‘give’ and where dedicated visible proximal demonstratives are not attested. There are also two expressions, sɔ̰́ɔ̰́ dɔ̄ (lit. ‘tooth place’) ‘to bite’ in Maa and CLM which corresponds to kṵ́ sɔ̰́ā̰ (lit. ‘catch tooth.with’) in SLM, and yíí là kɛ̄ (lit. ‘water surface do’) 'to swim’ in Maa, which corresponds to yíí kɛ̄ in SLM.

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60 Outside the basic lexicon, there is a number of differences, as well. Some of them, again, are explained by phonetic processes, but many cannot be reduced to these processes. A curious example is the word kīī which means ‘skin’ in all dialects, in Maa, however, it also means ‘shoes’, while in Liberia it also means ‘book’. ‘Book’ in Maa is sɛ́ɓɛ̀10, while ‘shoes’ in Liberia is bàá. Another example is the marker of plurality. In Guinean Mano and CLM, there are two plural markers, nì which marks associative and distributive plurality and vɔ̀ which marks regular, additive plurality. In SLM, there appears to be only one marker, nù.

61 Table 5 below summarizes some of the differences in the lexicon (including different reflexes of the same cognate, as well as different stems, which are marked by bold characters) between the dialects. The first column gives a common English translation, the differences in semantics are given in the respective fields. The second column gives correspondences in the Maa dialect of Guinea, the second column gives correspondences in the Southern Liberian Mano with some additional comments about Central Liberian Mano or Northern Liberian Mano; the latter were obtained from a speaker of Central Liberian Mano, there is no first‑hand data. Finally, the last column gives correspondences found in the language manuals with marked source page number; by default, the data is taken from (deZeeuw & Kruah 1981), whenever it was taken from (Neal et al. 1946), it is explicitly marked.

Table 5. Lexical correspondences between Mano dialects

Zeeuw and Kruah Maa, Guinea Southern Liberian Mano (1981) and Neal et al. (1946)

Swadesh list

all séŋ́ séí séŋ́ (39)

ashes yóɓé yúwé, ?yówé yúé (17)

belly gí gíà; gílà (CLM)11 gí (15) outside

kṵ́ sɔ̰́ā̰ (sɔ̰́ɔ̰́+ká), sɔ̰́ɔ̰́ dɔ̄ bite sɔ̰́ɔ̰́ dɔ̄ (CLM)

ɲīɛ́ (13), ɲìɛ̄ (Neal et eye ɲɛ̀ɛ̄ ɲìɛ̄ al. 30)

give gbā (offer, esp. religious), nɔ̄, dɔ̀kɛ̄ gbā, nɔ̄

fingernail sèē; sìē (Kpeinson), sòō (Zaan) sùē túù (63)

night bímíà bḭ́à̰ ɓímíɛ̄ (80)

small tííkpé, ɓéŋ́, péŋ́ (Kpeinson) péŋ́, ɓéŋ́ pɛ́ŋ́ (124), ɓɛ́ŋ́ (15)

smoke gbɛ́ŋ́ gbɛ̰́ gbɛ̰́ŋ́ (41)

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swim yíí là kɛ̄ yíí kɛ̄

this tɔ́ɔ̄, kéā kéɛ̄; kéā (CLM) kéɛ̄, kéā (31) (visible)

tongue nānà nāà; nālà (NLM) nānà (61)

what? mɛ̄nɛ́, mɛ́ (Kpeinson) mɛ́ mɛ́ (Neal et al. 27)

dɛ̀ŋ̀ (46), dēŋ̀ (Neal who? dēŋ̀, dḭ̄á̰ (with FOC) dēŋ̀, dé (with FOC) et al. 35)

woman lēē lē

Other lexical items

book, smth. sɛ́ɓɛ̀; kīī (Protestant) kīī (= ‘skin') written

rice field gbàà gbà

dawn kpàlē kpɛ̀ē

discuss gɔ̰̄; wéé (Kpeinson) wéé (CLM)

pèŋ́ (Kpeinson) ‘bitter eggplant’ eggplant pèŋ́, kɔ̀lɛ̄, kpɛ̰̀ɛ̰̄ pèŋ́ (139) kɔ̀nɛ̄

firewood k(w)ɔ̀ī, kwɛ̀ī kɔ̀ī kwàī (139)

ground kpà̰ā̰là kpà̰ā̰à̰

junction zīgbà̰ā̰là zīgbà̰ā̰à̰

lèē (most common); mother lòkóò; lèē (pejorative) lòkóò; lòóò (UBS 1978)

place pɛ̀lɛ̀; pìà (Kpeinson) pìà pìà, pìè

plurality vɔ̀ (additive), nì (non‑additive, nù (general plural); vɔ̀,

marker incl. associative) nì (CLM)

prepare kpàā kpà

read gèē (= ‘say') lònú; lònɔ́ (CLM)

shoes kīī (= ‘skin'); bàá (Kpeinson) bàá

story pḭ̄à̰ sáá (CLM)

yɛ̄ɓō (most common); work (n.) sà̰ā̰ (most common), yɛ̄ɓō sà̰ā̰

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yesterday yālá yɔ̄lɔ̄ā yālá (8)

yet nɛ́ŋ̀ nɛ́

Interdialectal variation motivated by different contact situations

62 In this section, I will discuss a hypothesis that some of the dialectal differences in Mano could be explained by different contact situations: in the North, and especially in Guinea, Mano is influenced by Kpelle, while in the South of Liberia, it is influenced by Dan. In Section 5.1, I discuss phonological variation, while in Section 5.2 I present lexical influence. In Section 5.3 I present the limits of contact explanation.

Phonological influence

63 One of the discussed points of variation is the realization of the combinations of a velar consonant with a back vowel, followed by a front vowel. Thus, in Maa, k(w)ɔ̀ī ‘firewood’ in fast speech is pronounced [kwɛ̀ī]. Note the spelling of this lexeme attested in deZeeuw and Kruah (1981: 139) is kwàī. In Guinean Kpelle, the same patterns of alternation are attested: kɔ̀lɛ̀ [kwɛ̀lɛ̀] ‛near’, kóníŋ̀ [kwéníŋ̀] ‛scratch’ (Konoshenko 2017: 286). In Liberian Kpelle, the dictionary entry is kɔlɛ ‘vicinity’ (Leidenfrost & McKay 2007:138). In SLM, the default variant seems to be with a back – front combination, whereas the labialization of the velar consonant is much weaker ([kɔ̀ī] ‘firewood’). Therefore, the alternation in Guinean Mano and lack of it in Liberian Mano could be due to Kpelle influence or shared patterns in phonetics.

64 Another point of comparison are the patterns of consonant assimilation in the context of the syllabic nasal. In Liberia, only /ɓ/, /l/, /y/, and /w/ can be nasalized, while in Guinea, in addition to these four consonants, assimilation of /d/, /s/, /z/, /k/, /g/ and even /gb/ is attested. A possible explanation could be the influence of the Kpelle system of consonant alternation.

65 In Kpelle, certain phonological, as well as morphological contexts trigger alternation of the initial consonant. The alternating pairs are the following: p → b, t → d, k → g, kw → gw, kp → gb, hw → v, h → z, ɓ → m, l → n, y → ɲ, w → ŋw. The last four pairs are directly parallel to the assimilated and non‑assimilated consonants /ɓ/ → [mm], / l/ → [nn], /y/ → [ɲɲ], and /w/ → [ŋwŋw] in all Mano dialects, with the difference that in Mano, in contrast to Kpelle, the result of assimilation is a geminate. Consonant alternation in Kpelle can be triggered by morphonological processes, including a combination, at the deep level, with the high‑tone nasal prefix expressing a first‑person singular pronoun of the polyfunctional series. In Mano, the assimilation is also triggered by a combination with a first‑person singular pronoun. Therefore, consonant alternation in Kpelle and consonant assimilation in Mano can occur in similar morphosyntactic contexts and can give, at least for certain consonants, very similar results:

66 /ŋ́ + lèě/ → [ńéè] ‘my mother’ (Kpelle)

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67 /ŋ̄ + lèē/ → [n̄n̄èē] ‘my mother’ (Mano)

68 The results of assimilation in Mano, however, do not always correspond to the results of alternation in Kpelle (/k/ in Kpelle becomes [g], but in Mano it becomes [ŋ]) and the contexts of assimilation and alternation do not coincide (in Kpelle, the third person singular polyfunctional marker also triggers assimilation). Crucially, consonant alternation in Kpelle occurs in a much wider set of consonants than regular assimilations in Mano. One could assume that Mano has taken the regular system of consonant alternation in Kpelle as a model and extended, albeit irregularly, the set of possible consonants that can undergo assimilation to include some new elements, such as dental consonants.

69 The reason why the list of assimilating consonants is limited to four in the Liberian varieties, especially in the South, could be that the Kpelle model is much less influential, the contact with Dan being the strongest. In Dan, the same four consonants get to assimilate12.

70 In contrast, Dan provides a good model for different kinds of fusion processes: zı̰̄ȁ̰ȁ̰ = zı̰̄ā̰ā̰ tȁ ‛on the road’ (Vydrin 2017: 478); cf. in SLM ŋ̄ wɔ̄ tá̰à̰ 1 SG.PST lie ground → [ŋwà̰á̰à̰]). In Dan, postpositions regularly fuse with the nouns they govern, giving rise to an emergent system of cases (Vydrin 2011). In particular, Dan‑Gweetaa features an instrumental case: gɛ̰̏ ‛leg’, gɛ̰̄ɛ̰̄ ‘leg.INSTR’ (Vydrin 2017: 485), cf. in SLM sɔ̰́ɔ̰́ ká tooth with --> [sɔ̰́ā̰].

Kpelle and Manding lexical influence

71 In Guinea and northern Liberia Mano has long been in close contact with Kpelle, a Southwestern Mande language, through warfare (both legends about foundations of Guinean Mano villages that I collected contain reference to wars with Kpelle), trade, and intermarriage. The latter is especially common in large multilingual towns. My primary language consultant and his elder sister, both residing in Nzerekore, the capital of the region, are both married to Kpelle. While many Mano speak Kpelle, there are much fewer Kpelle who speak Mano, which could be due to the fact that Kpelle outnumber Mano. In addition to the long‑term symmetric contact, Kpelle has served as a dominant language in education and other domains: many official names of Mano villages are Kpelle by origin; in the early years of Guinean independence the primary education in the Mano – Kpelle zone was organized in Kpelle, and Mano was officially regarded as a dialect of Kpelle. The superstratal influence is especially salient in the Roman Catholic Church, where Kpelle is the language of the ecclesiastic authority and much of the religious texts are translated from Kpelle. Liberian Mano, especially in the North, is also influenced by, or shares common innovations or retentions with, Liberian Kpelle. However, I have much less data on the vocabulary of Liberian Mano and on the sociolinguistic situation to provide any convincing argument of the contact situation.

72 In his description of the dialectal situation in Mano, Zetterström mentions that the northern varieties are strongly influenced by Manding (see Section 1 above). Indeed, according to the map on the spread of Manding, the entire Mano (and Kpelle)‑speaking territory in Guinea is marked as a territory where Manding is used as lingua franca, in contrast to Liberia, where Manding is used mainly in the Looma‑speaking territories13. This observation is only partially correct. Even if Mano do have some direct contact

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with Manding through trade, especially in Nzerekore, the capital of the region, the presence of Manding in historical Mano villages is much smaller than their presence in Kpelle villages, and this presence is usually limited to a couple of families. In contrast, the areas of historical settlement of Kpelle and Manding are adjacent and the contact is sustained by the important Manding diaspora even in historically Kpelle settlements: the trade in the region is dominated by Manding. While Mano has multiple lexical items with a clear Manding origin, it is likely that Manding influence on Mano is mediated by Kpelle; I do not know of any Manding borrowing in Mano which would not be simultaneously borrowed in Kpelle. These borrowings typically belong to the trade lexicon, including terms for commercial goods, but also broader cultural and religious lexical items. Although the full details of the contact situation between Kpelle and Maninka are beyond the scope of the present paper, elsewhere I described contact in religious domain which could be responsible for the introduction of Maninka religious vocabulary into Kpelle and through Kpelle, into Mano (Khachaturyan 2018a, 2018b).

73 Table 6 gives some examples of Mano – Kpelle correspondences, while Table 7 adds Manding to the picture. The data from Liberian Mano (SLM and CLM) is contrasted with the data from Liberian Kpelle (Leidenfrost & McKay 2007), from the Maa dialect in Guinea, from Guinean Kpelle (Konoshenko), (Leger 1975) and, whenever there is a correspondence with Kpelle or Mano, from Maninka, a Manding variety with which Guinean Mano and Kpelle are in contact (Vydrin n.d.).

Table 6. Mano – Kpelle correspondences

Liberian Mano Liberian Kpelle Guinean Mano Guinean Kpelle

no kpàò kpa kpàò kpàà

but kɛ̄ɛ̄ kɛ́ɛ, kɛ́lɛ kɛ̄ɛ̄, kálá kɛ́láá

to thank, zúò sɛɣɛ̂, mamá zúò, sɛ̀kɛ̄ɛ̀, mamá ́ hɛ̀ɣɛ́ɛ̀, mamá ́ thank you

mɛni kiti teɣe mɛ̀ŋ́sà mɛni saa affair cut judge(ment) mɛ́ŋ́sà (judgement) (judgement) (to judge) affair judgement cut (to judge)

sɔŋ nyɔŋ bad náá, naŋ́ á (= sin sɔ̀ŋ̄ yɔ̄ɔ̄ láŋáŋ́ behavior ‘malediction')

food léɓèlè kɔ́nɔŋ kɔ́nɔ́ kɔ́nɔ́ŋ́

to read lònú; lònɔ́ lóno gèē (= ‘say') lónóŋ; lɔ́nɔ́ŋ

small ɓéŋ́, péŋ́ keni ɓéŋ́, péŋ́, tííkpé tííkpé

74 Table 6 presents some lexical correspondences between Mano and Kpelle without any Manding influence. It shows that there are some common features in the Mano – Kpelle lexicon in both countries, such as the interjection ‘no’, as well as some clustering of Guinean and Liberian varieties together (as in the case of ‘sin’ or ‘small’). Quite

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frequently, however, we observe the same term in Guinean and Liberian Kpelle which gets transferred to only one Mano variety: thus, lònú; lònɔ́, the Liberian Mano equivalent for ‘to read’ is likely a borrowing from Kpelle lóno, in contrast to Guinean Mano which uses the verb gèē ‘to say’ in this function. Note that both Guinean and Liberian Mano words for ‘judgement’ come from a Liberian Kpelle expression ‘to judge’, while Guinean Kpelle uses a different (although related) expression. The conjunction ‘but’ shows interesting patterns: one of the Guinean Mano variants, kɛ̄ɛ̄, is also used in Liberian Mano and Kpelle, while another Guinean Mano variant is used in both Kpelle varieties. Finally, the Guinean Mano word for ‘food’ is used in both Kpelle varieties, while Liberian Mano uses a different word. The most striking example, however, is the ‘thank you’ equivalent: while Liberian Mano keeps what must be an original Mano expression, which also occurs in Guinean Mano, but only with reference to God, Guinean Mano uses the expressions common to Kpelle (and also, as noted in Table 7, a Manding borrowing via Kpelle). These example show patterns of mutual influence of Guinean and Liberian Mano and Kpelle varieties, as well as influence across the political borders, although it seems that the influence of Kpelle on Mano is somewhat stronger in Guinea than in Liberia.

75 Another observation is that /h/ in Guinean Kpelle regularly corresponds to /s/ in Guinean Mano. Mano lacks /h/ phoneme, so a correspondence had to be found. A plausible reason why /s/ was chosen as a correspondence to /h/ are contacts across the political border which lead to an awareness that /h/ in Guinean Kpelle corresponds to / s/ in Liberian Kpelle (and, thus, may correspond to /s/ in Mano). Such awareness is especially important in those cases where a Kpelle borrowing is present only in Guinea, such as in the case of hɛ̀ɣɛ́ɛ̀ ‘thank (you)’ in Guinean Kpelle which corresponds to sɛɣɛ̂ in Liberian Kpelle and sɛ̀kɛ̄ɛ̀ in Guinean Mano. In addition, /h/ could be an innovation: a proto‑phoneme in Kpelle could be *s, and consequently, early Kpelle borrowings into Mano could be introduced with /s/, while recent borrowings could be assimilated following the model of earlier borrowings and common Mande retentions. The same / h/ – /s/ correspondence will characterize the borrowings with Manding origin to which I shall now turn.

Table 7. Lexical correspondences between Mano, Kpelle and Manding

Guinean Guinean Liberian Mano Liberian Kpelle Manding Mano Kpelle

thousand wála wáá wáá wáa

price sɔ̰ɔ sɔ̄ŋ́ hɔ̀ŋɔ̌ sɔ̀nkɔ́

money sɛŋ kao, kâpa wɛ́lì wálî wádi

soap saafûlɛ sàfná hahvunɛ sàfína (Ar. ṣābūn)

sáraka (Ar. sadaqa, sacrifice sala sálà hɛ́láà (voluntary) offering)

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kɔlɔ lɛ nuu book kīīzɔ̰̀ɔ̰̀mì book teacher show person, kàlàmɔ́ɔ̀ kalamô kàramɔgɔ show person kaamɔ̂ɔ

sɛ̂li ɓo (Muslim pray, prayer sɛ̀nɛ̄ ɓō sɛ̀nɛ̄ ɓō hɛ́lî séli (Ar. çalaa) prayer)

sɛ́bɛ (Ar. çafh◌̣a book kīī (= ‘skin') kɔlɔ (= ‘skin') sɛ́ɓɛ̀ hɛ́bɛ̂ ‘page’)

to thank, ɓáliká bálíká bálíká bárika thank you,

derivates from < kàrán ‘read, teach’ church, sɔ́ɔ́ī < Eng. Kôrai ‘Christ’ or kānà kàláŋ̀ (Ar. qara’ ‘to read’, Christianity church ɣâla ‘God’ cf. Quran)

ārzānā, lɛ̀í, wálà pà God heaven ɣâla‑taa God at wálà pà árzáná àlijana (Ar. al jannah) at God at

save lā kísí ɓō, lā kihiɓo kísi

judgement kítí kítí kíti (Ar. qaḍiyya)

insult, ɓàkà ɓō ɓaɣa ɓo baga offense

76 Table 7 provides some examples of borrowings from Manding to Kpelle and (then) to Mano. A domain that seems to be very influenced by Maninka is trade: note the words wáa ‘thousand’ and sɔ̀nkɔ́ ‘price’ borrowed from Manding in Guinean and Liberian Mano and Kpelle. The words for commercial goods, such as ‘soap’, were also borrowed and can ultimately be traced to Arabic (note that English or French words for soap are also Arabic borrowings). Note that the word for ‘money’ was borrowed in both Guinean varieties, but not in Liberian Kpelle (I do not have evidence for Liberian Mano). Other cultural lexica were borrowed in Guinean varieties, but to a lesser extent in Liberia: the examples are the equivalents for ‘book’, ‘teacher’, ‘to thank’. The same concerns some basic religious terminology, such as ‘sacrifice’ or ‘prayer’: note that in the dictionary of Liberian Kpelle a Manding borrowing has an unambiguous connotation ‘Muslim prayer’. However, when it comes to other religious vocabulary in Liberia, native terms are strongly preferred, while in Guinea Manding borrowings, many of which are Arabic by origin, abound.

77 Although the comparative lists in Tables 6 and 7 are small, the general impression is that there is less leakage across the political border of the Maninka‑influenced cultural lexicon than of basic lexical items shared by some Kpelle and Mano varieties. The notable exception is the trade lexicon and some basic religious vocabulary which is shared across the region. This suggests that extensive cultural and religious influence of Manding is more recent than the political borders. This is also supported by the history of the Christianization of Kpelle and Mano, which was independent in both

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regions and started after the political borders between Guinea and Liberia were traced. Crucially, in Guinea the Catholic missionaries relied a lot on Manding‑speaking interpreters in search for the equivalents in Kpelle, which explains the great number of Manding borrowings in religious vocabulary (Lelong 1949). The Christianization of Mano started much later than the Christianization of Kpelle and missionaries working among Mano heavily relied on Kpelle as a model, which explains how Manding borrowings further spread to Mano.

78 Note also that with a couple of exceptions in Guinea and Liberia Mano and Kpelle cluster together in their borrowing / retention patterns, as well as patterns of polysemy: both in Liberian Mano and Liberian Kpelle the words kīī and kɔlɔ mean ‘skin’ and ‘book’, while in Guinean Mano and Guinean Kpelle they only mean ‘skin’; the Guinean Mano word sɛ́ɓɛ̀ ‘book’ is likely to be a borrowing from Guinean Kpelle hɛ́bɛ̂ (which is a borrowing from Manding).

79 In summary, the patterns in the spread of common vocabulary show a complex multilayered picture of horizontal contact between Mano and Kpelle and across different dialects, of old contact with Manding via trade and, to a lesser extent, religion, and a more recent introduction of Manding borrowings intensified (or motivated) by the translation practices of the Guinean missionaries and limited by political borders.

80 By contrast to Guinean Mano, the lexicon of SLM could be influenced by Dan. ‘To bite’ in Guinean Mano (and in CLM) is sɔ̰́ɔ̰́ dɔ̄ ‘tooth place’, while in SLM, it is kṵ́ sɔ̰́ā̰ ‘catch tooth+with’. In Dan, the model is the same as in SLM: kṵ́ sɔ̰̋ɔ̰̋ ‘catch tooth.INSTR’(Vydrine & Kességbeu 2008:22). The same applies to yíí là kɛ̄ (lit. ‘water on do’) ‘to swim’ in Guinean Mano and yíí kɛ̄ (lit. ‘water do’) ‘to swim’ in SLM: in Dan, ‘to swim’ is yi̋ kʌ̄ (lit. ‘water do’) (Vydrine & Kességbeu 2008:295). Dan, just like SLM, has only one marker of plurality, which is nȕ (cf. nù in SLM vs vɔ̀, additive plurality, and nì, non‑additive, including associative, plurality in other Mano varieties). More information is needed to account for SLM patterns of borrowing / retention.

The limits of contact explanation

81 The issue of contact does not obviously explain all the interdialectal differences. In particular, if in Guinean Kpelle the rules of assimilation of the gerund are almost identical to those in SLM (Konoshenko 2017: 319), why should Guinean Mano be different? A different example: if both Kpelle and Dan have inclusive vs exclusive distinction in pronouns, why did Guinean Mano lose it, and Liberian Mano attach a different value to the different pronominal forms in the paradigm?

82 In addition, there are some features common to Mano, Kpelle and Dan, such as agreement patterns studied by Konoshenko (2015: 176‑177), which could be due to some larger areal influence.

83 As noted in Section 1, Mano varieties spoken to the south of Gbanquoi are expected to manifest more differences with respect to other Mano dialects. A comprehensive documentation of these and other Liberian dialects should be an object of a future study.

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Abbreviations

84 CS – construct state

85 DEM – demonstrative

86 EMPH – emphatic

87 EXI – existential

88 FOC – focus

89 INDEF – indefinite

90 INF – infinitive

91 IP – inclusory pronoun

92 IPFV – imperfect

93 PL – plural

94 POSS – possessive

95 PRF – perfect

96 PST – past

97 REFL – reflexive

98 SG – singular

99 TOP – topicalizer

BIBLIOGRAPHY

References

deZeeuw, Peter & Rexanna Kruah. 1981. A learner directed approach to Mano: A handbook on communication and culture with dialogs, texts, cultural notes, exercises, drills and instructions. East Lansing: Michigan University.

Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 1996. Demonstratives in narrative discourse: A taxonomy of universal uses. In Barbara A. Fox (ed.), Studies in anaphora, 205–254. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Khachaturyan, Maria. 2015. Grammaire du mano. Mandenkan 54. 1–252.

Khachaturyan, Maria. 2018a. How qara’ ‘to read’ in Arabic became kānà ‘Christianity’ in Mano: a story of linguistic and religious contact in Forest Guinea. Paper presented at the Christianity, Language Contact, Language change, April 13, 2018, Paris.

Khachaturyan, Maria. 2018b. Mediated conversions: ethnolinguistic and religious contact in Forest Guinea. Paper presented at the Language contact and translation in religious context. Comparative approaches conference, May 24‑26, 2018, Paris.

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Konoshenko, M. 2017. Кпелле язык [The Kpelle language]. In Valentin Vydrin, Julia Mazurova, Andrey Kibrik & Elena Markus (eds.), Языки мира. Языки манде [Languages of the world. Mande languages], 284–343. Saint Petersburg: Nestor‑Istorija.

Konoshenko, Maria. 2015. Лично‑числовое согласование в языках манде: внутригенетическая типология. [Person and number agreement in Mande languages: a family‑internal typology.]. Moscow: Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences PhD dissertation.

Konoshenko, Maria. Kpelle‑English‑French‑Russian dictionary.

Laury, Ritva. 1997. Demonstratives in interaction. The emergence of a definite article in Finnish. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Leger, Jean. 1975. Dictionnaire guerzé. Nzérékoré.

Leidenfrost, Theodore E. & John S. McKay. 2007. Kpelle‑English dictionary with a grammar sketch and English‑Kpelle finderlist. Moscow (USA): Palaverhut Press.

Lelong, M.H. 1949. N’zérékoré. L’Évangile en forêt guinéenne. Paris: Librairie missionnaire.

Neal, Vern C., William C. Sinclair, Bartholomew J. Finn & Marilyn Compton. 1946. Beginning Mano. A course for speakers of English. San Francisco.

UBS (ed.). 1978. New Testament in Mano. Translation by June M. Hobley Jackson and Stanley Younguoi. Monrovia: United Bible Societies in Liberia.

Vydrin, Valentin. 2010. Le pied métrique dans les langues mandé. Essais de typologie et de linguistique générale. Mélanges offerts à Denis Creissels, 53–62. Lyon: ENS Éditions.

Vydrin, Valentin. 2011. Déclinaison nominale en dan‑gwèètaa (groupe mandé‑sud, Côte‑d’Ivoire). Faits de langues 3. 233–258.

Vydrin, Valentin. 2017. Дан язык [the Dan language]. In Valentin Vydrin, Julia Mazurova, Andrey Kibrik & Elena Markus (eds.), Языки мира. Языки манде [Languages of the world. Mande languages], 469–582. Saint Petersburg: Nestor‑Istorija.

Vydrin, Valentin. Mande etymological dictionary.

Vydrine, Valentin & Mongnan Alphonse Kességbeu. 2008. Dictionnaire Dan‑Français (dan de l’Est) avec une esquisse de grammaire du dan de l’Est et un index français‑dan. St. Petersburg: Nestor‑Istoria. http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00715560.

Zarwolo, Leelamen D.F. 2009. Sèé E Ló Kàa Dàpìà. Saye went to fish. Developed by Mann Literacy and Translation Association. Illustrated by Jesse Fallah Konow. Monrovia: LIBTRALO.

Zetterström, Kjell. 1976. The Yamein Mano of Northern Liberia. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.

NOTES

1. I would like to express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful criticism. As usual, I am thankful to Pe Mamy for his tireless help and support in (our) language research, and also for his wonderful companionship in our travels (we will have to have more Club beers to share in Liberia!). I am indebted to Leelamen Zarwolo for accompanying us in Liberia and introducing us to Mano communities – without him, we would never have accomplished what we have in just a few days, – for his valuable language commentaries, and also for the literacy

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materials he created. I am also thankful to the University of Helsinki for the financial support of the fieldwork and for Jack Rueter for language check and inspiring comments. 2. https://www.ethnologue.com/language/mev/21 3. When used with a demonstrative, Mano nouns typically take a high-tone focalized form. 4. For some lexemes, the assimilation is so systematic that the speakers write the assimilated nasal consonant. Thus, I once attested the combination ŋ̄ zò ‘1SG heart’, which is typically pronounced as [ɲ̄ɲ̄ò], written as nyo (Célebration dominicale sans prêtre, sans communition. Manuscript copy obtained from Aimé S.). 5. Empty cells in the SLM column mean that the variant was not tested. 6. Note the form of the demonstrative ā after the closed vowel, mí. This is an apparent exception to the rule explained above that after a closed vowel the vowel in the demonstrative becomes semi-open, ɛ̄. Here, the quality of the vowel is conditioned by the subsequent vowel in the pronoun àyé, which explains why the assimilation did not take place. 7. It may be reasonable to consider that the ā demonstrative grammaticalized into a definite article. However, the argument whether definiteness is grammaticalized or not in a specific language is a rather complex one (cf. Laury 1997:250–263 on Finnish) and is beyond the scope of the present paper. 8. The marker nì can have scope over either, or both, subsets of group of referents. Thus, if it has scope over the second person participant, the reading is ‘you (pl.) and I’. If it has scope over the first person participant, the reading is ‘We and you (sg.)’. It may also have scope over both participants, the reading being ‘we and you (pl.)’. 9. A pronoun of the emphatic series ɓī is expected in this context, rather than a non-subject pronoun ī. The appearance of ī may be due to elision. 10. Note that since the Bible Translation has used Liberian dialects as a base, ‘book’ was translated by kīī, which became the "correct" variant in the Protestant Mano communities in Guinea for whom the Bible translation is much more authoritative than for Catholics, who keep using the original Maa term, sɛ́ɓɛ̀. 11. Gílà, most likely, comes from gi◌́ ‘belly’ + là ‘surface’. 12. Unfortunately, no descriptions of Dan varieties spoken in Liberia were available, so I had to refer to descriptions of Dan spoken in the Ivory Coast. 13. http://www-01.sil.org/silesr/2000/2000-003/Manding/MandingLinguaFranca_map.htm

ABSTRACTS

This paper gives a preliminary account of the dialectal situation of Mano, a South Mande language. Mano has at least three varieties in Guinea and three varieties in Liberia. The focus of the paper is a comparison between the central Guinean dialect, Maa, and the southernmost Liberian variety, with some additional information from other Guinean and Liberian varieties. Some patterns of variation in phonology, morphosyntax and lexicon are presented. The paper argues that some of the dialectal differences in Mano could be explained by different contact situations: while in the North, and especially in Guinea, Mano is influenced by Kpelle, which was in turn influenced by Manding, in the South of Liberia, Mano is influenced by Dan. The patterns of spread of common Mano – Kpelle – Manding vocabulary show a complex multilayered picture of horizontal contact between Mano and Kpelle and across different dialects, of old contact with

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Manding via trade and a more recent introduction of Manding borrowings intensified (or motivated) by the translation practices of the Guinean missionaries and limited by political borders between Guinea and Liberia.

L’article est un rapport préliminaire sur la situation dialectale du mano, langue mandé‑sud. Le mano a au moins trois variétés en Guinée et trois variétés au Libéria. L’article se focalise sur une comparaison entre le dialecte guinéen central (maa) et la variété libérienne du sud, avec une information supplémentaire sur d’autres variétés guinéennes et libériennes. Quelques schémas de variation en phonologie, morphosyntaxe et lexique sont présentés. L’article avance que certaines des différences dialectales en mano pourraient s’expliquer par des situations de contact différentes : alors qu’au nord, et surtout en Guinée, le mano est influencé par le kpellé, qui, à son tour, a été influencé par le manding, dans le sud du Libéria, le mano est influencé par le dan. Les schémas de propagation du lexique commun aux langues mano, kpellé et manding montrent une image complexe à plusieurs niveaux de contact horizontal entre mano et kpellé et entre les différents dialectes de ces langues, de contact ancien avec le manding à travers le commerce. Ils indiquent aussi et une introduction plus récente d’emprunts manding intensifée (ou motivée) par les pratiques de traduction des missionnaires guinéens et limitée par les frontières politiques entre la Guinée et le Libéria.

В данной статье приводится предварительный анализ диалектной ситуации в мано, языке южной группы семьи манде. У мано насчитывается по меньшей мере три диалекта в Гвинее и три – в Либерии. Особое внимание в статье уделяется сравнению гвинейского диалекта маа и южного либерийского диалекта с добавлением некоторых деталей о других гвинейских и либерийских диалектах. В статье представлены некоторые тенденции вариативности в фонологии, морфосинтаксисе и лексике. В статье демонстрируется, что отчасти диалектные различия в мано могут быть объяснены контактом с разными языками: на севере, особенно в Гвинее, мано подвержен влиянию кпелле, на который, в свою очередь, повлиял манинка, тогда как на юге Либерии на мано повлиял дан. Тенденции в распространении словарных единиц в мано, кпелле и манинка демонстрируют сложную многослойную структуру, с одной стороны, горизонтальных контактов между мано и кпелле и между различными диалектами этих языков, а с другой стороны, контактов с манинка через торговые отношения, а также более недавние заимствования из манинка религиозной терминологии, которые были усилены (или мотивированы) переводческими практиками гвинейских миссионеров и ограничены политическими границами между Гвинеей и Либерией.

INDEX

Keywords: Mano language, dialectal variation, contact, borrowing Mots-clés: langue mano, variation dialectale, contacte, emprunt motsclesru язык мано, диалектное варьирование, контакт, заимствование

AUTHOR

MARIA KHACHATURYAN

М. Л. Хачатурьян University of Helsinki

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[email protected]

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Texts for the corpus of Nko: collection, conversion, and open issues1 Textes pour le corpus de n’ko: collection, conversion et problèmes pendants Тексты для корпуса нко: сбор, конвертация и открытые вопросы

Andrij Rovenchak

Acknowledgments. I am grateful to the anonymous referees for their comments which induced me to extend the initially concise presentation of the material. I appreciate Christopher Green's and Dafydd Gibbon's help with language editing of the paper.

Introduction

1 The Nko alphabet was created in 1949 by a Guinean scholar and enlightener Solomana Kantɛ (1922–1987) as a script for Manding languages. It is the most successful new indigenous African writing system currently in use (Oyler 2005; Vydrine 2001). The script is mainly utilized for the Maninka language of Guinea.

2 Preliminary steps in compiling a corpus of Maninka, as well as the description of the Maninka Reference Corpus (Corpus Maninka de Référence, CMR), where the vast majority (over 85 percent) of texts are written in Nko, have been described in a series of papers (Davydov 2010; Vydrin 2013; Vydrin 2014; Vydrin, Rovenchak & Maslinsky 2016).

3 The present report briefly summarizes the experience with the Nko corpus building and outlines prospects towards further development in the future.

Collection of texts

4 We started collecting texts for the corpus of Nko in 2009. A number of Nko texts in electronic form are available from web sites (mainly http://www.kanjamadi.com) and

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social networks. The latter comprise a modest fraction of all the texts in the corpus, but such texts (Twitter and Facebook posts) are rather specific and, consequently, they have been the focus of recent studies (see Mikros & Perifanos 2015 and references therein). Presently, more than 1,000 tweets in Nko can be collected. The authors tweeting mostly in Nko include @solofarabado (about 500 tweets), @kiniebaka (over 300 tweets), and @siarabohlansine (over 100 tweets). Other online media, for instance, the NkoAfrica blog (http://nkoafrica.over-blog.com) launched in 2017, represent a good source for potential corpus expansion. Several pages from the Wikipedia incubator in Nko (https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/ Special:PrefixIndex/Wp/ nqo/) might be also included. A large part of Nko texts in electronic form (in DOC and PDF formats) were obtained from the Nko Academy (Ńkó Dúnbu, http:// nkodoumbou.com) via Ibrahima Sory 2 Condé. All the files were converted to a plain‑text format in the standard UTF‑8 encoding using software specially developed by the author.

5 As of April 14, 2018 (the day marking the 69th anniversary of Nko), the corpus size is 3,122,178 words (Vydrin et al. 2014). Over 20 percent of the corpus (ca. 650,000 running words) is covered by texts from periodicals,2 in particular, Dàlu Kέndε and Yèreya fɔ̀ɔbɛ (cf. Rovenchak 2015a). Religious texts (mostly Qur’an and Tafsīr) count over 500,000 words. The remaining part of the corpus is composed of educational literature, texts of popular nature, works of fiction, etc. The corpus can be freely accessed online at http://cormand.huma-num.fr/cormani/.

Text conversion

6 The conversion of texts from PDF requires several steps. First of all, the text is copied from PDF into a text file in a proper order, which is particularly important for multicolumn periodicals, and break points are inserted for subsequent splitting of longer texts into individual articles or sections. This last step justifies the manual processing of PDFs: note that article titles are often given as WordArt objects or similar images and not as ordinary text and thus require re‑typing. At present, we have processed over 100 issues of periodicals which constitute about one third of the available files. The obtained text files are then converted into UTF‑8 format. Various encoding schemes are attested when processing original PDFs; there are currently approximately ten approaches used. Occasionally, two different encodings appear in one PDF for different text blocks.

7 Some of the most typical encoding schemes are summarized below. For internal purposes, they are denoted by abbreviations (NN, NN1, NN3, etc.). The scheme NN3 is attested, in particular, for Dàlu Kέndε from №15 (15 August 2011) to №25 (31 October 2011). Figure 1 shows text copied from PDF (left image) as compared to the converted one (right image).

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Figure 1: Screenshots of texts from Dàlu Kέndε from №16 (22 August 2011).

Note technical headers within tags … used to make automatic splitting of entire issues into separate articles. The left panel is the original copied text while the right is the text in a Unicode font.

8 A screenshot of a fragment of the Perl script used to make the conversion to Unicode is given in Fig. 2.

Figure 2: A fragment of the Perl script for the conversion to the Unicode format from the NN3 encoding.

9 Another encoding scheme (NN) is demonstrated in Fig. 3. Note that system fonts do not contain codepoints of the text copied from PDF, so we can see just empty boxes. A conversion script fragment is shown in Fig. 4. This scheme is attested in particular for Dàlu Kέndε from №96 (20 May 2013) to №99 (10 June 2013).

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Figure 3: Screenshots of texts from Dàlu Kέndε from №96 (20 May 2013).

The left panel is the original copied text while the right is the text in a Unicode font.

Figure 4: A fragment of the Perl script for the conversion to Unicode format from NN encoding.

The left panel corresponds to the UTF‑8 mode while the right is the ANSI mode of text representation. Note in the top row an unusual encoding of the space character.

10 While processing the files, several typical misprints were discovered. They often do not cause any problems in reading and understanding the printed version, but they hinder straightforward automatic processing of texts.

11 For instance, the dágbasinna symbol < ߑ > (U+07D1) cancelling the gba◌̀rali (contraction) orthographic rule is often replaced by the low tone apostrophe < ߵ > (U+07F5), as in the following example (the rightmost word in the middle line, ʒándarmun):

[…] na◌̀ dá. kɛ̀lɛ‑mɔ́ɔ` (ʒándarmun) lú lè fɔ́lɔ

[…] come PFV.INTR war‑human‑ART (FRGN) PL FOC first

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na◌̀ dá. fárin kúlod píivi […]

come PFV.INTR vigorous Claude Pivi […]3

12 Note that the corpus is glossed using the Daba software (Maslinsky 2014) based on the Malidaba dictionary (Vydrin, Rovenchak & Maslinsky 2016). The preparation of a cleaned, disambiguated, and thoroughly checked Nko corpus is a subsequent stage, which would require resolving some of the issues mentioned below.

13 Additional spacing is not rare in combination with tonal apostrophes and tonal marks. Moreover, in many cases, the placement of tonal marks (before or after a vowel, as they are stored in the PDFs) varies in the same file. A fully automatic standardization of such situations is not possible due to appearance of foreign sounds that use diacritical marks, cf. <߬ߌߤ߭ ߯ ߊߓߑߘߎߟߊ > ábdulaaħì ‘Abdulaaħi’ or <߫ߌ߭ ߛߊߙߑߞߏߖ > sárkozi ‘Sarkozy’. In some cases, it is not immediately obvious whether the mark belongs to the consonant or to the neighboring vowel, cf. <߫ ߌߙߊߞߌ > íraki ‘Iraq’, where the overline denotes the high tone of the final syllable, versus <ߌ ߫ ߌߙߊߞ > íraqí` ‘Iraq’, where the overline changes < ߞ > /k/ to / q/. These problems are often observed in periodicals, where foreign names occur rather frequently. Manual correction seems to be the best option so far. A Nko spellchecker, which would facilitate handling of the abovementioned misprints, is under development by Jean Jacques Méric (cf. Méric 2014 describing the Bamana

spellchecker). 14 Another curious and unexpected typographic solution is the “nasalized” Arabic comma dot below < ، >, U+060C followed by U+07F2), occurring instead of the Arabic semicolon) .U+061B). Such situations are easily handled automatically) < ؛ > 15 In February 2016, an online converter between various Nko encodings, previously determined while processing DOC files for the corpus, was launched at http:// nkoconvert.ho.ua. Initially, it was intended as a tool for conversion between older (pre‑Unicode) fonts and Unicode format. Two different mappings of Nko letters on Arabic letters were used in those fonts, one of which is represented by the following typefaces: BOURAMA‑KANTE, Nko Manding1 Cote D'Ivoiredf1, N'ko2 Manden‑1, Solomana Kante, while the second is found in A Manding BATEKA, A Manding IT BAMA, Fofona, Karifala Berete, Manding N'ko Sigui, Nko Africa, Nko Kouroukan Fouwa, and some others (Vydrin, Rovenchak & Maslinsky 2016). Mapping on another right‑to‑left script, Hebrew, is used in the NkoHeb typeface, which is not frequently attested in available materials.

16 Other functions of this converter include the transformation between the Nko script and the Roman‑based orthography (with full notation of tones) and the transformation from the Roman based orthography (without tones) to Nko. There are certain limitations in the latter conversion. Since the original Roman‑based texts have no tonal notation, the Nko version of the respective text cannot be tonalized. Short vowels have no tonal marks, i.e., they are represented as if they would carry a high tone. Taking into account frequency data about tonal patterns in Nko texts (Rovenchak 2011; Rovenchak 2015b), one can estimate that about 70% of vowels would be represented correctly. A similar decision was made to mark a long vowel by the diacritic mark corresponding to “long vowel + high tone”. The only exception made is for the long vowel /ɔɔ/, which appears in Maninka much more often with low tone. Since there is no tonal distinction,

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the gbàrali (orthographic vowel contraction) rule is not applied in the Nko version of texts converted from the Roman‑based orthography. In the future, more advanced techniques might be applied similar to those used by Liu & Nouvel (2017) for Bamana texts.

Open issues

17 A number of open issues remain in order to facilitate further acquisition of texts for the Nko corpus. They are of different natures and importance, and only a couple of them are outlined below.

18 Some minor issues include the possibility of encoding additional characters in the Nko Unicode block (Everson 2015):

19 Of the four proposed symbols, the tɛ́‑kɛrɛndɛ mark is most frequently needed. Its role is similar to a hyphen in some compound words; presently, several different approaches are used to represent this symbol. The combining dántayalan mark denoting abbreviations of units of measure also occurs in the corpus several times. The remaining two signs, which are currency symbols, have not been attested in the corpus so far. The Unicode Technical Committee suggested that the tɛ́‑kɛrɛndɛ mark be represented by a hyphen (Anderson et al. 2016). A further, detailed study of Nko texts is required to determine whether there is a crucial difference between tɛ́‑kɛrɛndɛ and hyphen. So far, this mark can be represented as an underscore < _ > (U+005F). The other three characters (dántalayan, dɔ́rɔmɛ, and táman) are expected to appear in the Unicode Version 11.0 scheduled4 for release in June 2018.

20 The currently available, though incomplete conversion from the Roman‑based to the Nko orthography requires further tuning to reflect tonal marking in Nko texts. Such an algorithm will heavily rely on a dictionary, which is under development (Vydrin, Rovenchak & Maslinsky 2016).

21 In PDF documents, especially those produced using modern Unicode fonts, problems with text block placement occur frequently. Namely, even a single text line can appear as a set of non‑consecutive blocks. While it might be unexpected, the problem could originate in PDF algorithms for representing right‑to‑left scripts. Therefore, to facilitate further collection of texts, it would be practical if sources for published texts (in DOC, DOCX, ODT, or TXT formats) were made available by authors or publishers, rather than solely the respective final PDFs. Obviously, no text will be put online in its entirety but will be used solely for processing towards the inclusion into the corpus.

22 In the future, it would be useful to implement optical character recognition (OCR) for Nko as such software is not currently available. One possibility is to train an open‑source OCR engine known as Tesseract (https://github.com/tesseract‑ocr) for the

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Nko script. OCR software would allow processing of both printed materials not available electronically and of PDF documents lacking text layers for current conversion algorithms.

Concluding remarks

23 I expect the presented information to generate feedback from the Nko community and hope that it plants the seeds for further collaborations in collecting texts for the Nko corpus as well as in improving existing tools for processing Nko texts. Separate attention should be paid to texts available in several languages as being a source for multilingual parallel corpora; these will be invaluable in the development of automatic translation services in the future.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

References

Anderson, Deborah, Ken Whistler, Rick McGowan, Roozbeh Pournader, Andrew Glass & Laurentiu Iancu. 2016. Recommendations to UTC #146 January 2016 on Script Proposals. L2/16 037. https:// www.unicode.org/L2/L2016/16037-script-rec.pdf.

Davydov, Artem. 2010. Towards the Manding corpus: Texts selection, principles and metatext markup. In Guy de Pauw, Handré Groenewald & Gilles Maurice de Schryver (eds.), Proceedings of the Second Workshop on African Language Technology AfLaT, May 18, 2010, 59–62. Valletta, Malta. http://tshwanedje.com/publications/AfLaT2010.pdf.

Everson, Michael. 2015. Proposal to encode four N’Ko characters in the BMP of the UCS. L2/15 338. http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15338-n4706-nko-additions.pdf.

Liu, Yu Cheng & Damien Nouvel. 2017. A Bambara tonalization system for word sense disambiguation using differential coding, segmentation and edit operation filtering. Proceedings of the 8th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing (IJCNLP 2017), Nov 2017, 694–703. Taipei, Taiwan.

Maslinsky, Kirill. 2014. Daba: a model and tools for Manding corpora. In Mathieu Mangeot & Fatiha Sadat (eds.), Actes de l’atelier sur le traitement automatique des langues africaines TALAf 2014 (Actes des Ateliers TALN 2014. Éd. par Brigitte Bigi). http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W14-6502.

Méric, Jean Jacques. 2014. Un vérificateur orthographique pour la langue bambara. In Mathieu Mangeot & Fatiha Sadat (eds.), Actes de l’atelier sur le traitement automatique des langues africaines TALAf 2014 (Actes des Ateliers TALN 2014. Éd. par Brigitte Bigi). http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/ W14-6505.

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Mikros, George K. & Kostas Perifanos. 2015. Gender identification in Modern Greek tweets. In Arjuna Tuzzi, Martina Benešová & Ján Mačutek (eds.), Recent Contributions to Quantitative Linguistics, 75–88. Berlin–Boston: Mouton de Gruyter.

Oyler, Dianne White. 2005. The history of the N’Ko alphabet and its role in Mande transnational identity: Words as weapons. Cherry Hill, NJ: Africana Homestead Legacy Press.

Rovenchak, Andrij. 2011. Phoneme distribution, syllabic structure, and tonal patterns in Nko texts. Mandenkan 47. 77–96.

Rovenchak, Andrij. 2015a. Quantitative studies in the corpus of Nko periodicals. In Arjuna Tuzzi, Martina Benešová & Ján Mačutek (eds.), Recent Contributions to Quantitative Linguistics, 125–138. Berlin–Boston: Mouton de Gruyter.

Rovenchak, Andrij. 2015b. Quantitative studies in the corpus of Nko periodicals. In Arjuna Tuzzi, Martina Benešová & Ján Mačutek (eds.), Recent Contributions to Quantitative Linguistics, 125–138. Berlin–Boston: Mouton de Gruyter.

Vydrin, Valentin. 2013. Bamana Reference Corpus (BRC). Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 95. 75–80.

Vydrin, Valentin. 2014. Projet des corpus écrits des langues manding : le bambara, le maninka. In Mathieu Mangeot & Fatiha Sadat (eds.), Actes de l’atelier sur le traitement automatique des langues africaines TALAf 2014 (Actes des Ateliers TALN 2014. Éd. par Brigitte Bigi). http://www.aclweb.org/ anthology/W14-6501.

Vydrin, Valentin, Kirill Maslinsky, Aandrij Rovenchak & Ibrahima Sory 2 Condé. 2014. Corpus maninka de référence. Corpus annoté des textes écrits en maninka, surtout en écriture Nko. http://cormand.huma-num.fr/cormani/.

Vydrin, Valentin. Andrij Rovenchak & Kirill Maslinsky. 2016. Maninka Reference Corpus: A Presentation. Actes de la conférence conjointe JEP TALN RECITAL 2016, volume 11: TALAF, 87–94. Paris: AFCP et ATALA.

Vydrine, Valentin. 2001. Soulemane Kantè, un philosophe innovateur traditionaliste maninka, vu à travers ses écrits en Nko. Mande Studies 3. 99–131.

NOTES

1. This material was intended for ALDP 2017 8th African Languages in the Disciplines and Professions' Conference (Conakry, Guinea, 21‑23 April 2017). 2. Electronic versions are available from the Nko Electronic Library (http://cormand.huma- num.fr/maninkabiblio/index.jsp) or Kanjamadi (http://kanjamadi.com/foobe.htm). 3. I am grateful to Valentin Vydrin for assistance with this example glossing. PFV.INTR corresponds to the intransitive perfect mark, ART denotes the tonal article, FRGN is the gloss for a loanword, PL is the plural mark, and FOC is the contrastive focus mark. 4. In the Unicode Version 11.00 released on 05 June 2018 the following codepoints are assigned: U+07FD NKO DANTAYALAN; U+07FE NKO DOROME SIGN; U+07FF NKO TAMAN SIGN.

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ABSTRACTS

This paper discusses the compilation of a Maninka corpus, where the majority of texts are written in the Nko alphabet. Prospects for further development of the Nko corpus are briefly outlined. With this information presented, the aim is to further extend collaborations in collecting texts for the Nko corpus and to improve existing tools for processing Nko texts.

L’article présente une expérience de compilation du corpus maninka, langue où la majorité des textes sont écrits en alphabet n’ko. Les perspectives de développement du corpus n’ko sont brièvement décrites. Les informations présentées visent à étendre davantage la collaboration dans la collection de textes pour le corpus n’ko et dans l’amélioration des outils existants pour le traitement des textes en n’ko.

В статье представлен опыт составления корпуса языка манинка, где большинство текстов написано на алфавите нко. Кратко изложены перспективы развития корпуса нко. Представленная информация направлена на дальнейшее расширение сотрудничества в сборе текстов для корпуса нко и совершенствование существующих инструментов обработки текстов на нко.

INDEX motsclesru Нко, корпус текстов, манинка, кодировка, Юникод Keywords: Nko, text corpus, Maninka, encoding, Unicode Mots-clés: N’ko, corpus de textes, maninka, codage, Unicode

AUTHOR

ANDRIJ ROVENCHAK

Андрий Ровенчак Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine [email protected]

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A survey of word‑level replacive tonal patterns in Western Mande Étude des schémas tonals substitutifs au niveau du mot dans les langues mandé de l’ouest Обзор типов замещающих тональных моделей в западных манде

Christopher R. Green

I am very grateful to Maria Konoshenko, Valentin Vydrin, and an additional (still) anonymous reviewer for their comments on ways to improve this manuscript. I am also indebted to Larry Hyman and Will Leben for their many suggestions concerning a larger project on replacive tone in Mande, of which this paper is one component. Thanks also to Elizabeth Elton and David Forteguerre for their assistance in editing and proofing. Of course, any shortcomings in the current paper are solely my responsibility.

Introduction

1 Word‑level replacive tonal patterns are characteristic of the morphophonology of most Western Mande languages (one of the two major branches of the Mande family tree), though they are not always called so by name. Rather, replacive tonal patterns in these languages are most often referred to as COMPACITÉ TONALE (CT) or its English equivalent TONAL COMPACTNESS, but they have also variously been called the noun‑compounding rule, compound tone, or melody replacement, by some scholars.1 For the purpose of this paper, I adopt the term replacive tone (RT) in an attempt to bring the following discussion in line with other recent work that describes analogous replacive tonal patterns that arise at either the word – or phrase – level in certain African languages (e.g., Harry & Hyman, 2014; McPherson, 2014; McPherson & Heath, 2016, among others).

2 My goals in this paper are two‑fold. First, I present data gathered from a survey of Western Mande that aim to provide a more comprehensive picture of the RT patterns found in these languages. Previous surveys, namely Dwyer (1973) and deZeeuw

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(1979), have addressed RT in only a small subset of Western Mande languages; advances in the description of these languages over the past two decades, and moreover, the detail in which such descriptions have dealt with tonology, now permit a broader survey to be undertaken. The data and discussion in this paper confirm and subsequently build upon what is currently known about this topic; I illustrate that word‑level replacive tone is indeed a robust phenomenon that is characteristic of nearly every language in Western Mande for which sufficient data is available to make such a determination. The few exceptions to this include languages that exhibit replacive tonal patterns in higher phrasal categories rather than at the word level. In addition, this survey reveals more about sub‑types of RT patterns and other language‑specific idiosyncrasies related to RT that have not figured into the literature on the subject except, perhaps, in passing. Finally, with these RT patterns presented, I discuss correlations between these patterns and the genetic classification of Mande proposed by Vydrin (2009a; 2016). This can, in turn, be compared to other Mande classifications, such as that offered in Kastenholz (1997) and represented in resources such as the Ethnologue (Simons & Fennig 2017).

3 The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides an overview of the current state of the science concerning replacive tonal patterns in Western Mande languages. Section 3 then turns to a brief comparison of contemporary proposals aimed at genetically classifying Mande languages. This provides a means by which to ground the groupings of Western Mande languages that are assumed in this survey and the lower‑level taxa contained therein. Sections 4 and 5 provide data from the two major branches of Western Mande with sub‑sections offering data from languages that represent each of nine well‑accepted mid‑level taxa in the Western Mande family tree. Section 6 then offers a summary and concluding thoughts.

Overview of replacive tonal patterns in Western Mande

4 Replacive tonal patterns in Western Mande generally arise upon the juxtaposition of two elements (henceforth Word 1 (W1) and Word 2 (W2)) standing in certain syntactic relations to one another. Well‑known instances involve two nouns forming a compound, or sequences of a noun and particular modifiers, such as attributive adjectives and some derivational suffixes. On this point, Vydrin (2016:115) states that such tonal neutralizations can be interpreted as “a grammatical operation marking a syntactic relation” in certain constructions. While some languages exhibit only a single RT pattern, others may have more than one pattern, with each being characteristic of a particular type of syntactic relation that holds between two words (Creissels 2013:26– 27). The conditions under which RT neutralizations occur are illustrated below, and their tonal outcomes are language‑specific.

5 Many contemporary descriptions of Western Mande languages make reference to RT patterns by one of the aforementioned terms; older sources may provide data that implicate RT‑like tonal neutralization patterns but fail to point them out or discuss them in detail. Moreover, the sheer difficulty of obtaining sources on particular Mande varieties due either to their age, status as unpublished or out of print, and/or logistics of negotiating library viewing/borrowing rights has further hindered a comprehensive survey of these patterns. Up until now, the statement made in Bird (1982:42) that “it is

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not clear at this point to what extent these patterns spread across the Mande dialects” arguably still holds.

6 Absent of a contemporary survey of RT patterns in Western Mande, there has yet to be a direct basis against which to compare proposed genetic classification schemas for these languages alongside the tonal patterns that they exhibit. The current paper aims to fill this gap and, in doing so, to explore whether there is tonological evidence to support the classification of Western Mande languages found in Vydrin (2009a; 2016) which is based primarily upon comparative lexicostatistics.

7 In order to lay the foundation for the remainder of this paper, I first introduce the basic characteristics of two well‑established Western Mande RT patterns. In both of these major patterns, the lexical tonal melody of W1 dictates the melody of the larger construction. By DICTATE, I mean that the tonal melody of the larger construction is largely predictable based upon the lexical tonal melody of W1 though outcomes are often influenced by language‑specific characteristics including the relevant tone bearing unit (TBU) as well as other processes that may result in tonal alternations. The two major patterns differ most clearly in the presence of tone spreading between W1 and W2 which occurs in one major pattern but is absent in the other.

8 The first major RT pattern, which I refer to as Type 1 RT, involves i) the initial lexical tone (minimally) or the entire tonal melody (maximally) of W1 being maintained; and ii) the tonal melody of W2 being neutralized to some language‑specific melodic sequence. Such outcomes can be seen, for example, in the Bamana compounds in (1) where, in (1a), a sequence of /HH/ + /LH/ becomes [HH#HH]; in (1b), /LH/ + /LH/ becomes [LL#HH]; in (1c), /LHH/ + /HH/ becomes [LLL#HH]; and finally in (1d), / HLH/ + /H/ becomes [HHH#H]. In each instance, if the lexical melody of W1 begins with /H/ (a "High" melody word), then the resulting compound’s melody is "all High". However, if the lexical melody of W1 begins with /L/ (a "Low" melody word), the resulting compound’s melody is entirely Low up until the last element of the compound, whose tone bearing units are realized High. These examples illustrate that most tones in a given word’s melody in this pattern have no bearing on resultant RT patterns; the initial tone of W1 is key. This outcome can clearly be seen in more complex compounds like (1e), where it is still the melody of W1 that dictates the overall melody; here, a sequence of three compounded lexically /LH/ words is realized [LL#LL#HH].2

9 (1) Bamana • /nɔ́nɔ́/ ‘milk’ + /kùmún/ ‘sour’ → [nɔ́nɔ́kúmún] ‘sour milk’ • /nɛ̀gɛ́/ ‘iron’ + /jùrú/ ‘rope’ → [nɛ̀gɛ̀júrú] ‘iron thread’ • /mı̀sı́rı́/ ‘mosque’ + /wélé/ ‘call’ → [mı̀sı̀rı̀‑wélé] ‘call to prayer’ • /bámànán/ ‘Bambara’ + /kán/ ‘language’ → [bamá ́nánkán] ‘Bambara’ • /fàlı́/ ‘donkey’ + /kɔ̀rɔ́/ ‘old’ + /tı́gı́/ ‘owner’ → [fàlı̀kɔ̀rɔ̀tı́gı́] ‘old donkey owner’

10 From an analytical standpoint, these outcomes have been attributed to the spreading of tone within the prosodic word domain, as discussed in Green (2013) for Bamana. Vydrin (2016:115) states that such patterns involve the “spread of the lexical tonal contour of the initial word...on the subsequent word(s).” While this is certainly the case in Bamana words like (1a), the same statement cannot be applied as clearly to words like (1d); in this example, the first word’s /HLH/ melody is not in fact distributed over the

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compound, as the compound’s melody is all H. Thus, additional factors contribute to the tonal outcomes in these and related words.

11 The second major Western Mande RT pattern, which I call Type 2 RT, differs most clearly from Type 1 RT in that i) non‑final tones of W1’s lexical tonal melody are maintained on W1; and ii) a final lexical H tone of W1 spreads on to the initial TBU of W2 (minimally) but further (beyond the first TBU) in some language‑specific instances. Remaining TBUs in W2 are assigned a language‑specific melodic sequence. Type 2 RT is exhibited, for example, by Mende (Dwyer 1971; Dwyer 1978a; Dwyer 1978b; Spears 1967) and is illustrated in the examples in (2), which are adapted from Spears (1967). Examples (2a) and (2b) are most striking in that the final H tone of W1 comes to be associated with the first TBU of W2. While one might contend that the outcomes in examples (2c) and (2d) involve analogous L tone spreading, the true nature of this outcome is the matter of some debate. M. Konoshenko points out that there are other instances in Mande for which it has been proposed that W2 melodies are lowered in their entirety by one rule, after which another rule triggers H spreading between W1 and W2. Thus, whether or not L has spread from W1 in these instances is not clear. Note that any tonal decontouring in these and other instances can be attributed to tonal absorption.

12 (2) Mende • a. /gbɛ̀hɛ́/ ‘stool’ + /nı̀nǎ/ ‘new’ → [gbɛ̀hɛ́# nı̀nà] ‘new stool’ • b. /pɛ́lɛ́/ ‘house’ + / nı̀nǎ / ‘new’ → [pɛ́lɛ́# nı̀nà] ‘new house’ • c. /pùndı̂/ ‘mosquito’ + / nı̀nǎ / ‘new’ → [pùndı́#nı̀nà] ‘new mosquito’ • d. /kɔ̂wù/ ‘box’ + / nı̀nǎ / ‘new’ → [kɔ́wù#nı̀nà] ‘new box’

13 There appear to be other sub‑types of RT in the Mande literature, but thus far, it is unclear how widely they are distributed or how they relate formally to the attested major patterns. For example, Kingi Soninke exhibits a type of RT that has been called PARTIAL COMPACITÉ TONALE (Creissels 2013); the examples in (3) from this language are adapted from Creissels (2016:46–54). In each compound, the lexical tonal melody of W2 is maintained in its entirety while that of W1 is partially neutralized in favor of the first tone of W1’s lexical melody. For example, in (3a), W1’s /LLHL/ melody is neutralized to [LLL] while, in (3d), W1’s /HLHL/ melody is neutralized to [HHH]. In each instance, the neutralized melody of W1 is either all‑H or all‑L, depending on the initial tone of the word’s lexical tonal melody. This differs somewhat from what occurs in Bambara (Type 1 RT), however, wherein the lexical tonal melody of W2 is replaced by some language‑specific tonal sequence rather than being maintained. It also differs from Mende (Type 2 RT) where the tonal melody of W2 is influenced by tonal spreading from W1. The PARTIAL nature of this type of RT pattern distinguishes it from the more sweeping TOTAL tonal neutralizations of W2 like those found in Bambara, Mende, and (as I illustrate below) many other instances in Western Mande. In this paper, I will be primarily concerned with instances of TOTAL RT.

14 (3) Kingi Soninke • a. /kı̀ı̀dê/ ‘baobab’ + /táxàyê/ ‘sauce’ → [kı̀ı̀dı̀‑táxàyê] ‘baobab sauce’ • b. /yúgò/ ‘man’ + /séntààdê/ ‘comb’ → [yúgú‑n‑céntààdê] ‘man’s comb’ • c. /tùbáábù/ ‘European’ + /qálı̀sı̂/ ‘money’ → [tùbààbù‑n‑qálı̀sı̂] ‘European money’ • d. /qálı̀sı̂/ ‘money’ + /dárè/ ‘leaf’ → [qálı́sı́‑dárè] ‘paper money’ • e. /kı̀táábè/ ‘book’ + /kónpè/ ‘piece’ → [kı̀tààbı̀‑n‑kónpè] ‘library’

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• f. /sòònı̀nkê/ ‘Soninke’ + /qánnè/ ‘language’→ [sòònı̀nkà‑n‑qánnè] ‘the Soninke language’

15 These preliminaries serve as a baseline against which to compare other RT outcomes found in Western Mande languages. A number of languages exhibit RT patterns that are remarkably similar to those introduced above, but there are additional subtleties to the tonal outcomes observed in particular languages that are notable, worth mention, and ultimately provide a more nuanced picture of word‑level replacive tonal neutralizations from a phenomenological level across the language family. With these basic characteristics of Western Mande RT patterns stated, I turn next to discussing the state of the science concerning the genetic classification of these languages.

Genetic classification of Mande languages

16 The genetic classification of Mande languages remains a matter of some debate among scholars. As outlined in Vydrin (2009a; 2016), several internal classification proposals have been offered, the more recent being Grégoire & de Halleux (1994) and Kastenholz (1997); importantly, the latter forms the basis for the classificatory schema that has come to be adopted in the Ethnologue (Simons & Fennig 2017). In addition to these, Vydrin (2009a; 2016) proposes a newer classification that shares some similarities with earlier proposals but diverges from them in notable ways. While I direct the interested reader to Vydrin’s works for the finer details of his proposal, I briefly summarize major points that he offers that pertain to the shortcomings inherent in Grégoire & de Halleux (1994) and Kastenholz (1997). It is not my goal in this paper to offer a critical review of various classificatory proposals and their merits, but rather, I include the information below in order to situate the reader within the current state of the science on this topic.

17 To begin, the approach to Mande classification taken in Grégoire & de Halleux (1994) is grounded in glottochronology (e.g., Swadesh 1955); however, as Vydrin has pointed out, the outcomes arrived at by the authors suffer due to several factors, but chiefly because the authors utilize truncated and/or modified wordlists for many languages being compared, due either to unavailability of necessary data or lexical gaps. The classificatory approach taken in Kastenholz (1997), on the other hand, is based on shared lexical innovation, rather than on lexicostatistics; however, Kastenholz himself intimates that there are shortcomings inherent in his work. Indeed, he suggests that his findings need to be further substantianted by additional research. Despite these shortcomings, and as mentioned just above, the Kastenholz classification forms the basis for the Mande genetic data in the Ethnologue. As such, it is often cited, despite being deemed questionable by some scholars.

18 Taking these shortcomings as a cue, and citing great strides made in glottochronology in work by Starostin (2000), Vydrin (2009a; 2016) offers a new Mande classification that improves upon earlier proposals. He does so by explicitly outlining his methodology, which is closely aligned to a standard 100‑word Swadesh list with substitutions eliminated, and also by providing his wordlists and a clear statement on the calculations that he uses and how they are implemented. Importantly, Vydrin was able to take into consideration data from an array of Mande languages for which new and more reliable information is now available. With these stated advances in mind, it is Vydrin’s classification of Mande, and specifically of Western Mande languages, around which I organize the presentation of data in this paper.

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19 Vydrin (2009a; 2016) outlines eleven fairly uncontroversial mid‑level taxa in the Mande family; these are given in (4). Also uncontroversial is the highest level distinction between Western Mande (4a‑i) and South‑Eastern (4j‑k) Mande; in this paper, I concern myself exclusively with languages that constitute the former group.

20 (4) • Manding • Mokole • Vai‑Kono • Jogo‑Jeri • Soso‑Jalonke • Southwestern • Soninke‑Bozo • Samogho • Bobo • Southern • Eastern

21 A visual representation of Vydrin’s classification, beginning with the Western Mande node and extending to the taxa proposed in (4) is in (5).

(5)

(6)

22 For the sake of comparison, a visual representation of Kastenholz’s classification, as adapted from the Ethnologue, is in (6).

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23 A comparison of (5) and (6) reveals several key differences between the two classifications. Both classifications generally arrive at the same mid‑level taxa in (4), yet Vydrin’s classification differs from Kastenholz’s in the ways in which certain taxa are grouped (either together or separately) into successfully higher level branches of the genetic tree; the distinction between Eastern and Western Mande holds in both classifications. As Vydrin explicates, and as I enumerate below, major innovations to Vydrin’s classification include: • omission of a high level Northwestern group, with Samogho and Bobo instead being placed within a Samogho‑Central‑Southwestern node; • removal of Soso‑Jalonke from the Central group, instead being placed within a Soso‑Southwestern node; • reassignment of Mokole from the Manding‑Mokole node to a Mokole‑Vai node.

24 In addition to these taxa, there are additional, lower level branches in both classifications to which I refer later in this paper. My goal is to provide and discuss word‑level RT patterns in Western Mande in the most comprehensive way possible. I do so by considering data from at least one language within each of the Western Mande mid‑level taxa, as represented in Vydrin (2009a:143) and wherever possible from each lower‑level grouping that Vydrin has proposed. In most instances, I have been successful in this endeavor, but some gaps exist in the comparatively less well‑described languages of the Samogho‑Bobo and Soninke‑Bozo branches of the family.

25 Establishing a baseline genetic classification of Mande languages is important to the goals of this paper, both descriptively and theoretically. From a descriptive perspective, the information on replacive tonal patterns that I present below far surpasses that offered in two earlier works, namely Dwyer (1973) and deZeeuw (1979), which unfortunately fail to provide a comprehensive picture of these phenomena across all branches of Western Mande. In his thesis, Dwyer considers data only from five Southwestern Mande languages: Mende, Loko, Bandi, Loma, and Kpelle. This provides respectable coverage of this sub‑branch of the family, as there are fewer than ten Southwestern Mande languages in total. deZeeuw (1979) provides somewhat better coverage; data considered are from the same five Southwestern Mande languages as Dwyer, but in addition, deZeeuw also includes Vai, Susu, "Mandekan",3 and Soninke. Taken together, and regardless of which classification one adopts, there remain branches of the Western Mande family tree that are un‑ or under‑represented in these two surveys. In the current paper, I include data from these previously reported languages, but more importantly, I fill in many of the gaps in coverage for languages that these earlier works did not include. From a theoretical standpoint, this paper sets the stage for further inquiry into the typology of word‑level replacive tonal patterns in Mande languages, including the ways in which they compare to analogous patterns found in other African languages.

Samogho‑Central Southwestern Mande

26 In this section, I discuss those languages falling within the Samogho‑Central‑Southwestern (SCS) node in (5). Vydrin (p.c.) suggests that this not be considered an actual "branch", as the division of Western Mande into its major sub‑branches (Soninke‑Bozo, Samogho‑Bobo, etc.) occurred almost simultaneously. As

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such, I consider reference to SCS Mande to be merely a matter of descriptive convenience in this paper. In discussing the languages in this section, I sub‑divide SCS Mande into three smaller groups in order to discuss their properties relative to one another. I first discuss Central Mande languages in Section 4.1, which are followed by Soso‑Southwestern Mande in Section 4.2. These two groups together form the Central‑Soso‑Southwestern (CSS) node of Western Mande and contain the vast majority of languages in the higher SCS grouping. Following discussion of these two sub‑branches, I turn in Section 4.3 to discussing properties of the Samogho‑Bobo languages; recall that the inclusion of these languages alongside other Central and Southwestern Mande languages is an innovation in Vydrin’s classification. Samogho‑Bobo languages, along with the Soninke‑Bozo languages discussed in Section 5 are, in the Kastenholz classification, designated as Northwestern Mande.

Central Mande

27 The genetic tree in (5) divides Central Mande languages into two major sub‑branches, namely Jogo‑Jeri and Great Manding, with the latter comprising far more languages than the former. In some instances, a higher branching category contains one or more constituent languages but may also be further sub‑divided into smaller groupings which, in turn, may contain one or more languages. For example, according to Vydrin’s classification, the Jogo‑Jeri node of the family tree has a direct descendent (Jeri), but two other languages (Jogo and Numu) constitute a lower‑level grouping, though one not designated by name. An analogous, though more complex situation arises in Great Manding, which is first subdivided into Manding and Mokole‑Vai, and thereafter into a number of smaller groups. Of concern in this paper will be the degree to which the tonal behavior of these languages aligns with their proposed classificatory groupings. Four of the eleven taxa in (4) are discussed in this section: Manding (Section 4.1.1), Mokole (Section 4.1.2.1), Vai‑Kono (Section 4.1.2.2), and Jogo‑Jeri (Section 4.1.3).

Manding

28 Vydrin’s Manding branch contains additional sub‑groupings, which I discuss in Sections 4.1.1.1 and 4.1.1.2. In terms of direct descendants of the Manding node, one language is represented in his classification, namely Mandinka [iso:mnk]. A few other well‑described languages, however, could also arguably be placed in this group, including Kagoro [iso:xkg] and certain varieties of Maninkakan, including those spoken in Kita [iso:mwk] and Niokolo [iso:mlq].

29 Beginning with Mandinka, as described in Creissels & Sambou (2013:49–50), the language exhibits a Type 1 RT pattern. The authors provide data exhibiting the neutralizing property of such word‑level tonal patterns; the example of [jàtà‑kúlú], which might mean either ‘lion skin’ or ‘lion bone,’ has segmentally‑identical, but tonally unique W2s [kùlú] ‘skin’ and [kúlú] ‘bone’ that surface with the same [HH] tonal melody in the compound. As the authors explain, and similar to what was seen in our Bambara exemplar in (1), the Mandinka RT patterns are [H#H] and [L#H].

30 The RT patterns found in Kagoro compounds reported in Vydrine (2001:53) are also undeniably Type 1. The examples provided in this source show that the tonal melody of a given compound is dictated by the tonal melody of W1 and always results in one of two outcomes, [H#H] or [L#H]. More striking overall is the ascending outcome seen in

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examples like /jàkúmá/ ‘cat’ + /fı̂n/ ‘black’ → [jàkùmà#fı́n] ‘black cat’ and /mı̀sı́/ ‘cow’ + /kǔn/ ‘head’ → [mı̀sı̀#kún] ‘cow head.’

31 The RT patterns are similar in Kita Maninkakan as reported in Creissels (2009:29–30) and Keita (1984:30–33). Despite the fact that Kita Maninkakan has a larger inventory of lexical tonal melodies with the addition of /HL/, the RT behavior of this melody is analogous to words with a simple /H/ melody. Examples of Kita Maninkakan compounds in (7) are adapted from Creissels and show a Type 1 RT pattern. If W1 has some type of High melody (be it /H/ or /HL/), the resulting compound is [H#H]; if W1 has a Low melody (i.e., /LH/ in some distribution), the resulting compound in [L#H].

32 (7) Kita Maninkakan • /yı́rı́/ ‘tree’ + /búlú/ ‘arm’ → [yı́rı́#búlú] ‘branch’ • /jànkúmá/ ‘cat’ + /kúlú/ ‘bone’ → [jànkùmà#kúlú] ‘cat bone’ • /tùbàbú/ ‘European’ + /mùsù/ ‘woman’ → [tùbàbù#músú] ‘European woman’ • /báràmà/ ‘cooking pot’ + /nèkè/ ‘iron’ → [bará ́má#néké] ‘iron for cooking pot’

33 The RT patterns in certain other closely related Manding languages differ in notable ways from those seen thus far in Kagoro and Kita Maninkakan. In the remainder of this section, I discuss data from Niokolo Maninkakan (also called Nyoxolonkan) as reported in Creissels (2013) and some unpublished data from Dantila Maniŋgaxaŋ presented by Doucouré & Patin (2015).

34 Niokolo Maninkakan exhibits a somewhat unique "total" RT pattern in comparison to its closer cousins. As illustrated in Creissels (2013:26–28), the RT pattern in Niokolo Maninkakan compounds is like other Type 1 languages in that it is dependent on the initial lexical tone of W1 (be it /H/ or /L/). However, if this tone is /H/, the High is maintained, with any non‑initial Highs in both W1 or W2 being neutralized to Low (toneless). If the initial tone of W1 is /L/, all tones of W1 and W2 become Low (toneless). The examples in (8) show that the word‑initial H tone (8a, 8d) or L tone (8b, 8c) of W1 is key in determining the tonal melody in compound formation, and all other tones are neutralized.

35 (8) Niokolo Maninkakan • /tı́bààbù/ ‘European’ + /músù/ ‘woman’ → [tı́bààbù#mùsù] ‘European woman’ • /fùlà/ ‘Fulbe’ + /músù/ ‘woman’ → [fùlà#mùsù] ‘Fulbe woman’ • /bàránsàŋ/ ‘tree species’ + /jámbà/ ‘leaf’ → [barà ̀nsàñ#jàmbà] ‘leaf of baránsaŋ’ • /wóròŋkòféndàà/ ‘snail’ + /nòò/ ‘trail’ → [wóròŋkòfèndàà#nòò] ‘snail trail’

36 This is arguably another instance of a Type 1 RT pattern. A difference from other instances of Type 1 RT, however, is that rightward tone spreading does not occur within W1 (as in the Bambara exemplar in 1). Rather, all tones other than the first are neutralized to L in all instances.

37 It is worthwhile to note that Niokolo Maninkakan also exhibits two types of "partial" RT that are limited to particular constructions. Rather than being dictated entirely by the tonal specification of W1 like in (8), the tonal melodies resulting in these instances of "partial" RT maintain tonal features of W2.

38 Next, and though preliminary, the tonal behavior reported for Dantila Maniŋgaxaŋ compounds is unique. The examples in (9) are adapted from a conference paper presented by Doucouré & Patin (2015). These data show that upon compounding, tonal neutralization does in fact occur; however, in this variety, the lexical tonal melody of W1 is copied in its entirety onto both input elements of the resulting compound. This

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outcome is most striking in (9c) where the ascending tonal melody W1 replaces the all‑H lexical melody of W2. While the RT pattern in Dantila Maniŋgaxaŋ exhibits melodic neutralization, the neutralized melody is sometimes arguably more complex than that of the individual words themselves. Note that the final vowel alternation and lengthening is due to the presence of the definite article.

39 (9) Dantila Maniŋgaxaŋ • /fúlá/ ‘Fulbe’ + /súŋgútú/ ‘girl’ → [fúlá#súŋgútòː] ‘the Fulbe girl’ • /fúlá/ ‘Fulbe’ + /mùsú/ ‘woman’ → [fúlá#músòː] ‘the Fulbe woman’ • /tı̀báːbú/ ‘European’ + /súŋgútú/ ‘girl’ → [tı̀báːbú#sùŋgùtôː] ‘the European girl’ • /tı̀báːbú/ ‘European’ + /mùsú/ ‘woman’ → [tı̀báːbú#mùsôː] ‘the European woman’ Despite its unusual outcomes, the RT patterns observed in Dantila Maniŋgaxaŋ are 40 similar to other Type 1 outcomes. More specifically, the tonal melody of W1 dictates the melody of the larger compound, with the melody of W1 being more reliably maintained, and that of W2 being replaced.

Eastern Manding

A major sub‑grouping beneath the Manding node in Vydrin’s classification is Eastern Manding. Several languages in this group descend directly with no additional sub‑grouping; however, there are others that are proposed to form a lower, cohesive unit. In this section, I specifically discuss those languages that branch directly from the Eastern Manding node, reserving discussion of the lower sub‑grouping for 41 Section 4.1.1.2. Two Eastern Manding languages are among the best described of all Mande languages more broadly. One of these is Bambara (also called Bamanankan or Bamana) [iso:bam], 42 and the other is Jula (also called Dyula, Julakan, or Dioula) [iso:dyu]. Varieties of Bambara are spoken widely in Mali, but the Jula‑speaking area is much more widespread (see Donaldson 2016 for an overview) . There are several major works that carefully detail components of the Bambara tonal system, including its RT patterns, all of which generally focus on the so‑called standard dialect (e.g., Creissels 1978; Creissels 1988a; Creissels 1992a; Dumestre 1987; Dumestre 2003; Green 2013). Components of the Jula tonal system have also been well‑established(e.g., Braconnier 1990; Coulibaly 1983; Keita 1989; Sanogo 1995) , but only some works concern themselves directly with the language’s RT patterns. As introduced in Section 2, Bambara is an often‑cited exemplar for what I call a Type 1 RT pattern. The examples in (1), repeated here in (10) for convenience, illustrate that the lexical tonal melody of W1 in a compound dictates the tonal melody of the larger construction. As we have come to expect of this pattern, when W1 has some type of "High" tonal melody, be it /HH/ (10a) or even /HLH/ (10d), the resulting compound’s tonal melody is all‑H. When W1 instead has a "Low" tonal melody, however, the resulting compound is all‑L up until its last input morpheme, which will be all‑H (10b, 43 10c). 4

44 (10) Bambara (Bamana) • /nɔ́nɔ́/ ‘milk’ + /kùmún/ ‘sour’ → [nɔ́nɔ́#kúmún] ‘sour milk’

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• /nɛ̀gɛ́/ ‘iron’ + /jùrú/ ‘rope’ → [nɛ̀gɛ̀#júrú] ‘iron thread’ • /mı̀sı́rı́/ ‘mosque’ + /wélé/ ‘call’ → [mı̀sı̀rı̀#wélé] ‘call to prayer’ • /bámànán/ ‘Bambara’ + /kán/ ‘language’ → [bamá ́nán#kán] ‘Bambara’ Similar outcomes are found in some non‑standard varieties of Bambara, such as 45 Colloquial Bamako Bambara (Green 2010:237–239)and the variety of Bambara spoken in Fuladugu, Mali(Diarra 1992) . They are not discussed, however, in the available phonological description of Bɛlɛdugu Bambara (Konatè & Vydrine 1989). They are briefly mentioned in Dumestre & Hosaka(2000) concerning the Kolona variety of Bambara; however, this variety differs in one aspect compared to the "standard" described just above. That is, in Kolona Bambara compounds whose W1 has a lexical "Low" melody, the LH ascending contour of the word does not alternate when compounded. The authors provide the example of [mòsó#cámánnı́n] ‘the young woman,’ whose W1 [mòsó] ‘woman’ is LH both in isolation and in the compound itself. If Kolona Bambara behaved like "standard" varieties, one might instead expect *[mòsò#cámánnı́n].

46 According to the descriptions of Jula tone in Braconnier(1983:46–54)and Sanogo(1995) , there are dialectal differences in RT outcomes in Jula compounds. The examples extracted from Sanogo (1995) in (11) exhibit an identical RT outcome as those described above for "standard" varieties of Bambara in (10) with W2 being neutralized to all‑H. The examples in (12), adapted from Braconnier (1983) , however, show that W2 is neutralized to all‑L; I thank V. Vydrin (p.c.) for pointing out that in the Odienne variety of Jula reported by Braconnier, all tones are the inverse of those found in Bambara and other Jula varieties. In any case, the RT patterns in Jula are clearly Type 1.5

47 (11) Burkina Jula(Sanogo 1995) • /báárá/ ‘preference’ + /mùsó/ ‘woman’ → [baá ́rá#músô] ‘favorite wife’ • /kàrá/ ‘to try hard’ + /mɔ̀gɔ́/ ‘person’ → [karà ̀#mɔ́gɔ́] ‘teacher’

48 (12) Odienne Jula(Braconnier 1983) • /jélı́/ ‘griot’ + /ɲúmá/ ‘good’ → [jélı́#ɲùmà] ‘good griot’ • /nɔ̀nɔ̀/ ‘milk’ + /ɲúmá/ ‘good’ → [nɔ̀nɔ̀#ɲùmà] ‘good milk’

Maninka, Dafiŋ, and Mau

Other languages falling under Eastern Manding include Dafiŋ (also called Marka, Maraka, or Markakan [iso:rkm]), Mau (also called Mahou or Mawukakan [iso:mxx]), and certain dialects of Maninka, including that spoken in Kankan, Guinea. To this list, one might add Koro [iso:kfo] and Koyaga [iso:kga], which have been treated separately in some descriptions but are elsewhere referred to as varieties of the aforementioned 49 languages in this group. I begin with the tonal systems of Kankan Maninka, Koro, and Koyaga, which share the 50 most similarities with other Eastern Manding languages. Kankan Maninka has been discussed to some extent in Spears(1968) and far more comprehensively in Grégoire(1986)

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. It is clear from the examples in (13), adapted from Grégoire(1986:Chapter 2) , that the RT patterns in this language are like those found, for example, in Bambara (Section 4.1.1.1) where the final morpheme of a given construction is assigned a High tonal sequence regardless of its own lexical tonal melody or that of a preceding morpheme.

51 (13) Kankan Maninka • /nı̀sı́/ + /gbɛ́n/ + /dén/ → [nı̀sı̀gbɛ̀ndén] ‘cow‑herd’ • /wùlú/ + /musò ́/ → [wùlù#músó] ‘female dog’ • /jɛ́ɛ́/ + /mı̀ná/ + /‑lá/ → [jɛ́ɛ́#mı́ná#lá] ‘fisherman’

52 The tonal system of Koro is described in Creissels(1987) , and its RT patterns in compounds are like those described thus far for most Manding languages. The examples in (14), adapted from Creissels(1987) , illustrate this point. In all instances, the tonal melody of a compound is dictated by that of W1, where compounds surface either [H#H] or [L#H].

53 (14) Koro • /krǒ / ‘Koro’ + /cɛ̌ / ‘man’ → [krò#cɛ́] ‘Koro man’ • /tɔ́n/ ‘Baoule’ + /cɛ̌ / ‘man’ → [tɔ́#ɲɛ́] ‘Baoule man’ • /kɔ̀jɣá/ ‘Koyaga’ + /mı̀só/ ‘woman’ → [kɔ̀jɣà#mı́só] ‘Koyaga woman’ • /tùbàbú/ ‘European’ + /mı̀só/ ‘woman’ → [tùbàbù#mı́só] ‘European woman’ Tonal neutralizations in Koyaga compounds are also like those found in Koro, as 54 gleaned from the brief discussion on the topic in Creissels (1988b:85–86). Creissels provides just a single illustrative example of this point: /tùbàbú/ ‘European’ + /cɛ̌/ ‘man’ → [tùbàbù#cɛ́] ‘European man’. It is clear, however, from looking elsewhere in the description of Koyaga that this assertion holds throughout the language.

55 Dialects of Dafiŋ have been described in Diallo(1988), Ouonni(1995), and Zié(1985) , and the Zaba dialect’s grammar is described in Prost(1977). Zié(1985:71–74) illustrates RT neutralizations in Marka that are analogous to those found elsewhere in Western Mande. However, Marka differs in that it exhibits two possible tonal sequences on a W2 (i.e., the last element involved in the construction); the sequence can be either all‑L or all‑H. If W1+W2 form a compound, W2 will be all‑L, as in (15a)‑(15c). However, when W2 is “syntactically subordinate” to W1 (as in an associative construction), W2 will be H or L, as in (15d)‑(15f), with the choice being dictated by the initial lexical tone of the preceding W1. Importantly, the examples in (15) show that in all instances the lexical tonal melody of W1 predicts that of the larger construction. In (15a)‑(15c), W1s melody is maintained with W2 being assigned a L sequence in all instances. In (15d)‑(15f), W2’s tonal melody is instead directly predicated on that of W1. The first outcome is more a prototypical instance of Type 1 RT, but the second deviates slightly from the usual outcome. 6

56 (15) Marka • /só/ ‘horse’ + /kɛ́/ ‘man’ → [só#kɛ̀] ‘stallion’ • /sò/ ‘house’ + /té/ ‘to break’ + [mósó] ‘woman’ → [sò#tè#mòsò] ‘cruel wife’

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• /máráká/ ‘Marka’ + /mósó/ ‘woman’ → [máráká#mòsò] ‘Marka woman’ • /sáá/ ‘sheep’ + /kı̀rı̀/ ‘hair’ → [sáá#cı́rı́] ‘hair of a sheep’ • /sã/̀ ‘rain’ + /bɛ́rɛ́/ ‘pebble’ → [sã#b̀ ɛ̀rɛ̀] ‘hail’ (rain of pebbles) • /kálà/ ‘straw’ + /fóóró/ ‘to assemble’ → [kalá ́#fóóró] ‘pile of straw’ Compared to what I have discussed thus far in this section, the RT patterns observed in 57 Mahou are unique. To begin, and although the details differ in the threedescriptions of Mahou consulted (Bamba 1984; Creissels 1982; Ebermann 1986) , all three descriptions posit that there are more than two major lexical tonal melodies for monomorphemic words in the language. Ebermann, for example, proposes that each Mahou word is associated directly with either a /H/ or /L/ tone, but in addition, each word’s lexical melody also contains a post‑segmental floating tone which itself may be either /H/ or /L/. Thus, he describes four possible melodies in Mahou monomorphemic words: /H(L)/, /H(H)/, /L(H)/, and / L(L)/.

58 The examples adapted from Ebermann(1986:56–57) in (16), suggest a much different RT outcome than what is witnessed, for example, in Koro or Koyaga. That is, according to Ebermann’s analysis, the tonal melody of a compound is determined by a combination of the tone associated directly with W1 and the post‑segmental (i.e., floating) tone of W2 (indicated by rightward floating tones given in parentheses in (16), though with at least one complicating factor that must be taken into consideration. In (16a), W1 has an associated H tone, while W2 has a post‑segmental L tone. In (16b), the associated tone of W1 is again H, as is the post‑segmental tone of W2. In both these instances, the resulting melody is [H#H]. The outcome is transparent in (16b), but the fact that the outcome in (16a) is not *[H#L] is unexpected and may be attributed to the absence of HL contours more broadly in the language. Moving on to (16c), when W1 has an associated L tone and W2 has a post‑segmental H, the result is [L#H]. Finally, in (16d), W1 has an associated L tone and W2 has a post‑segmental L, resulting in a [L#L] melody for the compound.

59 (16) Mahou • /kwɔ́ˊ/ ‘rear’ + /kı̀ı̀ˋ/ ‘egg’ → [kwɔ́#kı́ı́] ‘testicle’ • /lɔ́ɔ́ˋ/ ‘market’ + /cɛ́ˊ/ ‘space’ → [lɔ́ɔ́#cɛ́] ‘time between two markets’ • /gbàˋ/ ‘hearth’ + /bùùˊ/ ‘shack’ → [gbà#búú] ‘kitchen’ • /sòòˋ/ ‘flesh’ + /búˋ/ ‘soft part’ → [sòò#bù] ‘flesh without bone’ With the exception of (16a), the tonal outcomes in Mahou compounds are transparent. Importantly, however, the tonal outcomes in Mahou differ from that of its closest relatives in one obvious way. That is, the tonal melodies of compounds are not dictated solely by the lexical tonal melody of W1. Rather, the melodies of both W1 and W2 appear to play a role in determining the resulting compound melody in a quasi "edge‑in" fashion. These outcomes are unique among other Mande languages more 60 broadly.

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Mokole‑Vai

Recall that the creation of a Mokole‑Vai branch of Great Manding is one key innovation 61 in Vydrin’s classification. In Kastenholz(1987), Mokole is instead part of the Manding‑Mokole group. There are two major subdivisions within Mokole‑Vai: Mokole (Section 4.1.2.1) and Vai‑Kono (Section 4.1.2.2).

Mokole

There are four languages in the Mokole group: Kakabé [iso:kke], Kuranko [iso:knk], Lélé 62 [iso:llc], and Mogofin [iso:mfg]. There have been significant lexical resources produced for Kakabé(Vydrina 2015) and Lélé(Vydrine 2009b) , but little published data is available for Mogofin. The most extensive, published tonal description among these languages is found for Kuranko (Kastenholz 1987), which I use as the exemplar for this group.

63 Kastenholz(1987:157–162) discusses the behavior of tone in compounds in detail, illustrating that the tonal melodies encountered in Kuranko compounds are reminiscent of other Type 1 RT patterns found in many of the language’s Manding cousins. The examples in (17) are adapted from Kastenholz and show that the tone of W1 dictates the tonal melody of the overall compound. The surface tonal melodies of individual "Low" words may be [L] or [LH], and the melodies of "High" words may be [H] and [HL]; however, the resulting tonal melodies attested for compounds are consistent, being either [L#H] or [H#H]. W2s in all instances surface H. These RT outcomes are comparatively somewhat simpler than what is found in Vai‑Kono, as discussed next.

64 (17) Kuranko • /kàrã/̀ ‘learn’ + /mɔ̀è/ ‘man’ → [karà ̀#mɔ́é] ‘teacher’ • /gbùndɛ̀/ ‘secret’ + /ɲɔ̃́ɔ̀/ ‘holder’ → [gbùndù#ɲɔ̃́ɔ̃́] ‘confidant’ • /bólɛ́/ ‘hand’ + /kàlɛ̀/ ‘stick’ → [bóló#kaĺ ɛ́] ‘arm’ • /kómá/ ‘to speak’ + /kã/́ ‘throat’ → [kómá#kã]́ ‘voice’

Vai‑Kono

The two languages in the Vai‑Kono group are Vai [iso:vai] and Kono [iso:kno] 65 themselves, with both languages benefitting from a good amount of description of their phonological systems.The description of Vai tonology in Welmers(1976) is fairly extensive and deals with the subject of compounds in detail. The tonal system of Vai is such that the language has both H and L tones and four major tonal melodies: H, L, LH, and HL. Certain more complex combinations of tones are possible in morphologically‑complex words.

66 The examples in (18) are adapted from Welmers(1976) and are representative of the tonal outcomes observed in Vai compounds.

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These examples show that compounds whose W1 is /H/ (18a‑18b), /HL/ (18c‑18d), or / L/ (18e‑18f) retain the lexical melody of W1 in its entirety; however, the surface tonal melody of W2 is neutralized entirely to [L] in all instances. Compounds whose W1 is lexically /LH/ (18g‑18h) are exceptional; when compounded, the tonal melody of W1 is [L], while that of W2 becomes [HL]. Such outcomes that appear to involve H spreading from W1 to W2 are more common in Soso‑Southwestern Mande. 7 In any event, there are two slightly different surface RT outcomes in this language for similarly constructed compounds. According to Welmers, any other exceptions to these patterns pertain only to borrowed words.

67 (18) Vai • /jı́/ ‘water’ + /sóó/ ‘hole’ → [jı́‑sòò] ‘water hole, well’ • /wúnú/ ‘mortar’ + /kɔ̌ŋ/ ‘stick’ → [wúnú‑kɔ̀ŋ] ‘pestle’ • /kávù/ ‘rattan’ + /jàndá/ ‘thatch’ → [kavú ̀‑jàndà] kávù ‘thatch’ • /bâ/ ‘mother’ + /léŋ/ ‘child’ → [bâ ‑lèŋ] ‘maternal aunt’ • /bò’ò/ ‘cultivated greens’ + /kúú/ ‘fenced enclosure’ → [bò’ò‑kùù] ‘garden’ • /màà/ ‘anger’ + /wù’ú/ ‘dog’ → [màà‑wù’ù] ‘angry dog’ • /jàmbá/ ‘leaf’ + /mɔ̌/ ‘person’ → [jàmbà‑mɔ́ɔ̀] ‘herbalist’ • /kǔŋ/ ‘head’ + /kpàsá/ ‘kerchief’ → [kùŋ‑kpásà] ‘head cloth’ The outcomes in Vai are unique in that all similarly‑constructed compounds do not behave in the same way. Indeed, the RT patterns in Vai share some similarities with both the exemplar Type 1 and Type 2 RT patterns introduced in Section 2. Like Type 1 RT, tonal outcomes in Vai compounds generally involve maintenance of W1’s melody and neutralization of W2’s melody. Like Type 2 RT, however, Vai compounds like (18g‑18h) witness the final tone of W1’s melody being copied onto the first TBU of W2. 68 The /LH/ to [LL] alternation that occurs subsequently in the first word may be due to AFFAISSEMENT, or a similarly‑motivated process. In sum, it appears that Vai RT patterns in compounds represent a hybrid of Type 1 and Type 2.

69 Turning to Kono, its tonology has been described in Manyeh(1983), Foday‑Ngongou (1985), and in an unpublished manuscript by Odden(n.d.) . None of these resources provides data pertaining specifically to compounds, though each discusses noun+adjective constructions which at least in some languages (e.g., Bambara and Susu) behave like noun+noun compounds from a tonal perspective elsewhere in Western Mande.

70 The examples in (19) adapted from Manyeh(1983:175–182) illustrate that in the variety of Kono described, RT patterns are more in keeping with those expected of Type 1 RT. In each instance, the tonal melody (whether L of H) of W1 is maintained, while that of W2 is assigned a HL tonal melody.

71 (19) Kono (Manyeh 1983) • /fɛ́tú/ ‘pineapple’ + /sàwà/ ‘three’ → [fɛ́tú sáwà] ‘three pineapples’ • /kàà/ ‘snake’ + /sàwà/ ‘three’ → [kaà ̀ sáwà] ‘three snakes’ • /kàı̀/ ‘man’ + /jànsà/ ‘tall’ → [kaı̀ ̀ jánsàmà] ‘tall man’ • /káá/ ‘gun’ + /kɔ̀nɔ́tɔ̀/ ‘nine’ → [kaá ́ kɔ́nɔ̀tɔ̀] ‘nine guns’

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72 The variety of Kono described in Foday‑Ngongou (1985:120–175) is similar, but certain complexities emerge from the more extensive data presented. Note that this work is fairly comprehensive, yet its presentation and classification of tone classes and their behavior is haphazard in that it groups nouns first by shape (i.e., monosyllabic vs. disyllabic) and then by tonal behavior. Moreover, the classification of tonal behavior within a noun shape group does not match across groups. As such, I have reorganized the relevant data below, which I hope makes them more coherent.

73 The data in (20) illustrate three RT patterns in constructions whose W1 is either monosyllabic or disyllabic, and two further RT sub‑patterns found only for disyllabic words. The first pattern involves constructions whose W1 is simply /L/; when compounded, there is no tonal alternation in either W1 or W2 (20a‑20b). A second pattern involves constructions whose W1 is /HL/; this is realized as [HL] on monosyllables and [HHL] on disyllables. When compounded, W1 surfaces [H], while W2 surfaces [HL] (20c‑20d). A third pattern involves instances where W1 is /LHL/; this is somewhat opaque, as the melody is realized [HL] on monosyllables but [LHL] on disyllables. When compounded, W1 surfaces [L], while W2 again surfaces [HL] (20e‑20f). Despite the complications of the third pattern, the RT outcomes reported in Manyeh and Foday‑Ngongou resemble one another and are generally in keeping with other Type 1 RT patterns. The lexical melody of W1 dictates that of the larger compound, with W2 exhibits a static [HL] melody.

74 (20) Kono (Foday‑Ngongou 1985) • a. /dè/ ‘mother’ + /jámâ/ ‘bad’ → [dè#jámâ] ‘bad mother’ • b. /pı̀mbı̀/ ‘snake’ + /jámâ/ ‘bad’ → [pı̀mbı̀#jámâ] ‘bad snake’ • c. /jı̂/ ‘river’ + /cɛ̀ndɛ̀/ ‘good’ → [jı́#cɛ́ndɛ̀] ‘good river’ • d. /bénâ/ ‘horn’ + /cɛ̀ndɛ̀/ ‘good’ → [béná#cɛ́ndɛ̀] ‘good horn’ • e. /dû/ ‘town’ + /cɛ̀ndɛ̀/ ‘good’ → [dù#cɛ́ndɛ̀] ‘good town’ • f. /dı̀sâ/ ‘apology’ + /cɛ̀ndɛ̀/ ‘good’ → [dı̀sà#cɛ́ndɛ̂] ‘good apology’ • g. /kɔ̀pɔ́/ ‘eagle’ + /jámâ/ ‘bad’ → [kɔ̀pɔ̀#jámâ] ‘bad eagle’ • h. /cɔ́cı̀/ ‘church’ + /jámâ/ ‘bad’ → [cɔ́cı̀#jámâ] ‘bad church’

75 Note that there are two additional RT sub‑patterns represented in (20g) and (20h) that pertain only to a smaller class of disyllabic words, some of which are clearly borrowings. In compounds like (20g), W1 is lexically /LH/ and alternates to [LL], which may be another instance of AFFAISSEMENT. For compounds like (20h), the /HL/ W1 does not alternate.

76 Taken together, Vai and Kono behave somewhat differently compared to one another in terms of their RT patterns. While both appear to exhibit some Type 1 RT outcomes, there are some instances specific to Vai that are more reminiscent of Type 2 RT outcomes. Concerning the Mokole‑Vai sub‑grouping more broadly, the tonal systems in Vai‑Kono appear to be relatively more complex; though their RT patterns share some similarities with the Mokole group, Mokole is a clearer Type 1 language.

Jogo‑Jeri

77 The Jogo‑Jeri branch of Central Mande is split between dialects of Jeri and a smaller, lower level grouping containing Jogo. One variety of Jeri, namely Jeri‑Kuo [iso:jek], is spoken in Côte d’Ivoire, while the other, Jalkunan, is spoken in Burkina Faso. The most thorough description of Jeri‑Kuo is Tröbs (1998), but some information is also found in

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Kastenholz (2001). Tone is marked to some degree in the latter, but it is not discussed in any detail; words are either indicated as H or L on their first TBU, and as such, any further detail about the possible tonal melodies in the language is unclear. Unfortunately, tone is not indicated in any substantive way in Tröbs (1998); the author states that tone is not the “object” of the study, and tone is omitted from all non‑expository chapters of the book. Thus, the tonal information reported below is summarized solely from what I have been able to extract from the lexical entries in Kastenholz (2001).

78 From the standpoint of RT patterns in Jeri‑Kuo, the few examples in (21) are of compounds that I gathered from Kastenholz (2001), and they illustrate three possible outcomes. Examples (21a) and (21b) are interesting given that W1s of both compounds are lexically /L/, and both share a W2 that is lexically /H/ but realized either [H] or [L]; the melody of W1 is the one maintained. This outcome suggests either that variation is possible in Jeri‑Kuo or that the tonal melody of W1 is perhaps more complex than the provided transcriptions suggest. Examples (21c) and (21d) both show compounds containing words that are reported to be lexically /H/; however, the resulting compounds are [H#L].

79 (21) Jeri‑Kuo • a. /kàlà/ ‘bow’ + /yélı́/ ‘hole’ → [kalà ̀#yèlı̀] ‘armpit’ • b. /tùrù/ ‘mountain’ + /yélı́/ ‘hole’ → [tùrù#yélı́] ‘cave’ • c. /kúmá/ ‘right’ + /búlú/ ‘hand’ → [kúmá#bùlù] ‘right‑hand’ • d. /dá/ ‘mouth’ + /gbáláŋ/ ‘entry’ → [dá#gbàlàŋ] ‘jaw’

80 Further information is needed to substantiate the outcomes seen in these few data. However, it should be clear that the lexical tonal melody of W1 of the compound (to the extent that we can observe it) appears to be maintained, while that of W2 appears to be neutralized to one (or possibly two) static melodies. This would therefore be a variant of a Type 1 RT pattern.

81 Turning to Jalkunan [iso:bxl] (also called Ble, Dyala, or Dyalanu), the only source of information that I am aware of is a partial, unpublished grammar by Heath (2017), which is available on the website of the Dogon and Bangime Languages Project (dogonlanguages.org). Compared to other Central Mande languages discussed thus far, the tonal system of Jalkunan is unique owing to its larger inventory of lexical tonal melodies. There are three underlying tone levels (L, M, and H), and contour tones are possible in most combinations except ML and LM.

82 Heath (2017:143–155) describes the tonal behavior of nominal and adjectival compounds in some detail, indicating that tonal alternations upon compounding tend to affect W2. As the examples adapted from Heath in (22) illustrate, in the “most productive” instances of compounding, the lexical tone of W1 remains intact, while the melody of W2 is neutralized to one of two outcomes (overlays) that are reported to depend on the syntactic relationship that holds between the two elements.8 For most compounds, W2 surfaces with a [HM] melody, regardless of its lexical tonal melody in isolation (examples 22a‑22c). However, for so‑called possessive‑type compounds, as in examples (22d) and (22e), W2 surfaces instead with a [L] melody. As Heath provides nominal examples with their accompanying nominal suffix, which is realized [‑la], [‑ra], or [‑na] depending on context, I adopt the same practice in the examples provided. Note that the tone of the nominal suffix also appears to vary according to context.

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83 (22) Jalkunan • a. /bɔ̄l‑ɔ̄/ ‘hand’ + /kláā‑rà/ ‘ring’ → [bōl#kláā‑rà] ‘ring’ (on finger) • b. /bɔ̄l‑ɔ̄/ ‘hand’ + /cı̄ı̄‑nā/ ‘hair’ → [bōl#cı́ı̄‑nà] ‘hair’ (on hand) • c. /bɔ̄l‑ɔ̄/ ‘hand’ + /dègà/ ‘unable to enter’ → [bōl#degé ̄‑rà] ‘menstruation’ • d. /jū/ ‘millet’ + /fı̀‑ná/ ‘flower’ → [jū#fı̀‑ná] ‘flower of millet’ • e. /jū/ ‘millet’ + /dı́‑rá/ ‘child’ → [jū#dı̀‑rá] ‘grain of millet’

84 There are other compounds provided for which it is not possible to discern the compound tone pattern. For example, Heath (2017:146–147) discusses a special set of exocentric compounds whose W1 is /ál‑là/ ‘sky, God,’ and whose W2 purportedly surfaces with a [L] melody. The issue, however, is that the tonal melody in isolation for all W2 provided is L; thus, no alternations are able to be observed. Other compound types are reported, but these involve elements such as deverbal nouns, agentive nouns derived from verbs, and internal postpositions. Accordingly, their properties differ from the compounds described just above.

85 Assuming that the compounds behaving like those in (22) are representative of Jalkunan compounds more generally, and despite the more complex tonal properties of the language overall, it appears that Jalkunan exhibits Type 1 RT. That is, the tonal melody of W1 of the compound remains entirely intact while that of W2 alternates to a fixed surface melody.

Central Mande summary

86 In Section 4.1, I presented data on a variety of languages that are situated in four of nine proposed mid‑level taxa in Vydrin (2009a; 2016); in some instances, I have provided data for languages in even lower sub‑groupings that are not identified by name, as well as other languages that are known to be closely related to those explicitly named in the proposed classification. Each Central Mande language surveyed displays at least one word‑level RT pattern. While there are many similarities between languages in this group in terms of their word‑level replacive tonal patterns, the data presented reveal interesting micro‑variations.

87 All Central Mande RT patterns have in common that W1 of a compound (or other construction exhibiting RT) dictates the tonal melody of the larger construction. It may be that the entire lexical melody of W1 is maintained, or, otherwise, that the initial tone of W1’s lexical melody remains intact while subsequently neutralizing all other tones. Furthermore, in each instance, the lexical melody of W2 is more susceptible to neutralization (i.e., being replaced or overwritten). Central Mande RT patterns differ in the precise tonal behavior of the last word or morpheme (i.e., the W2) of a construction. In some languages, W2 melodies are entirely overridden by one or more language‑specific, static melody. In other instances, the W2 directly inherits some tonal property or feature of the W1 itself, but sometimes in a manner that differs from what is seen in Type 2 RT. In at least one language (i.e., in Mahou), the lexical tonal specification of W2 appears to play a key role in determining the surface tonal melody of the larger construction. Similarly, languages like Vai appear to exhibit hybrid behavior in that some melodic combinations result in tone spreading between W1 and a subsequent word.

88 Thus far, from the standpoint of Vydrin’s classification, the RT phenomena exhibited by these languages generally offers support to the classificatory groupings proposed,

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with the Vai‑Kono branch of Mokole‑Vai being the most divergent among the languages surveyed. In the next section, I consider the RT phenomena exhibited by Soso‑Southwestern Mande languages.

Soso‑Southwestern Mande

89 The genetic tree in (5) assigns two of the nine mid‑level taxa of Western Mande in (4) to the Soso‑Southwestern branch of the family. This group is accordingly sub‑divided into two groups, namely Southwestern Mande and Soso‑Jalonke, which I discuss in Sections 4.2.1 and 4.2.2, respectively. This is a significant development in Vydrin (2009a; 2016) because languages falling under the heading of Soso‑Jalonke have elsewhere been considered part of Central Mande (see Section 4.1). While the Soso‑Jalonke group contains just two languages, there are additional sub‑groupings proposed within Southwestern Mande. My goal in this section is to consider the degree to which the RT patterns exhibited by these languages substantiate the genetic realignment and sub‑groupings that have been proposed.

Southwestern Mande

90 The tonal behavior of Southwestern Mande languages as it pertains to complex nominal compounds has been fairly well established and, particularly, in two notable works: Dwyer (1973) and deZeeuw (1979). These works offer thorough descriptions of the tonal behavior of Southwestern Mande languages, but neither makes great strides in synthesizing their similarities to one another, nor do they spell out notable differences between them. More recently, Babaev (2010) describes the tonal properties Zialo, which is considered part of Southwestern Mande. What is immediately clear in looking at any description of the tonal systems of these languages is that they are more diverse and more complex relative to Central Mande. In this section, I bring together old and new facts in order to compare the RT phenomena in Southwestern Mande to what was covered for Central Mande languages above, looking again for similarities and differences between them. Before beginning, however, it is important to note that in Vydrin’s classification Southwestern Mande is first sub‑divided into two higher level categories: Mende‑Loko (Section 4.2.1.1) and Looma‑Kpelle (Section 4.2.1.2). Each of these nodes contains an additional lower level grouping and one direct descendant. In addition, I discuss Zialo separately in Section 4.2.1.3 as it is not directly addressed in Vydrin’s classification.

Mende‑Loko

91 The languages of the Mende‑Loko group include Mende [iso:men] and Loko [iso:lok], themselves, as well as Bandi [iso:bza]. The tonal system of Loko is described in Dwyer (1973), deZeeuw (1979), and Kimball (1983), but Mende’s is comparatively better described, having been discussed in Dwyer (1971; 1973; 1978a; 1978b), Rodewald (1989), and Spears (1967). As introduced in Section 2, Mende is the often‑cited exemplar for one of the two major RT patterns observed in Western Mande (i.e., Type 2 RT).

92 Word‑level RT patterns in Mende involve the non‑final tones of the lexical tonal melody of W1 (not just the initial tone, as typical in Type 1 RT) being distributed across the word itself upon compounding or a related operation, while the final H tone of the

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W1 melody is copied rightward (or spreads) onto the first tone bearing unit of W2. I will assume, following others before me (e.g., deZeeuw 1979; Dwyer 1973) that the tonal melody of W2 in Mende is neutralized to [L] via a Lowering rule before tone spreading from W1 occurs. It may be reasonable to assert that analogous morphosyntactic tonal rules are characteristic of the tonology of certain other Type 2 languages as seen below. In this way, one could posit a parallel between Type 1 and Type 2 RT in that the lexical melody of W2 is neutralized, only to be subsequently further altered via spreading. Mende and other Type 2 RT languages also differ from languages exhibiting Type 1 RT in that the melody of the W1 is better left intact. The examples in (23), repeated from (2) for convenience, illustrate various RT melodies in Mende.

93 (23) Mende • a. /gbɛ̀hɛ́/ ‘stool’ + /nı̀nǎ/ ‘new’ → [gbɛ̀hɛ́#nı́nà] ‘new stool’ • b. /pɛ́lɛ́/ ‘house’ + /nı̀nǎ/ ‘new’ → [pɛ́lɛ́#nı́nà] ‘new house’ • c. /pùndı̂/ ‘mosquito’ + /nı̀nǎ/ ‘new’ → [pùndı́#nı̀nà] ‘new mosquito’ • d. /kɔ̂wù/ ‘box’ + /nı̀nǎ/ ‘new’ → [kɔ́wù#nı̀nà] ‘new box’

94 Both the RT patterns that occurs in Mende and what we have observed thus far in Central Mande are dictated by the tonal melody of W1, with subsequent tones in W2 being neutralized. What differs is that surface tonal melody of W2 in Type 2 RT inherits the final H tone of W1 (where applicable). This is most clearly seen in the alternation between [HL] and [LL] on the adjective ‘new’ in (23). As we shall see, RT patterns like that in Mende are indeed characteristic of most Southwestern Mande languages, and they are also attested in the Soso‑Jalonke group (Section 4.2.2).

95 Turning next, in this group, to Bandi (also called Gbandi), descriptions of its tonology are found in Dwyer (1973) as well as in Rodewald (1989) and Mugele & Rodewald (1991). Pertaining specifically to alienable compounds, the examples in (24) are adapted from Rodewald (1989:62–69) and illustrate that the lexical tonal melody of W2 is susceptible to alternation, while that of W1 is largely maintained, though a W1’s word‑final /HL/ sequence is decontoured to [H].9

96 (24) Bandi • a. /nı̀kà/ ‘cow’ + /kòlè/ ‘white’ → [nı̀kà#wòlé] ‘white cow’ • b. /nı̀kà/ ‘cow’ + /kpèá/ ‘red’ → [nı̀kà#bèá] ‘red cow’ • c. /pésɔ̂/ ‘pencil’ + /kòlè/ ‘white’ → [pésɔ́#wòlè] ‘white pencil’ • d. /pésɔ̂/ ‘pencil’ + /kpèá/ ‘red’ → [pésɔ́#bèà] ‘red pencil’ • e. /pɛ̀lɛ́/ ‘house’ + /kòlè/ ‘white’ → [pɛ̀lɛ́#wólé] ‘white house’

97 Rodewald (1989:68) warns that these outcomes “only give a glimpse of the perturbations that occur” in Bandi compounding, but they arguably suggest that Bandi follows a similar Type 2 RT pattern to that exhibited by Mende. This is particularly apparent in (24e) as well as in examples from Mugele & Rodewald (1991) like /kéké/ ‘dog’ + /wù‑ngı́/ ‘head‑DEF’ [kéké#wú‑ngı́] ‘the dog head,’ wherein W2 alternates under compounding due to tone copy from the preceding word in the construction. Bandi appears not to undergo a Lowering rule upon compounding that affects W2s because [LH] contours are still possible on W2s following compounding in examples like (24a,b). Examples like (24e) also suggest that spreading from W1 is not always limited to a single, rightward‑adjacent TBU.

98 Loko word‑level RT patterns, as summarized in deZeeuw (1979:49), share similarities with Mende and Bandi. The examples adapted from this source in (25) show at least

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some evidence that the final H tone of W1 spreads to W2 (e.g., 25a). deZeeuw also attributes the outcome in (25c) to H spread from W1, though it spans beyond the first syllable; the outcome in (25d) is similarly attributed to H spread from W1, though it traverses another lexical L tone.

99 (25) Loko • a. /pɛ́rɛ́/ ‘house’ + /mbǎ/ ‘rice’ → [pɛ́rɛ́#bá] ‘house rice’ • b. /bɛ̀lɛ̀/ ‘trousers’ + /kútú/ ‘short’ → [bɛ̀lɛ̀#wùtù] ‘short trousers’ • c. /màhá/ ‘chief’ + /súkùlù/ ‘school’ → [màhá#súkúlù] ‘chief's school’ • d. /nyàhâ/ ‘woman’ /kútú/ ‘short’ → [nyàhá#wútù] ‘short woman’ • e. /kɔ́pà/ ‘money’ + /hàndâ/ ‘business’ → [kɔ́pà#hàndà] ‘money business’

Looma‑Kpelle

100 The Looma‑Kpelle terminal branch of Southwestern Mande contains only a few languages; Looma [iso:lom], itself, has been described in Mishchenko (2009), Sadler (2006), Dwyer (1973), and Vydrine (1989). Taken together, the tonal analyses offered in these works are diverse and sometimes contradictory. According to Dwyer (1973:137), the tonal system of Gbunde Looma is the most complex of all the Southwestern Mande languages, and this complexity is substantiated in other analyses of Looma tone.10

101 The analysis offered by Mishchenko (though only one of several proposed analyses of Looma tone) designates seven tonal classes in Woi‑Balagha Looma nouns. The first three of these participate in RT neutralizations when they are the head of an "attributive phrase", while the other four, according to Mishchenko, contains loans, ethnonyms, toponyms, and anthroponyms and, accordingly, behave differently. In addition, for the first three noun classes, there is reason to posit an abstract, underlying H‑tone "referential article" that leads to all nouns having an all‑H surface tonal melody. Their true underlying form, however, is clear from the influence that they have on their modifiers in attributive phrases. The examples in (26) are adapted from Mishchenko (2009). The noun in (26a) is from Class 1 and is underlyingly /H/ tone; its H tone is realized on the following adjective. The noun in (26b) is from Class 2; its surface [H] tone is due to a preceding referential article, but its underlying toneless nature (I indicate this with L tone for the sake of convenience) is clear from the L tones on the following adjective. Finally, the noun in (26c) is from Class 3; it too has a surface [H] tone due to a preceding referential prefix. According to Mishchenko’s analysis, Class 3 nouns are said to be underlyingly toneless. However, the fact that they trigger a different effect on a following adjective implies that there may be more to this, such as the presence of an underlying floating tone.

102 (26) Looma • a. /ŋ́‑dı́ɣı́/ ‘REF‑pot’ + /wola‑i/ ‘big‑DEF’ → [dı́ɣı́#wólá‑ı́] ‘the big pot’ • b. /ŋ́‑pɛ̀lɛ̀/ ‘REF‑house’ + /wola‑i/ ‘big‑DEF’ → [pɛ́lɛ́#wòlà‑ı̀] ‘the big house’ • c. /ŋ́‑sèè/ ‘REF‑elephant’ + /wola‑i/ ‘big‑DEF’ → [séé‑wólà‑ı̀] ‘the big elephant’

103 The tonal outcomes of these constructions appear to be driven by the tonal specification of their W1, but there are complications to their realization, including the presence of an underlying abstract prefixal tone and (at least according to Mishchenko’s analysis) no predictable differentiation between Class 2 and 3 nouns from an underlying perspective. Even with these complications in mind, however, Looma appears to exhibit Type 2 RT.

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104 Turning next to Kpelle, the Liberian [iso:xpe] and Guinean [iso:gkp] varieties are deemed to be separate languages. The tonology of Liberian Kpelle has been the subject of several works, including Welmers (1962) and Dwyer (1973), and more recently Konoshenko (2008). Descriptions of this language generally agree on the presence of multiple tone classes for Liberian Kpelle nouns which are based upon the tonal patterns observed on a given noun in isolation. The examples in (27), adapted from Dwyer (1973:185–189), illustrate that there are two main RT patterns in this language’s compounds. The first pattern, as in examples (27a‑27c), is found when W1 has a lexical /H/, /HL/, or /LHL/ melody. In these instances, upon compounding, W1 retains its melody in full, while the surface tonal melody of W2 is [L]. While Dwyer considers the W1s in examples (27d‑27e) to be toneless, it is clear (upon comparison to Guinean Kpelle) that they should be properly analyzed /LH/, with the H being a floating tone. Thus, upon compounding, W1 retains its melody in full, but the W2 melody is [HL] with the [H] being contributed from the lexical melody of W1. As M. Konoshenko points out, an associated High tone cannot spread in this language, while a floating High is able to do so. These facts generally put Liberian Kpelle RT in line with what is observed in other Southwestern Mande languages.

105 (27) Liberian Kpelle • a. /ɣálóŋ/ ‘moon’ + /kɔ̀lɔ̀/ ‘paper’ → [ɣálóŋ#kɔ̀lɔ̀] ‘calendar’ • b. /ɣálà/ ‘God’ + /tà.à/ ‘town’ → [ɣálà#ta.à ̀] ‘heaven’ • c. /kpɔ̀nóò/ ‘young bush’ + /kwàlà/ ‘monkey’ → [kpɔ̀nóò#kwàlà] ‘young bush monkey’ • d. /kɔ̀lɔ́/ ‘paper’ + /lá.á/ ‘leaf’ → [kɔ̀lɔ̀#lá.à] ‘page’ • e. /kàlı́/ ‘snake’ + /pàlà/ ‘sore’ → [kal̀ ı̀#pálà] ‘snake bite’

106 The tonal system of Guinean Kpelle is discussed in Konoshenko (2008; 2014) and Odden (2015). While compounds are not specifically discussed in these works, it appears from the presentation of analogous constructions that these sequences are neutralized in a way that aligns with the examples of compounds in Liberian Kpelle in (27). I thank M. Konoshenko for confirming that the final /H/ tone of a W1 will also replace an initial /L/ of a W2 in Guinean Kpelle compounds.

107 Another language, Kono [iso:knu], is closely related to Liberian and Guinean Kpelle. A recent publication on Kono by Konoshenko (2017) discusses tone but does not deal directly with tonal neutralizations related to compounds or other constructions that one might expect to exhibit RT tone patterns. As such, I cannot comment further on its behavior.

Zialo

108 Linguistic research on Zialo [iso:zil] has only a short history, and the only description of the language that I am aware of is that found in Babaev (2010). Babaev identifies six tone classes for Zialo, the first two of which are said to contain approximately 90% of all nouns; the other four classes contain borrowings, and their tonal properties diverge somewhat from what is observed in Classes 1 and 2. Class 1 and 2 nouns appear phonetically identical in some contexts (e.g., the definite) wherein a preceding "referential H‑tone prefix" triggers rightward H tone spread onto the noun, resulting in a tonal alternation. This can be seen in a comparison of Class 1 [báy] ‘the rice’ (cf. / bà/) and Class 2 [táy] ‘the town’ (cf. /táá/). In other instances (e.g., in compounds), however, the underlying differences between nouns in these two classes become

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apparent. The examples in (28), adapted from Babaev (2010:49–52, 68–69), suggest that Zialo (at least in compounds whose head is not a borrowed noun) follows a Type 2 RT pattern, similar to what occurs in Mende. That is, the final H tone of the W1’s lexical tonal melody is copied rightward to the first TBU of W2, resulting in W2’s lexical tonal melody being obscured.11

109 (28) Zialo • /ŋàzà/ ‘woman’ + /dòpò/ ‘child’ → [ŋàzà#lòpò] ‘daughter’ • /já/ ‘water’ + /kpèlà/ ‘near’ → [já#ɓélà‑y] ‘river bank’ • /tókó/ ‘hand’ + /kpèɣà/ ‘finger’ → [tókó#ɓéɣà] ‘finger’

Soso‑Jalonke (Susu‑Yalunka)

110 Information on word‑level tonal neutralizations in Susu [iso:sus] and Yalunka [iso:yal] can be found in several sources, including Green, Anderson, & Obeng (2013), Grégoire (1978), Houis (1963), Touré (1994), but not all sources agree with one another on specific outcomes. Most recently, Green, Anderson, & Obeng (2013), provided a summary and reanalysis of the various, sometimes conflicting perspectives on RT phenomena in Susu, and the examples in (29) are adapted from this source and illustrate various outcomes.

111 (29) Susu • a. /bárı́/ ‘to be born’ + /mı̀xı́ı́/ ‘person’ → [baŕ ı́#mı́xı̀] ‘parent’ • b. /gɛ̀mɛ́/ ‘stone’ + /xɔ́rı̀/ ‘grain’ → [gɛ̀mɛ̀#xɔ́rı̀] ‘pebble’ • c. /ɲáálı̀/ ‘tape worm’ + /mı̀xı́ı́/ ‘person’ → [ɲáálı́#mı̀xı̀] ‘public nuisance’ • d. /dòndólı̀/ ‘ant’ + /tɛ̀ɛ́/ ‘nest’ → [dòndólı́#tɛ̀] ‘ant hill’ • e. /tábéè/ ‘buttocks’ + /xɔ́rı̀/ ‘bone’ → [tabé ́é#xɔ̀rı̀] ‘femur’ • f. /yɛ̀xɛ́ɛ̀/ ‘sheep’ + /yɔ́rɛ̀/ ‘small’ → [yɛ̀xɛ́ɛ́#yɔ̀rɛ̀] ‘lamb’

112 Green, Anderson, & Obeng (2013) argue that the word‑level RT patterns in Susu are most similar to those observed in Mende. That is, the last tone of W1 is copied onto the first TBU of W2. These authors propose other downstream processes, namely AFFAISSEMENT and its counterpart RAISING, in order to account for other instances of neutralizations such as /LHH/ → [LLH] and /HLL/ → [HHL]. A series of nearly identical outcomes is reported for Yalunka in Keita (1989). Thus, from the standpoint of word‑level RT, languages of the Soso‑Jalonke are well placed alongside most other Southwestern Mande languages.

Soso‑Southwestern summary

113 With Mende serving as the Type 2 RT exemplar from this group, the data presented in this section illustrate that Bandi, Loko, Looma, Kpelle, Zialo, Susu, and Yalunka all behave in a manner that is reminiscent of Mende. That is, compounds and related constructions in these languages involve neutralization via rightward copy of the final H tone of W1 onto at least one (but sometimes more than one) TBU of W2. Thus, generally speaking, Soso‑Southwestern Mande languages are fairly unified from the standpoint of their RT patterns.

114 As introduced above, M. Konoshenko suggests that one way to explain these Type 2 RT patterns and potentially to further unify the outcomes of Type 1 and Type 2 RT patterns is to propose that Type 2 RT languages generally involve W2 first being

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assigned a static melody (as is generally the case in Type 1 RT) or that W2 lexical tones are first removed via some morphosyntactic tonal rule. After this rule, local spreading proceeds from W1 via some strictly morphophonological tonal rule to one (or sometimes more) rightward TBUs in W2. The reviewer’s perspective stems from the fact that in some languages (e.g., Guinean Kpelle), there are instances in which analogous local spreading of High occurs in a broader range of syntactic contexts. This would suggest, therefore, that local spreading is more general and not an inherent property of RT itself.

115 This approach is entirely plausible, but additional factors must be taken into consideration in languages like Susu where /LHL/ + /HL/ sequences become [LHH#LL]. Further explanation is also needed to account for /LHL/ to [LHH] raising, which is triggered by a following H tone. Raising would have to occur before the W2 lowering rule, and local H spreading would not apply after it. Language‑specific rules would also need to be proposed to explain why the High of a /H/ word can spread locally in one language (e.g., Mende) but not in another (e.g., Vai). Along similar lines, one would need to address strictly‑local High spread (as in Mende), versus spreading within a longer span (as in Bandi and Loko).

116 With these observations on Southwestern Mande languages in place, as well as those concerning Central Mande languages summarized in Section 4.1.4, I turn in the next section to RT patterns seen in the Samogho‑Bobo group, which is the final branch found within Samogho‑Central‑Southwestern Mande.

Samogho‑Bobo

117 Two of the nine Western Mande mid‑level taxa under consideration in this paper are discussed in this section. Despite their apparent grouping of Samogho‑Bobo in Vydrin (2009a), Vydrin (p.c.) cautions that the two are fairly genetically distant from one another. For the purpose of this survey, I discuss them together in order to consider their properties independent of Central‑Soso‑Southwestern Mande languages. By and large, languages within this group, as well as several within the Soninke‑Bozo group (Section 5) are comparatively more diverse and relatively less well‑studied than other Western Mande languages. As such, descriptions of these languages are fewer and there is less detailed information available about their tonology than many of the others discussed thus far.

118 For Bobo, Prost (1983:17–19) offers some comment on the tonal behavior of complex nouns in the Tansila dialect, and additional discussion can be found in Le Bris & Prost (1981:29–32). It is clear particularly from the latter source that there are several RT phenomena that occur in the language and that these yield diverse outcomes that depend on the syntactic relation that holds between involved words. Data illustrative of one particular type of outcome in Bobo involving two nouns in an associative construction are in (30); these data suggest that at least some word‑level tonal neutralizations in Bobo are dictated by the final tone of W1. If W1 ends in a L (30a) or M tone (30b‑30c), W2’s melody is L or L‑M, respectively. If the final tone of W1 is H (30d), however, W2’s melody is H‑L. These outcomes taken together may suggest a hybrid Type1/Type2 system, similar to what was seen in Vai (Section 4.1.2.2); that is, some instances involve the assignment of a static W2 melody, while others additionally

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involve some type of tone copy from W1 to W2. As I mention, however, this is just one of several outcomes reported by the authors.

119 (30) Bobo • a. à nyàà nànɛ̀ (cf. nānɛ̄) the woman’s chicken • b. à nōn kɔ̀lō (cf. kɔ̀lō) the child’s fish • c. à nōn sègē (cf. sēgé) the child’s goat • d. kòkōrı́ pɛ́gè (cf. pɛ̄gè) the rooster’s tail 120 In the Samogho group, word‑level RT phenomena have been reported for Dzùùngo in Solomiac (2007:365–380) which appear to be more in keeping with what is observed in Central Mande languages. The examples in (31), adapted from Solomiac’s thesis, illustrate various tonal outcomes in Dzùùngo compounds. When W1 begins with a lexical /L/ tone, regardless of the lexical tonal melody of W2, one of two possibilities is observed. Either the surface tonal melody of the compound is [L#H] (31a) or it is [L#M(H)], where a tone in parentheses indicates a floating tone (31b). When W1 begins with either a lexical /H/ or /M/ tone, two additional outcomes are possible. Either the surface tonal melody of the resulting compound is [M#H], as in (31c), or it is [M#M(H)], as in (31d).

121 (31) Dzùùngo • a. /fòròbāˊ/ ‘communal’ + /nı̀ı̀/ ‘cow’ → [fòròbà#nı́ı́] ‘communal cow’ • b. /fààmāˊ/ ‘king’ + /dzı́n/ ‘child’ → [fààmà#dzı̄nˊ] ‘prince’ • c. /nānmārā/ ‘cheating’ + /mòò/ ‘person’ → [nānmārā#móó] ‘spy’ • d. /dúùn/ ‘stomach’ + /góó/ ‘thing’ → [dūūn#gōōˊ] ‘thought’

122 In each instance, the tonal melody pattern of the resulting compound is determined by the initial tone of W1; however, the particular ‘type’ of Low melody or Mid melody of the compound is unpredictable based on the shape or tonal melody of W1. Rather, and as Solomiac suggests, it appears to be conditioned in some way by W2, though in a way that is yet unclear.

123 Word‑level replacive tone is mentioned, but only in passing, for Jɔ in Carlson (1993:12). The author provides a few examples in which compounds with words of any lexical melody following another High melody word becomes ‘Top’ (a fourth, highest tonal level; i.e., Super High), but the reader is warned that there is variation in these outcomes that is dependent on other factors.

124 Recently, McPherson (2017) has reported on the tonal system of Seenku, but concerning replacive tone in this paper, she mentions only that a similar type of tonal neutralization appears to occur between a verb and its non‑pronominal object. This type of replacive tone is also the subject of an earlier conference presentation, McPherson (2015). Seenku nominal compounds are also discussed briefly in Prost (1971:30–31), though the patterns reported in the data are quite diverse. Prost himself intimates, “nous n’avons pu établir de r ègles quant à la variation des tonèmes des composants entrant dans la formation du compose.́ ” Teasing apart these details will involve a great deal more research that is beyond the scope of this survey.

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Soninke‑Bozo

125 The Soninke‑Bozo branch of Western Mande represents one of the nine mid‑level taxa under consideration in this paper, as defined in (4). Soninke [iso:snk] is a direct descendent of this node, with Bozo languages comprising another lower sub‑grouping. Soninke has been the subject of a great deal of research (e.g., Creissels 1991; Creissels 1992b; Creissels 2016; Diagana 1984; Diagana 1985; Diagana 1990a; Diagana 1990b; Platiel 1981; Rialland 1990; Rialland 1991) and Bozo languages less so, with an exception being work by Blecke (1996).

126 According to the description of the Kingi dialect of Soninke in Creissels (2016), the type of CT witnessed in this language is noticeably different from that found in both Central and Southwestern Mande languages. The examples in (32) are adapted from Creissels (2016:46–54).

127 (32) Kingi Soninke • a. /kı̀ı̀dê/ ‘baobab’ + /táxàyê/ ‘sauce’ → [kı̀ı̀dı̀‑táxàyê] ‘baobab sauce’ • b. /yúgò/ ‘man’ + /séntààdê/ ‘comb’ → [yúgú‑n‑céntààdê] ‘man’s comb’ • c. /tùbáábù/ ‘European’ + /qálı̀sı̂/ ‘money’ → [tùbààbù‑n‑qálı̀sı̂] ‘European money’ • d. /qálı̀sı̂/ ‘money’ + /dárè/ ‘leaf’ → [qálı́sı́‑dárè] ‘paper money’ • e. /kı̀táábè/ ‘book’ + /kónpè/ ‘piece’ → [kı̀tààbı̀‑n‑kónpè] ‘library’ • f. /sòònı̀nkê/ ‘Soninke’ + /qánnè/ ‘language’ → [sòònı̀nkà‑n‑qánnè] the Soninke language

128 In each instance, unlike what we have come to expect in most Central and Southwestern Mande compounds, in Kingi Soninke, the lexical tonal melody of W2 in a compound is maintained in its entirety, while that of W1 is clearly neutralized. Recall that it has generally been the case elsewhere in Western Mande that the tonal melody of W2 was most susceptible to being neutralized, while that of W1 was more closely maintained. These Kingi Soninke data show, however, that the tonal melody of W1 is always neutralized in favor of its initial tone. For example, in (32a), W1’s /LLHL/ melody is neutralized to [LLL], while in (32d), W1’s /HLHL/ is neutralized to [HHH]. The same applies in each instance. Thus, in every instance, the neutralized melody of W1 is either all‑H or all‑L, while the melody of W2 is maintained. Thus, the substantive difference between what is found in Soninke vs. other languages discussed above pertains most clearly to the tonal behavior of W2.

129 Word‑level replacive tone is discussed only briefly for Tigemaxoo Bozo in a conference presentation by Blecke (2011) in relation to noun incorporation. Only a single example is provided, and the outcomes seen are reminiscent of what McPherson (2017) discusses for similar constructions in Seenku.

130 Even by looking at Kingi Soninke alone, it is clear that word‑level replacive tone in this language (and presumably others in Soninke‑Bozo) is unique compared to other languages discussed thus far in this survey, but there are some similarities shared among all languages. The RT divergences seen in Kingi Soninke (absent additional data from languages in this group) are in line with its proposed place in the Western Mande family tree, apart from Samogho‑Central‑Southwestern Mande languages. The latter languages’ RT patterns witness neutralization of some type in W2, while W2 neutralizations are absent in Soninke‑Bozo.

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Summary and concluding thoughts

131 In this paper, I have presented the results of a survey of word‑level replacive tonal patterns in Western Mande languages. This survey is significant in that it is the first to report on the distribution of such tonal patterns across all branches of the Western Mande family tree. Earlier surveys have included only select groups of languages in this group. Certain other descriptive and theoretical works have offered comments or analyses of these patterns that pertain only to one or two closely related language varieties without considering how they are situated or relate to other languages in the family. In addition to reporting on replacive tonal patterns themselves, I have considered the ways in which different sub‑patterns correlate with a given language’s taxonomic position in a contemporary genetic classification of Mande languages proposed in Vydrin (2009a; 2016). Vydrin’s classification is based on shared lexicon, rather than on tone; thus, this survey sheds some light on the ways in which the tonal component of Western Mande grammar aligns with taxonomic divisions based on lexical distinctions. I have discussed throughout the preceding sections that there are many ways in which the groups of languages exhibiting a given replacive tonal sub‑pattern align with Vydrin’s categories; however, there are a few notable instances in which these correlations are not as clear. I next summarize these correlations and divergences.

132 To begin, this survey illustrated that all Western Mande languages exhibit replacive tonal patterns of some type. Branches of Western Mande differ, however, in the particular patterns that they manifest. Generally speaking, there is a high level genetic distinction between those languages exhibiting what have come to be recognized as prototypical word‑level replacive tonal patterns like Bamana (Type 1) and Mende (Type 2) and those exhibiting some other pattern or patterns that diverge from these exemplars. More specifically, most languages that I discussed under the heading of Samogho‑Central‑Southwestern (SCS) are those that generally exhibit prototypical RT patterns, but there are exceptions; prototypical RT patterns involve (again, generally speaking) neutralization of the tonal melody of the second of two words in certain syntactic relationships, with the first word’s tonal melody being less susceptible to neutralization and that of the second word arguably always being neutralized to some degree. Western Mande languages outside of SCS, namely those classified as Soninke‑Bozo, behave differently. We have seen that Kingi Soninke has replacive tonal patterns wherein the tonal melody of the first of two words is neutralized, while that of the second is maintained without alternation. Tigemaxoo Bozo, on the other hand, appears to have replacive tonal patterns that hold in larger syntactic constructions, such as between a verb and its object.

133 Samogho‑Central‑Southwestern languages, which I discussed under the heading of Samogho‑Bobo, exhibit hybrid behavior; some languages follow the prototypical patterns of many other Central‑Soso‑Southwestern languages, but replacive tonal patterns in Seenku, for example, look more like those seen in Tigemaxoo Bozo.

134 There is a clearer correlation between replacive tonal patterns and genetic groupings within the Central‑Soso‑Southwestern itself; Central Mande generally exhibits Type 1 RT, and Soso‑Southwestern Mande exhibits Type 2 RT. Among the Central Mande languages surveyed, all exhibit Type 1 RT, with the exception of Vai which seems to exhibit a type of hybrid behavior between Type 1 and Type 2 RT. Within

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Soso‑Southwestern Mande, all languages exhibit Type 2 RT, but the abstract nature of underlying forms in some languages renders some tonal outcomes fairly opaque. It is notable that Susu and Yalunka, as well as Zialo, have RT patterns that are closely aligned with other languages that are unquestionably classified as Southwestern Mande, such as Mende and Bandi.

135 Recall from Section 3 that while Vydrin’s classification of Western Mande arrived at similar mid‑level taxonomic groupings as earlier classifications, it differed in three notable ways. One of these concerned the removal of a Northwestern Mande group from the family tree, with the subsequent reassignment of Samogho‑Bobo to a Samogho‑Central‑Southwestern group alongside Central‑Soso‑Southwestern Mande languages. The second innovation reassigned Soso‑Yalunka from Central Mande to a sub‑group more closely related to Southwestern Mande, while the third reassigned the Mokole group to a node alongside Vai‑Kono.

136 The tonal phenomena discussed in this survey at least partially align with these designations. First, there is evidence that some Samogho‑Bobo languages (e.g., Dzùùngoo) behave more like Central‑Soso‑Southwestern languages than do Soninke‑Bobo languages, but more detailed information on the tonology of these languages must be brought to bear in order to further tease apart this finding. Second, the strongest alignment concerns the tonal behavior of Susu and Yalunka, whose RT patterns are clearly like those found in other Southwestern Mande languages. Lastly, little can be gleaned from the tonal behavior of Mokole languages, because their Vai‑Kono counterparts have tonal behavior that is internally inconsistent.

137 In closing, it is my hope that this survey and summary of replacive tonal patterns in Western Mande can serve as a foundation for further research on this subject. Basic descriptive work focused on tone must be accomplished on certain languages that have not figured into this survey, particularly those in the Soninke‑Bozo and Samogho‑Bobo groups because their RT patterns are most unique compared to other Western Mande languages. Languages for which RT has been mentioned only in passing, or for which only a few data points are available would benefit from expanded data collection in this regard. In addition, future research will certainly benefit from looking at replacive tone in a wider variety of constructions in order to witness the extent to which different RT patterns emerge in different contexts. In Western Mande, word‑level replacive tonal patterns have received the most attention, but they are only just emerging in the literature as they pertain to higher, phrase‑level constructs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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NOTES

1. The precise origin of the term COMPACITÉ TONALE is unclear to me, but according to my searches and personal inquiries to experts on this matter, it appears that its earliest published appearance is in Creissels (1978). A recent survey by Hyman & Leben (2017) cites Woo (1969) as the first to formalize the phenomenon by rule. 2. Throughout this paper, I use H to indicate High tone, L to indicate Low tone, and M to indicate Mid tone. Combinations of these tones are also possible in certain languages. These tones are indicated by acute (v́), grave (v̀), and macron (v̄) diacritics over vowels, wherever appropriate. Prosodic word boundaries are often indicated by #, and syllable boundaries may be indicated by . in some examples. Because transcription conventions vary widely between sources, in presenting data on a given language, I utilize the transcription provided in the source itself, with few deviations. The reader should not assume that these transcriptions are necessarily representative of the International Phonetic Alphabet nor of some standard or semi‑standard orthography developed for a given language. The precise nature of the consonant or vowel segments plays no significant role in RT; rather, the distribution of tones associated with them is of the greatest importance. Likewise, segmental alternations and other sandhi effects commonly result from compounding and other instances of word formation, but they are of no consequence to RT and will not be discussed. Because tone is the main focus of this paper, I have adapted the tonal transcriptions provided in the cited data to indicate more explicitly the intended tonal contours gleaned from a given source. 3. The use of Mandekan here is in the spirit of Bird (1982) who uses this term to refer to the sub‑group of Mande languages more commonly known as Manding, which includes varieties of Bambara, Dyula, Maninka, and Mandinka, among others. In his thesis, deZeeuw makes specific reference to Bambara, Guinean Maninka, and Gambian Mandinka. For a critique of the use of Mandekan, as compared to other Mande ethnonyms and linguonyms, see Vydrine (1995). 4. As discussed elsewhere (e.g., Creissels 1988a:48–49; Green 2013), some Bambara words and phrases that one might expect to behave tonally like compounds fail to do so. However, these non‑conforming instances have morphosyntactic properties that differ from that of compounds and other constructions exhibiting CT. These include comparatives, distributives, and instances of a verb and its incorporated object, among others. 5. V. Vydrin (p.c.) also suggests an alternative for (11b) in which W1 is analyzed as /kàrán/ ‘to read.’ 6. One exception to this pattern in Zie’s data appears to be /sò/ ‘house’ + /lɛ́ɛ́/ ‘pig’ → [sò#lɛ́ɛ́] ‘pork.’ 7. A reviewer suggests that these outcomes in Vai could be attributed to an overarching process that assigns [L] to all W2s followed a second rule that involves H spread over a boundary, but only when contributed by /LH/ and not /H/. This is certainly possible (with the necessary

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stipulation that only /LH/ is able to spread its High tone being somewhat unsatisfying); my focus here has been on identifying surface tonal patterns shared between languages and not necessarily on the mechanism(s) that yield them. Under such an approach, however, one possibility is that Type 2 RT patterns could have evolved from Type 1 RT via the addition of such phonological, local spreading rules. These rules would have to be more general in Type 2 languages, like Susu, that involve either /L/ or /H/ spreading (see Green, Anderson & Obeng 2013) but more restrictive in a language, like Vai, that involves only H spreading and then only from a /LH/ melody. The same reviewer points out that some Southern Mande languages also exhibit RT behavior and that this behavior is more in line with what is seen in Central Mande and less like Soso‑Southwestern Mande. The reviewer suggests that this may present a challenge to the Type 1 vs. Type 2 dichotomy discussed here because Southern Mande languages are more closely aligned both genetically and geographically with Soso‑Southwestern Mande. It is possible, however, if one assumes that Soso‑Southwestern languages have innovated their phonological spreading rules, that this is a reasonable outcome from a preceding stage in which all Mande languages were unified in their neutralization of W2, which is maintained in a wider variety of languages. This is clearly a matter to explore in future research. 8. Heath states that “compounds that do not fit into a productive type are best left to the lexicon.” It is beyond the scope of this paper to evaluate this claim, and thus, I report only on the patterns that Heath deems to be productive. 9. Inalienable compounds in Bandi (and in many other languages) are said to be syntactically nonequivalent to alienable compounds and are governed by a tonal pronoun which exhibits its own influences on its dependents; as a result, the tonal outcomes differ between compound types. 10. Dwyer’s analysis of Gbunde Looma, for example, proposes nine noun classes, most of which have both so‑called strong and weak realizations that depend on the presence vs. absence of a stem‑final nasal consonant. His analysis appeals to a series of some 16 sequentially applied rules in order to account for the surface tonal patterns observed in nominal compounds. Included among these are a Raising rule triggered by various suffixes, which is followed by High Tone Anticipation; there is also a subsequent Low Tone Spread rule that removes High tones in some circumstances. A notable shortcoming of Dwyer’s work is that the surface tonal outcomes of compounds beginning with nouns from some of the proposed noun classes are absent. Indeed, Dwyer provides specific information only for compounds beginning with nouns from classes 1 (strong and weak), 2 (weak only), 6 (weak only), 7 (strong and weak), 8 (weak only), and 9 (weak only). While the data that are provided offer some insight into Gbunde Looma, they are not enough to provide a comprehensive picture of the tonal behavior of its compounds. 11. The tonal behavior of compounds headed by nouns from Classes 3 through 6 does not diverge significantly from what is observed in other compounds; however, I was unfortunately not able to locate sufficient examples that would permit the clear substantiation of this observation in Babaev (2010).

ABSTRACTS

Word‑level replacive tonal patterns are characteristic of the tonology of many Western Mande languages. Such patterns are explicitly discussed in extant descriptions of some languages but mentioned only in passing or not at all for others. This survey of replacive tonal patterns seeks to

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offer a broad, more comprehensive picture of this phenomenon in Western Mande by discussing not only major replacive tone patterns, but also highlighting and discussing micro‑variations in these patterns across this group. In doing so, I illustrate that patterns of replacive tone generally correlate with and support the recently proposed re‑alignment of classificatory genetic sub‑groupings of these languages in Vydrin (2009a, 2016). Because Vydrin’s classification is based primarily on comparative lexicostatistics, and not on tonology, this is an interesting finding. This survey is also significant in that it reports on word‑level replacive tonal patterns in languages from each of nine well‑accepted mid‑level genetic taxa in Western Mande, which far surpasses earlier surveys that aimed to catalog and analyze this phenomenon, namely Dwyer (1973) and deZeeuw (1979).

Les schémas tonals substitutifs au niveau du mot sont propres à la tonologie de beaucoup de langues mandé‑ouest. Ces schémas sont parfois explicitement abordés dans les descriptions existantes, mais souvent de manière très brève. La présente étude a pour but de proposer une description plus générale et complète du phénomène dans les langues mandé‑ouest, non seulement en évoquant les principaux schémas tonals, mais également en soulignant et en examinant les micro‑variations que l’on peut y trouver. Pour ce faire, je montre que les schémas en question corroborent la redéfinition des sous‑groupes de classification génétique de ces langues récemment proposée par Vydrin (2009a, 2016). Étant donné que sa classification est basée principalement sur la lexicostatistique comparative, et non sur la tonologie, ce constat est intéressant. Mon étude est d’autant plus importante qu’elle fait état des schémas tonals au niveau du mot dans chacun des neuf taxa génétiques acceptés en mandé‑ouest, ce qui va au‑delà des études précédentes, notamment celles de Dwyer (1973) et deZeeuw (1979), dont le but était de catégoriser et d’analyser le phénomène.

Для тонологии многих западных языков манде характерно наличие замещающих тонов. В некоторых описаниях языков модели тонозамещения обсуждаются эксплицитно, в других они лишь упоминаются, а в какоих‑то вообще обходятся молчанием. Данный обзор имеет целью представить широкую и более полную картину распространения этого явления в западных манде, при этом обсуждаются не только основные типы тонозамещающих моделей; рассматривается также микро‑варьирование таких моделей в рамках этой группы. Делается вывод, что варьирование моделей тонозамещения коррелирует с генетической классификацией подгрупп этих языков в работах (Vydrin 2009 a; Vydrin 2016). Поскольку классификация Выдрина базируется в первую очередь на лексикостатистике, а не на тонологии, этот результат нетривиален. Данный обзор важен также в том отношении, что он затрагивает тонозамещающие модели в каждой из девяти общепризнанных генетических таксонов низшего уровня западной ветви манде, превосходя в этом отношении более ранние аналогичные обзоры ( Dwyer1973;deZeeuw1979).

INDEX motsclesru яыки манде, тонозамещение, наложение тонов, классификация, тонология Mots-clés: langues mandé, schémas tonals substitutifs, morphologie tonale, classification, tonologie Keywords: Mande languages, replacive tone, tone overlay, classification, tonology

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AUTHOR

CHRISTOPHER R. GREEN

Кристофер Р. Грин Syracuse University [email protected]

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Discussion

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Word‑level replacive tonal patterns in mande nominal constructions: On Christopher Green’s binary typology1 Schèmes tonales substitutifs dans les constructions nominales en Mandé : à propos de la typologie binaire de Christopher Green Модели замещения тонов в именных конструкцих манде: к бинарной типологии Кристофера Грина

Maria Konoshenko

Introduction

1 The notion “replacive tone” generally covers cases where word‑level lexical tones are overwritten by some other tonal sequences in specific grammatical contexts or constructions; for a broader overview, see (Palancar & Léonard 2016; Konoshenko 2017). For example, in Mwan (Southern Mande) verbs can have lexical /H/, /M/ and /L/ lexical tones, but this distinction is neutralized in present tense forms, where all verbs get a replacive {M} tone: /H/ kṵ́ ‘grasp’ → {M} kṵ̄ grasp\IPFV; /M/ gɔ̰̄ ‘sell’ →{M} gɔ̰̄ sell\IPFV, /L/ gbḭ̀ ‘catch’ → {M} gbḭ̄ catch\IPFV (Perekhvalskaya 2004:73).2

2 This paper has been written as a reaction to Green’s (this issue) overview of replacive tones (RT) in Western Mande nominal constructions, most commonly compounds and possessive constructions. Green’s study brings together instances of tonal compounding attested in many Western Mande languages and seeks to compare their structural patterning with the latest genetic classification of Mande as proposed by (Vydrin 2009). In my view, the broad empirical coverage of RT phenomena in Western Mande as presented in Green’s paper is highly valuable. Still, I believe that Green’s

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approach to classifying RT patterns in Mande is not particularly insightful once we extend the typological scope to other Mande branches.

3 In section 2, I briefly summarize the basic RT type distinction as put forward by Green. In section 3, I critically discuss Green’s approach and suggest my own tentative typology of RT in Mande noun phrases bringing forward data from Southern Mande.

RT patterns in Western Mande nominal constructions: Green’s approach

4 Green (this issue) focuses on RT patterns in Western Mande nominal constructions, most commonly compounds, possessive constructions, or combinations of nouns and particular modifiers, e.g., adjectives or numerals. Such phrases typically consist of two elements, Word 2 (W1) and Word (W2); in what follows, I use the same labels. RT triggers partial or complete lexical tone neutralization in this W1+W2 sequence; this process is commonly referred to as COMPACITÉ TONALE in French or TONAL COMPACTNESS as an English equivalent. Although Green notes that “the conditions under which RT neutralizations occur and their tonal outcomes are language‑specific” (p. 68), his main claim is that any RT patterns observed in Western Mande, however diverse they may seem at first glance, can be all grouped into two general types, labeled Type 1 and Type 2 RT. According to Green, in both of these types, the resulting tones of the whole W1+W2 construction are predictable from W1 lexical tones, and supplemented by type‑ and language‑specific phenomena.

5 Green’s first RT pattern, or Type 1 RT, “involves i) the initial lexical tone (minimally) or the entire tonal melody (maximally) of W1 being maintained; and ii) the tonal melody of W2 being neutralized to some language‑specific melodic sequence” (p. 69). The best known case is Bamana (1) whereby the initial tone of W1 predicts the tonal outcome of the whole sequence. A sequence of /HH/+/LH/ becomes [HH#HH] in (1a); /LH/+/LH/ surfaces as [LL#HH] in (1b); /LHH/ + /HH/ yields [LLL#HH] in (1c); /HLH/+/LH/ is realized as [HHH#H] in (1d).

6 (1) Bamana (Green 2018:70) • a) /nɔ́nɔ́/ ‘milk’ + /kùmún/ ‘sour’ → [nɔ́nɔ́#kúmún] ‘sour milk’ • b) /nɛ̀gɛ́/ ‘iron’ + /jùrú/ ‘rope’ → [nɛ̀gɛ̀#júrú] ‘iron thread’ • c) /mı̀sı́rı́/ ‘mosque’ + /wélé/ ‘call’ → [mı̀sı̀rı̀#wélé] ‘call to prayer’ • d) /bámànán/ ‘Bambara’ + /kán/ ‘language’ → [bamá ́nán#kán] ‘Bambara language’

7 As argued in (Green 2013) and (Vydrin 2016), Bamana RT is most naturally analyzed as involving elimination of W2 lexical tones followed by the tonal spread of W1 tones on W2; Green (2018) suggests that such a spreading analysis is not sufficient to account for all the data, but this issue is beyond the scope of this paper.

8 Green’s second RT pattern “differs most clearly from Type 1 RT in that i) non‑final tones of W1’s lexical tonal melody are maintained on W1; and ii) the final lexical tone of W1 spreads on to the initial TBU of W2 (minimally), but further (beyond the first TBU) in some language‑specific instances. Remaining TBUs in W2 are assigned a language‑specific melodic sequence” (p. 70). A typical Type 2 RT is attested in Mende (Southwestern Mande), whereby W1 tones are generally preserved in the tonal outcome, and the final H of W1 spreads on the first TBU of W2 (2ab). Note, however,

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that final L on W2 is not predictable from W1 or W2 lexical tones and has to be interpreted as a language‑specific pattern ascribed to W2.

9 (2) Mende (adapted from (Dwyer 1973:73–74))3 • a) /hálé/ ‘medicine’ + /wóvá/ ‘old’ → [hálé#wóvà] ‘old medicine’ • b) /gbɛ̀hɛ́/ ‘stool’ + /wóvá/ ‘old’ → [gbɛ̀hɛ́#wóvà] ‘old stool’ • c) /bɛ̀lɛ̀/ ‘trousers’ + /wóvá/ ‘old’ → [bɛ̀lɛ̀#wòvà] ‘old trousers’ • d) /kálì/ ‘hoe’ + /wóvá/ ‘old’ → [kalí ̀+wovà ̀] ‘old hoe’

10 After presenting his two‑fold typology, Green then applies this distinction to the vast range of empirical phenomena observed in languages from various Western Mande branches seeking to ascribe a given RT pattern in a particular language to one of the two suggested types. He then concludes that his typology largely correlates with the genetic grouping of Western languages as suggested in (Vydrin 2009). The clearest trend is that most Central Mande languages generally exhibit Type 1 RT, and Soso‑Southwestern Mande prefer Type 2 RT (p. 100).

RT in Western Mande nominal constructions: discussion

11 In this section I present some critical remarks concerning Green’s nominal RT typology in Western Mande. I then suggest another possible way of describing the basic RT phenomena in Mande nominal constructions by extending the scope from Western Mande to Southeastern Mande, and more specifically, to the Southern Mande group.

W1 to W2 H spread as surface morphophonological phenomenon

12 It is a well‑established fact that different tonal realizations of a given morpheme can be attributed to morphophonological as well as morphological rules. In my view, Green’s approach fails to distinguish between morphophonological and morphological replacive tone rules which may interact in a given compound construction.

13 As defined by Green, both Types 1 and 2 involve neutralization of W2 tone, but Type 2 involves an additional spread of the final W1 tone onto W2, e.g. in Mende, Looma, and Kpelle. In my view, such W1 to W2 spreads are a superficial phonological phenomenon in at least some languages ascribed to the so‑called Type 2 RT, rather than a specific property of compound marking.

14 My strongest case involves Guinean Kpelle (Southwestern Mande), as described in (Konoshenko 2014), and also based on my unpublished field data.4 In Guinean Kpelle, there is a general morphophonological rule of H spreading onto a rightward adjacent L which equally applies to different low‑level syntactic phrases including Noun Phrase (NP) + Verb, NP + Noun, and NP + Postposition (Konoshenko 2014:241). Hence, in this language, there is no principal difference between H spreading in a verb phrase (3a) vs. in a compound (3b).

15 (3) Guinean Kpelle • a) /ɓɛ́láá/ ‘sheep’ + {kàà} ‘saw’ → [ɓɛ́láá#kaá ̀] ‘saw a sheep’ • b) /kwíí/ ‘white person’ + {wòò} ‘language’ → [kwíí#wóò] ‘language of white people’, i.e., French

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16 Therefore, in Guinean Kpelle, H spread essentially involves the same morphophonological rule applying across different syntactic constructions, and it should not be regarded as specific for nominal constructions.

17 A similar H spread rule is attested in other Southwestern Mande languages, e.g., in Liberian Kpelle, Looma, and Zialo, as well as in Vai (Vai‑Kono). In all these languages, the H spread rule in compounds depends on the W1 tonal class; e.g., spreading is only possible after a /LH/ but not a /H/ W1. In Looma and Zialo, the spread also depends on whether W1 is followed by a referential article. Such idiosyncrasies suggest that H spread is just a surface process that obviously complexifies the tonal realization of compounds, but not one inherent to compounding as a morphosyntactic process. That is, lack of spreading is not linked to a specific meaning in these languages.

18 Therefore, I argue that W1 to W2 H spreading is not inherently tied to compounding as a morphosyntactic operation in Type 2 languages, but rather, it is a surface phenomenon which may or may not be superposed on compounds at a later stage of the tonal derivation. This view is supported by the fact that (a) we find similar tonal processes applying elsewhere, outside compounds, as in Guinean Kpelle, cf. also Tigemaxoo Bozo, as mentioned by Green (2018:100); and (b) we find surface phonological idiosyncrasies limiting H spreading in compounds, as in the distinction between /H/ and /L(H)/ in Liberian Kpelle, very similar patterning of /LH/ in Vai, and presumably more arbitrary restrictions in Looma and Zialo.

19 As for other languages ascribed to Type 2 by Green, I cannot comment on Bandi and Loko, as these languages are not very well documented, which is unfortunate given that they seem to have quite complex tonal systems like other Southwestern Mande. Susu and Mende might be unique in that (a) final H spreading occurs only in compounds in these languages, and (b) there are no apparent phonological idiosyncrasies. Still, it seems that H spreading can still be seen as a surface morphophonological rule in these latter languages, being restricted to compounds.

20 To conclude this subsection, I am not convinced that Green’s approach to classifying nominal RT provides real insights into the nature of tonal marking of nominal constructions in Mande. In my view, it is more fruitful to shift the focus of the typology from documenting additional surface phonological rules to a more abstract question as to what kind of tone is assigned to W2 in Mande nominal constructions.5 This issue is addressed in section 3.2.

The properties of W2 tone neutralization in Mande

21 No one would question the fact that RT somehow neutralizes lexical tones on W2 in most Western Mande languages, and that cases where the lexical tonal melody of W2 is preserved, e.g., in Soninke compounds, are much less common. Green’s typology also incorporates the idea of W2 tonal neutralization, which is viewed as characteristic of both his Type 1 and 2 RT patterns. Crucially, Green claims that in both Type 1 and 2 patterns, W2 is assigned some language‑specific melody, although in Type 2 this melody somehow interacts with W1 tone spread. Green, thus, does not attempt to arrive at any generalizations regarding the nature of W2 replacive tones, ascribing them to language‑particular idiosyncrasies. In my view, rather than constructing the RT pattern typology based on absence or presence of additional W1 to W2 tone spread, which is crucial to Green’s Type 1/2 distinction, it is much more promising to focus on

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the specific nature of W2 tone neutralization in Mande. Moreover, as I demostrate below, significant insights arise once we add other Mande branches into our scope. In what follows, I focus on three genetic groupings revealing the most salient RT patterns – Central (3.2.1) and Soso‑Southwestern (3.2.2) Mande from the Western branch and Southern Mande (3.2.3) from the Southeastern branch. In 3.2.4, I also show that Soninke from the Soninke‑Bozo branch provides additional evidence supporting my view of W2 tone neutralization in Mande.

W2 tone neutralization in Central Mande

22 W2 tone neutralization in Central Mande is commonly attributed to tone spreading from W1, e.g., in Bamana (Vydrin 2017a) and Kakabé (Vydrina 2017:499–500), or default tone assignment, e.g., in Niokolo Maninkakan (Creissels 2013:26–27). The notion of default tone is justified by the fact that Central Mande are known to have asymmetric tone systems; most of them, e.g., Bamana and Kita Maninkakan, being commonly viewed as having /L/ vs. /Ø/ contrast with L being marked and H being assigned by default (Creissels 1994; Creissels & Grégoire 1993:110); /H/ vs. /Ø/ contrasts are also attested, e.g., in Niokolo Maninkakan (Creissels 2013).

23 Crucially, W2 tone neutralization in these languages is fully predictable from the underlying W1 and W2 tones and/or the rule of default tone W2 assignment. Therefore, W2 tone replacement is of a PHONOLOGICAL nature in this branch.

W2 tone neutralization in Soso‑Southwestern Mande

24 As Green (this issue) clearly demonstrates, Soso‑Southwestern languages and Vai (Vai‑Kono) have much trickier RT patterns. As discussed in 3.1, at least for some of these languages, W1 to W2 tone spread could be interpreted as a surface rule which is not inherent for tonal marking of nominal constructions. The task is then to investigate the remaining W2 tones which cannot be explained by W1 spread.

25 Similar to what has been proposed by Dwyer (1973) and Keita (1989), I would suggest adopting a derivational approach and to treat such languages as having a morphosyntactically‑assigned grammatical tone on W2 which later gets obscured by surface H spreading.

26 I illustrate this interpretation with well‑known examples from Mende. In (4), wóvá ‘old’ has lexical /H/, but it is assigned grammatical {L} in a given N+Adj construction. The {L} on W2 may be faithfully realized as [L] if W1 has final L (4a) or as [HL] after a W1 with final H, which then spreads onto the first syllable of W2 (4b).

27 (4) Mende • /bɛ̀lɛ̀/ ‘trousers’ + /wóvá/ ‘old’: /bɛ̀lɛ̀/ + {wòvà}→ [bɛ̀lɛ̀#wòvà] ‘old trousers’ • /hálé/ ‘medicine’ + /wóvá/ ‘old’: /hálé/+ {wòvà}→ [hálé#wóvà] ‘old medicine’

28 The same analysis is possible for Susu (5ab), at least for the dialect described in Green (2018), citing (Green, Anderson & Obeng 2013:68).

29 (5) Susu • a) /dɛ́gɛ́/ ‘sew’ + /sèé/ ‘thing’: /dɛ́gɛ́/ + {sèè}→ [dɛ́gɛ́#séè] ‘needle’ • b) /píyà/ ‘avocado’ + /bìlí/ ‘trunk’: /piyá ̀/ + {bìlì}→[píyá#bìlì] ‘avocado tree’

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30 (Green, Anderson & Obeng 2013:71–72) show that the only difference between Susu and Mende is that in Susu, a HL melody on W1 is later simplified to H due to another surface process of tone raising, or contour simplification. This effect is not relevant for the present discussion, but see also Green’s (2018) section 4.2.3 on some other complicating phenomena attested in various Soso‑Southwestern languages.

31 Green (2018) shows that W2 tone varies across Manding languages depending on which of the two tonal elements – H or L – is unmarked in a given language. On the other hand, W2 tone specification is quite uniform across Soso‑Southwestern Mande. After one removes the surface effects of W1 to W2 H spreading, it turns out that in all of Soso‑Southwestern Mande, and indeed in all Green’s Type 2 languages including Vai, W2 gets {L} marking, cf. the W2 Lowering rule in (Dwyer 1973). Therefore, W2 neutralization may be much less chaotic and language‑specific in Western Mande than Green puts it.

32 To account for uniform {L} W2 neutralization in Soso‑Southwestern languages and Vai, one could simply assume that L is phonologically default, or unmarked, in these languages. I am quite convinced that this is not true. In these languages, both H and L tend to be phonologically active. In all Southwestern Mande languages, H and L tonal prefixes function as pronominal 1SG and 3SG markers. In Susu, there is a tone lowering/ settling /LH/+/H/→[LL#H] rule, as well as a comparable tone raising rule /HL/+/L/ →[HH#L] (Green, Anderson & Obeng 2013:71–72). Similarly, in Vai, there are both lowering /LH/+/H/→[LL#H] and H spread /LH/+/L/→[LL#HL] (Welmers 1976:40–41, 56– 57). Therefore, there is not enough evidence to treat these languages as having a privative /H/ vs. /Ø/ tonal contrast. Hence, {L} neutralization cannot be seen as an automatic phonological default tone assignment. Because {L} appears in a specific morphosyntactic context, e.g., in compounds, it should be treated as a MORPHOLOGICAL (morphosyntactic?) W2 tonal marker.

33 So far, my typology based on W2 neutralization patterns yields the same results as Green’s typology based on W1 to W2 spreading, because among Western Mande, all or most languages with {L} marking tend to have additional H spread. However, my distinction will become more meaningful and, I believe, more insightful provided that one looks at languages in Southeastern branch of the family, and more specifically at the relatively well‑described Southern Mande group (3.2.3). Finally, in section 3.2.4, I show that Kingi Soninke (Soninke‑Bozo) has various RT patterns, and some of them provide evidence supporting my approach.

W2 tone neutralization in Southern Mande

34 Southern Mande languages are multitonal, meaning that they have from three to five level tones. In many Southern Mande languages, e.g., Mano, Dan, Toura, and Guro, W2 is assigned a lower register tone marker, e.g., optional {L} as in (6) from Mano, a language with three level tones, or {extra‑Low} as in (7) from Dan‑Gwɛɛtaa, which has five level tones.

35 (6) Mano (Khachaturyan 2017: 705) • /sɔ̀ɔ̄/ ‘amusement’ + /mī/ ‘person’: /sɔ̀ɔ̄/ + {mi}̀ → [sɔ̀ɔ̄#mì] ‘lover’ 36 (7) Dan‑Gwɛɛtaa (Vydrine & Kessébeu 2008:75) • /bāā/ ‘manioc’ + /ɗɯ̋ / ‘plant’: /bāā/ + {ɗɯ̏ } → [baā ̄#ɗɯ̏ ] ‘manioc plant’

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37 Crucially, W2 {L} or {extra‑L} marking is not accompanied by surface spreading in these languages, with an exception of Guro which has more complex rules of W2 neutralization (Kuznetsova & Kuznetsova 2017). Therefore, most Southern Mande languages provide evidence in favor of the derivational approach proposed here for Soso‑Southwestern languages and Vai, whereby the latter languages are viewed as having underlying {L} marking on W2 which is later obscured by surface W1 to W2 tone spreading.

38 RT patterns in Southern Mande are thus similar to those of Soso‑Southwestern Mande and Vai in that W2s receive a lower register tone marker in both branches, although in Soso‑Southwestern Mande and Vai, W2 RT is further overridden by W1 to W2 tone spreading.

W2 neutralization in Soninke

39 Finally, it should be noted that in Kingi Soninke (Western Mande, Soninke‑Bozo group), a language mentioned by Green (2018) as atypically preserving W2 lexical tones in compounds, there is also lower register W2 marker attested in certain nominal constructions.

40 According to Creissels (2016), a multisyllabic W2 is marked with {LH} in Soninke possessive constructions (8ab). In sequences of a noun and a numeral from two to ten, W2s receive invariable {L} marking (8cd); I ignore segmental alternations which may affect both W1 and W2.

41 (8) Kingi Soninke (Creissels 2016:70, 75) • a) /Múúsa◌́/ + /qalí ̀sî/ ‘money’: /Múúsá/+{qàlìsî}→ [Múúsá#qàlìsî] ‘Musa’s money’ • b) /Múúsa◌́/ + /móbílì/ ‘car’: /Múúsá/+{mòbìlî}→[Múúsá#mòbìlî] ‘Musa’s car’ • c) /sélìnŋé/ ‘chicken’ + /sìkkó/ ‘three’: /sélìnŋú/ + {sìkkì}→ [sélìnŋú#sìkkì] ‘three chickens’ • d) /lémíné/ ‘child’ + /tánmú/ ‘ten’: /lémúnú/ + {tànmì} → [lémúnú#tanmì ̀] ‘ten children’

42 Thus, Soninke has a morphological {L} W2 marker similar to that seen in Southern and Soso‑Southwestern Mande, although it coexists with other RT patterns in this language. Note that Creissels (2016) analyzes Soninke tonal system as /L/ vs. /Ø/, i.e., as having marked L. Therefore, {L} marking of W2 in this language cannot be attributed to an automatic process of default tone assignment.

Conclusion

43 In this paper, I suggest a shift in the focus of RT typology in Mande from the existence of W1 to W2 tone spreading, as suggested by Green (2018) based on Western Mande, to the properties of W2 tonal neutralization, which seems more promising once we take a look at other Mande branches. Two basic types of W2 tonal neutralization in Mande are proposed in this paper.

44 First, W2 may get a default (unmarked) tone and/or it may get its tone from W1 via spread, which is a PHONOLOGICAL neutralization, e.g., in Central Mande.

45 Second, W2 may be assigned a specific MORPHOLOGICAL (morphosyntactic?) tone, typically {L} or {extra‑L}. This type of W2 neutralization is attested in Southern, Soso‑Southwestern Mande, Vai, and Soninke, although it is obscured by further surface W1 to W2 spreading in Soso‑Southwestern Mande and Vai.

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46 In my view, Soso‑Southwestern Mande should be seen as intermediate between Central Mande and Southern Mande when it comes to general tonal patterning and nominal RT tones in particular. On the one hand, just like Central Mande, Soso‑Southwestern Mande have binary tonal systems with a tendency towards spreading phenomena (as observed by Green, many Central Mande language do have tone spreading, albeit on W1 in certain nominal constructions). On the other hand, the tonal contrast in Soso‑Southwestern Mande is not privative in that both H and L are phonologically active. Moreover, just like Southern Mande, Soso‑Southwestern Mande languages have a specific lower register tone marker assigned to W2 in nominal constructions. These structural properties generally correspond to the areal patterning of this group. Indeed, Soso‑Southwestern Mande may be considered as geographically central for Mande from an areal perspective.

47 Therefore, the implications of my typology are quite coherent with the areal patterning of Mande languages. My approach may also provide more insights into the diachronic development of RT in Mande. Because grammatical constructions triggering RT are quite uniform across Mande branches, one may argue that nominal RT is an old phenomenon in the family. Moreover, because similar lower register tone marking is attested in genetically quite distant branches of the family – Soso‑Southwestern group and Soninke from the Western branch and Southern group from the Southeastern branch – one might assume that {L} could have been a W2 tonal marker in nominal constructions in Proto‑Mande, cf. also (Vydrin 2017b:34–35). Hence, the RT patterning in Soso‑Southwestern and Southern Mande may appear more archaic, whereas the surface‑phonological reinterpretation of W2 tonal neutralization in Central Mande could be an innovation.

48 Still, I must note that the broad coverage of RT phenomena collected by Green (2018) across all Western Mande branches is extremely important and speaks for itself, however sketchy and incomplete the descriptions in some sources may be. At the same time, my typology is only based on a subset of Mande branches and may need revision once we more complete descriptions of languages from other groupings, and more specifically Samogho‑Bobo, Soninke‑Bozo, and Eastern Mande, are available.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

References

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Creissels, Denis. 2016. Phonologie segmentale et tonale du soninké (parler du Kingi). Mandenkan 55. 3–174.

Creissels, Denis & Claire Grégoire. 1993. La notion de ton marqué dans l’analyse d’une opposition tonale binaire : Le cas du mandingue. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 14(2). 107–154.

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NOTES

1. This paper was written with financial support from the Russian Science Foundation, project 17-78-20071 “Languages of West Africa: description and comparative analysis”. 2. In what follows, symbols H, M, L represent high, mid, and low tones, respectively. Following McPherson (2014), I use slashes, e.g., /L/, for word-level lexical contours and curly brackets {} for word-level grammatically assigned tone, e.g., {L}. Surface tones are given in square brackets []. 3. I illustrate RT in Mende taking examples from (Dwyer 1973) rather than from Green’s paper, because Dwyer’s examples featuring an adjective wóva ́ with lexical H tones show more clearly that the tonal outcome of a nominal construction is not predictable from W2 lexical tones in Mende. 4. Some description of Kpelle segmental phonology and tonology can be found in (Odden 2015), but this source misses the distinction between /L/ and /L(H)/ lexical contours, which makes the analysis quite problematic and largely inaccurate. 5. I put aside cases like Soninke compounds where tonal neutralization only affects W1.

ABSTRACTS

The paper criticially discusses Green’s (this issue) binary typology of replacive tones in Western Mande nominal constructions. Green’s distinction between the two types of replacive tones in Western Mande is based on the existence of Word 2 to Word 2 tone spreading, which is attested in a subset of languages under the scope of Green’s paper. I suggest to shift the focus of Mande replacive tone typology from Word 2 to Word 2 tone spreading, as put forward by Green, to the properties of Word 2 tonal neutralization. The crucial evidence in favour of my approach comes from other Mande branches not discussed in Green’s paper. I argue that there are two types of Word 2 tonal neutralization in Mande. The first type covers phonological neutralization, whereby Word 2 gets a default (unmarked) tone and/or it may get its tone from Word 2 via spreading, this type is attested in Central Mande. The second type is morphological (morphosyntactic) neutralization whereby Word 2 is assigned a specific tone marker, typically low or extra‑low tone. This type of Word 2 neutralization is attested in Southern, Soso‑Southwestern Mande, Vai, and Soninke, although it is obscured by further surface W1 to W2 spreading in Soso‑Southwestern Mande and Vai.

Dans cet article, la typologie binaire des tons substitutifs dans les constructions nominales en mandé‑ouest avancée par Christopher Green (cf. son article dans ce numéro) fait l’objet d’une

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analyse critique. La distinction faite par Green entre les deux types de tons substitutifs se fonde sur l’existence de la propagation tonale du premier mot de la construction (W1) sur le deuxième mot (W2). Je propose de modifier la base de la typologie des tons substitutifs et de mettre en lumière le caractère de la neutralisation tonale de W2. Les arguments principaux en faveur de ma proposition proviennent des groupes mandé qui ne sont pas traités dans l’article de Green. Je considère qu’il y a deux types de neutralisation tonale en mandé. Le premier type est une neutralisation phonologique : le W1 acquiert un ton par défaut (ton non‑marqué) et/ou il peut obtenir son ton du W2 par propagation ; ce type est bien représenté dans le groupe mandé central. Le deuxième type est une neutralisation morphologique (morphosyntaxique) : le W2 reçoit un marqueur tonal spécifique, typiquement un ton grammatical bas ou extra‑bas. Ce type de neutralisation tonale du W2 est attesté dans les langues mandé‑sud, soso‑mandé‑sud‑ouest, vaï et soninké. Cependant, ce phénomène est obscurci par la propagation ultérieure et superficielle du ton du W1 sur le W2 en soso‑mandé‑sud‑ouest et vaï.

Статья посвящена критике бинарной типологии заместительных тонов в именных конструкциях западной ветви языков манде, предложенной в работе (Green 2018). В основе типологии К. Грина лежит распространение тона с первого слова на второе. На мой взгляд, типология заместительных тонов в манде должна учитывать природу нейтрализации лексического тона на втором слове. Мой подход подтверждается данными других ветвей семьи манде, не включенных в исследование Грина. Я выделяю два типа тональной нейтрализации второго слова в манде. Первый тип подразумевает фонологическую нейтрализацию, при которой второе слово получает либо дефолтный (немаркированный) тон, либо его тон распространяется с первого слова. Этот тип характерен для центральнойгруппы манде. Второй тип предполагает морфологическую (морфосинтаксическую) нейтрализацию, при которой второе слово получает специфический тональный показатель, как правило, низкий либо ультранизкий тон. Этот тип нейтрализации засвидетельствован в южных манде, сусу‑юго‑западных манде, языках ваи и сонинке. Однако в сусу‑юго‑западных манде и языке ваи морфологическое маркирование второго слова затемняется дальнейшим распространением тона с первого слова на второе.

INDEX motsclesru языки манде, тон, заместительный тон, словоизменительный тон, нейтрализация, дефолтный тон Keywords: Mande languages, tone, replacive tone, inflectional tone, neutralization, default tone Mots-clés: langues mandé, ton, ton substitutif, flexion tonale, neutralisation, ton par défaut

AUTHOR

MARIA KONOSHENKO

М. Б. Коношенко Russian State University for the Humanities Institute of Linguistics RAS Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow mb_konoshenko@il‑rggu.ru

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Moving ahead with replacive tone in Mande: A brief response to Konoshenko

Christopher R. Green

Introduction

1 Stemming from my recent survey (Green 2018) upon which this discussion is based, it is now undoubtedly a fact that REPLACIVE TONE is a robust structural characteristic witnessed across most Mande languages. Up until this survey, there have been only two known attempts made at uncovering the extent to which replacive tonal phenomena are distributed across the Mande family, namely Dwyer (1973) and deZeeuw (1979). It has been more common, at least in contemporary studies of Mande tonology, for authors to concentrate on describing and analyzing replacive tonal patterns in particular languages without probing further either i) the distribution of surface patterns throughout in the family; or ii) the mechanisms (whether diachronic or synchronic or both) that underlie the patterns. This is arguably the case in my own work on Bambara (Green 2013) and Susu (Green, Anderson & Obeng 2013) and Konoshenko’s work on varieties of Kpelle (Konoshenko 2008; Konoshenko 2014) and Kono (Konoshenko 2017). It was with this concern in mind that the survey under discussion was undertaken, which far surpasses the coverage of Dwyer’s five‑language and deZeeuw’s eight‑language surveys by exploring replacive tonal data from nearly forty language varieties.

2 Despite the relative breadth of this survey, the work had two humble goals: i) describe and offer generalizations concerning the major SURFACE tonal patterns in Western Mande that have been or could be reasonably attributed to replacive tone; and ii) consider the ways in which these outcomes relate to a fairly recent classification schema for Mande proposed by Vydrin (2009; 2016). The survey did not pretend to be exhaustive nor did it aim to make broader claims about the diachronic development of replacive tone in Mande.

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3 As Konoshenko herself points out, the survey highlights the fact that for many of the languages surveyed, data are insufficient to yet subject them to a broader analysis, and for others, relevant data remain unavailable altogether, thereby precluding a truly global survey of replacive tone across the family. Konoshenko’s critique of my survey, however, provides an excellent case in point in which the utility and necessity of such survey work is beneficial to the broader theoretical and typological enterprise. Such surveys can be foundational for research programs that aim to address larger lines of inquiry in that they compile and attempt to organize data from disparate sources that often adopt different descriptive and theoretical frameworks. Konoshenko, even in presenting a different viewpoint on the compiled data, highlights the fact that the survey reveals previously undiscussed idiosyncrasies in the behavior of certain languages that either cannot straightforwardly be accounted for in her nor my approaches.

4 Konoshenko presents two main critiques of my survey. The first of these is that a stark enough contrast is not drawn between the NATURE of the neutralized tonal outcomes in a W2; W1 and W2 refer to the first and second (or better yet, last) word in certain constructions that are typically implicated in Mande replacive tonal phenomena, and most often in noun phrases and compounds. Konoshenko argues that beyond the surface replacive tone patterns, a distinction should be highlighted between default tone assignment (these generally correspond to my Type 1 languages) vs. grammatical tone assignment (these generally correspond to my Type 2 languages). In addition, Konoshenko maintains a further distinction between High tone spreading from a W1 to a W2; in instances of replacive tone in Mande, such spreading is found only in what I have called Type 2 languages. A second critique is that the omission of Southern Mande languages from the survey introduces a gap that is key to understanding the broader scope of replacive tonal phenomena in the family. In the remainder of this brief paper, I respond to these critiques and then offer some possibilities for fruitful next steps that I believe will allow us to continue to move ahead in our inquiry into replacive tone in Mande.

Rethinking the morphosyntactic W2 rule and tonal features

5 Both my and Konoshenko’s viewpoints on Mande replacive tone share a great deal of similarities and indeed support the same general classificatory distinction between languages. The approaches differ in some instances in terminology used and in at least one key analytical assumption asserted by Konoshenko that I do not expressly state concerning so‑called Type 2 languages. Konoshenko argues that I fail to explicate that the H spreading rule between W1 and W2 in Type 2 languages is a general morphophonological or phonological rule that is not unique to compounding or to replacive tonal phenomena more broadly in Mande. Konoshenko variously uses both of the aforementioned terms to describe this Type of rule, so I am not clear whether she considers there to be a difference between the two and what this might entail for one set of analytical choices vs. another. Konoshenko indeed provides clear examples from her work on Guinean Kpelle (Konoshenko 2014, but also some of her unpublished field notes) in which H spreading is extensible to verb phrases and other nominal constructions that do not necessarily involve compounding. The difficulty with this

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critique, however, is that Konoshenko assumes an analysis on my behalf based on the description of the surface tonal patterns that she reports; nowhere do I assert that H spreading is unique to the replacive tonal phenomena under consideration.

6 This (MORPHO)PHONOLOGICAL rule is distinguished from the MORPHOSYNTACTIC or MORPHOLOGICAL nature of W2 grammatical {L} assignment (or lowering) which is clearly an indicator of the compounded relationship of two elements. Again, Konoshenko uses both terms, with the latter presumably being in the spirit of recent work by Palancar (2016), but it is unclear what distinction she assumes between these two types of rules. In Soso‑Southwestern and Southern Mande, W2s are assigned a morphosyntactic grammatical tone or the tone is lowered, after which (morpho)phonological H tone spreading from W1 to W2 occurs, at least in most instances in Soso‑Southwestern Mande.

7 W2 grammatical tone assignment, and replacive tone in Mande more broadly, are undoubtedly MORPHOSYNTACTIC in nature. As mentioned just above, however, Konoshenko’s typology of Mande replacive tone maintains a distinction between W2 neutralization via default tone assignment in Central Mande vs. W2 neutralization via morphosyntactic lowering in Soso‑Southwestern and Southern Mande. She appears to argue that the Central Mande phenomenon is expressly phonological in nature because it involves the assignment of a default tone that is supplied by the phonology.

8 In my view, it is at this point that Konoshenko’s analysis falls short. Rather than maintaining a stark contrast between the "default" W2 and "grammatical tone/ lowering" W2 outcomes in the languages under consideration, as implied by Konoshenko, I would like to suggest an alternative in which we re‑envision the so‑called ‘default’ W2 neutralization patterns in Central Mande as also being morphosyntactic in nature. The viewpoint I put forward below would support the standing perspective that Proto‑Mande replacive tone involved a Low W2 (Vydrin 2017) and would also bolster the diachronic claims that Konoshenko advances in her own analysis. Under this view, I envision there to be three slightly different W2 outcomes that arise in Mande that can be generated by the same morphosyntactic rule: assign a grammatical tone to W2. However, the differing surface realizations arising from this rule can be attributed to the particular tonal features associated with the assigned grammatical tone alongside language‑specific phonological properties and their downstream application.

9 First, assuming that the grammatical tone marking W2 in Proto‑Mande was {L}, Soso‑Southwestern and some Southern Mande languages generally maintain this tone, though it may be subsequently obscured by innovated morphophonological H spreading between W1 and W2 or analogous raising/settling rules. Second, as Konoshenko has highlighted in her critique, some Southern Mande languages either maintain {L} or instead witness innovative W2 lowering, sometimes to {extra‑L}. One could propose that this arises via the loss or change of some (but not all) tonal features associated with the original grammatical tone. Lastly, one could view Central Mande languages as having W2 marked by a grammatical tone, though one that is synchronically underspecified for any particular tonal features; these tonal features are then filled in "by default". Viewed in this way, the mechanism for Central Mande replacive tone is not kept separate from those clearly exhibiting a specific grammatical tone. Rather, these languages have a featurally‑underspecified, morphosyntactic grammatical tone assigned, with the surface realization of this tone is left to the

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phonology. The perspective proposed here differs from Konoshenko’s in subtle ways in its conception, but in my view, it connects and unifies standing diachronic and synchronic perspectives on Mande replacive tone and importantly merges the strengths of both my and Konoshenko’s offerings. While my survey aimed to provide a typology of surface tonal patterns, and Konoshenko’s critique reconfigured the typology based on a two‑way distinction predicated on the "nature" of the neutralized W2, what I have offered here perhaps moves us ahead by another step by admitting a richer interplay between syntax, morphology, and phonology in deriving replacive tonal patterns, rather than trying to hold them separate from one another. As Konoshenko suggests, the substantiation of these analyses will likely have to await further, more detailed work on other less well‑described languages in the family.

Next steps ahead and concluding thoughts

10 The current discussion pertaining to the typology of replacive tone patterns in Mande languages began with a survey of the surface patterns observed and has now shifted in focus to the NATURE (to use Konoshenko’s term) of the neutralized W2 melody. I believe, however, that establishing a mechanism to account for the outcomes of the morphosyntactic W2 rule is just the next step along a longer path of understanding Mande replacive tone in its entirety. Two additional lines of inquiry immediately come to mind, only one of which has begun to be explored in detail, that may lead us even further down this path.

11 First, there is an outstanding question as to types of constructions in a given language that exhibit replacive tone and the mechanisms (be they phonological, morphological, syntactic, etc.) that dictate them. My survey focused primarily on replacive tone in nominal constructions like compounds, but there is ample evidence that replacive tonal phenomena are found in associative and possessive constructions, between a noun and its governing postposition, as well as between a verb and its object. Indeed, Konoshenko provides examples from Guinean Kpelle in her critique that illustrate that replacive tonal patterns involving object‑verb and noun‑of‑noun sequences behave identically; "tonal compounding" between an object and verb has also been discussed in recent work by McPherson (2017) on Seenku (a language of the underdescribed Samogho group of Mande). Several other types of "compact" constructions in Bambara are also discussed in Dumestre (2003). However, we do not know the extent to which these patterns are found in this wider variety of contexts throughout the family. Work by Creissels (2013; 2016) also discusses so‑called PARTIAL vs. COMPLETE replacive tone patterns, which are sometimes both represented in the same language yet have very distinct tonal outcomes. But again, it is yet unclear how widely spread PARTIAL replacive tone is distributed across the family.

12 A second area of inquiry concerns the role played by prosodic structure in the outcomes of replacive tone phenomena. While the first direction for future work that I suggested just above involves the intersections of phonology, morphology, and syntax (and perhaps other components), the role of prosodic structure in driving the outcomes of replacive tone is more clearly morphophonological in nature. Green (2013) discussed many "tonally compact" constructions in Bambara in reference to the language’s prosodic word domain and proposed that the presence of "non‑tonally compact" constructions in Bambara correlates with headedness and the mechanism of word

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formation, namely whether word formation involves rightward or leftward adjunction to the prosodic word domain. These details have yet to be explored in a wider variety of languages.

13 It may prove to be that prosodic structure also has a role to play in replacive tonal phenomena and more specifically in the surface distribution of the constituent tones of the W1 tonal melody upon compounding or some related construction. My survey illustrates the well‑established fact that the W1 tonal melody is maintained to some degree in most instances of Mande replacive tone. Sometimes, only the initial tone of the W1 lexical melody is maintained like in Niokolo Maninkakan, with other tones of the melody being neutralized (1). In other languages, like Vai, the W1 tonal melody is more faithfully maintained (2).

14 (1) Niokolo Maninkakan (Creissels 2013) • a. /tı́bààbù/ ‘European’ + /músù/ ‘woman’ → [tı́bààbù#mùsù] ‘European woman’ • b. /fùlà/ ‘Fulbe’ + /músù/ ‘woman’ → [fùlà#mùsù] ‘Fulbe woman’ • c. /bàránsàŋ/ ‘tree species’ + /jámbà/ ‘leaf’ → [barà ̀nsàñ#jàmbà] ‘leaf of baránsaŋ’ • d. /wóròŋkòféndàà/ ‘snail’ + /nòò/ ‘trail’ → [wóròŋkòfèndàà#nòò] ‘snail trail’

15 (2) Vai (Welmers 1976) • a. /jı́/ ‘water’ + /sóó/ ‘hole’ → [jı́‑sòò] ‘water hole, well’ • b. /wúnú/ ‘mortar’ + /kɔ̌ŋ/ ‘stick’ → [wúnú‑kɔ̀ŋ] ‘pestle’ • c. /kávù/ ‘rattan’ + /jàndá/ ‘thatch’ → [kavú ̀‑jàndà] kávù ‘thatch’ • d. /bâ/ ‘mother’ + /léŋ/ ‘child’ → [ba‑̂ lèŋ] ‘maternal aunt’ • e. /bò’ò/ ‘cultivated greens’ + /kúú/ ‘fenced enclosure’ → [bò’ò‑kùù] ‘garden’ • f. /jàmbá/ ‘leaf’ + /mɔ̌/ ‘person’ → [jàmbà‑mɔ́ɔ̀] ‘herbalist’

16 Moving beyond these two outcomes, the compiled Mande data reveal another interesting characteristic that at least preliminarily appears to unify many of the languages surveyed. That is, in Mande replacive tone, the lexical tonal melody of the W1 itself often comes to be represented (i.e., distributed) across the composite W1+W2 construction. The distribution of the constituent tones of the melody, however, appears to be dictated by language‑specific phonological characteristics. Here I offer just a brief and, once again, preliminary illustration of relevant outcomes in select languages that speak to this observation.

17 For example, data from Bambara (3) reveals that a lexical /LH/ W1 melody is distributed across a compound regardless of the lexical melody of a following W2; the surface melody of W1 is [L] and W2 is [H]. Recall that Bambara is a "default W2" (Konoshenko) or "Type 1" (Green) language for which I suggested above one could assign a W2 {Ø} grammatical tone. I adopt Konoshenko’s suggestion of indicating the lexical melody with slash brackets, a grammatical tone with curly brackets, and the surface form with square brackets. The lexical W1 melody is mapped across W1+W2 such that one tone is assigned to each successive PROSODIC WORD.

18 (3) Bambara (Green 2013) • /jàrá/ + /wòló/ → /jàrá/ + {wolo} → [jàrà#wóló] ‘lion skin’

19 A W1 melody in a language like Mende is distributed in a slightly different way across a compound. Recall that Mende fits under the heading of W2 {L} languages with subsequent H spreading in Konoshenko’s analysis. The example in (4) shows that the tones of a /LLH/ lexical W1 melody are distributed across the larger construction such that one tone is associated with each successive TONE BEARING UNIT on the surface. The

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surface W1 melody is [LL] and that of the W2 is [HL], with the final low being due to the W2 {L}.

20 (4) Mende (Spears 1967) • /ndòmǎ/ + /nìnǎ/ → /ndòmǎ/ + {nìnà} → [ndòmà#nínà] ‘new shirt’

21 Susu has a more complex inventory of tonal melodies, but even in this language, the same general principle holds. The example in (5) shows that a /LLHL/ W1 comes to be distributed across a composite W1+W2 construction, but here, the tones of the W1 melody are distributed FOOT‑BY‑FOOT. The W1 surface melody is [LLHH] and the W2 is [L]. Of course, Susu is known to be a W2 {L} language, so the status of the surface W2 tone here is ambiguous.

22 (5) Susu (Green, Anderson & Obeng 2013) • /kòòkóò/ + /xɔ́rì/ → /kòòkóò/ + {xɔ̀rì} → [kòòkóó#xɔ̀rì] ‘cocoa nut’

23 A language like Dantila Maniŋgaxaŋ is perhaps a somewhat divergent case (keeping in mind that the source of these data are unpublished) but one that nonetheless follows from the principles outlined thus far. The example in (6) shows that a lexical /LH/ W1 melody is distributed across a compound in such a way that the entire W1 melody comes to be associated in its ENTIRETY on each PROSODIC WORD. The final L tone here is due to the definite marker.

24 (6) Dantila Maniŋgaxaŋ (Doucouré & Patin 2015) • /tìbáːbú/ + /mùsú/ → /tìbáːbú/ + {musu} → [tìbáːbú#mùsô] ‘European woman’

25 Of course, these are only a few examples, but in each of them the W1 melody comes to be distributed across the larger W1+W2 construction, though the prosodic unit by which the W1 tones are distributed (whether individually or as a melody) differs between languages. These outcomes are clearly morphophonological in nature and beg the question as to whether there is a replacive tone CONSPIRACY of sorts that has emerged in these languages, in the spirit of Kisseberth (1970), that is mediated by prosodic structure.

26 In this brief response to Konoshenko’s critique, I have endeavored to accomplish three things. First, I aimed to clarify the scope and claims of the survey upon which this discussion is based. The survey, based on surface tonal melodies attributed to Western Mande replacive tone, made no explicit claim that W1 to W2 H tone spreading was unique to compounding. Secondly, stemming from Konoshenko’s discussion of morphosyntactic vs. morphophonological rules, I have moved a step beyond her proposal by suggesting that the replacive tone outcomes witnessed in Central Mande perhaps share even more similarities to those in Soso‑Southwestern and Southern Mande. More specifically, I suggested that Central Mande W2s might be assigned a {Ø} grammatical tone analogous to other languages, after which default tonal features are assigned by the phonology. This unifies the "default W2" vs. "grammatical tone W2" dichotomy maintained in Konoshenko’s analysis. Finally, I have attempted to outline two lines of inquiry that scholars might explore moving forward that may further help us to solidify our understanding of replacive tone in Mande, including downstream tonal processes and the structures mediating their specific outcomes.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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AUTHOR

CHRISTOPHER R. GREEN Syracuse University [email protected] Introduction

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