ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS Studia Linguistica Upsaliensia 20 A Linguistic Description of Mbugwe with Focus on Tone and Verbal Morphology Vera Wilhelmsen Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Ihresalen, Engelska parken Thunbergsv. 3H, Uppsala, Saturday, 2 June 2018 at 10:00 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Professor Maarten Mous (Leiden University). Abstract Wilhelmsen, V. 2018. A Linguistic Description of Mbugwe with Focus on Tone and Verbal Morphology. Studia Linguistica Upsaliensia 20. 262 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0318-5. Mbugwe is an endangered Bantu language spoken in north central Tanzania. This PhD dissertation is a description of the Mbugwe language with a focus on tone and verbal morphology, based on the author’s fieldwork. This is the first detailed description of the language. Thus far, only a short grammatical sketch of Mbugwe has been available. Mbugwe is a tonal language with a rich verbal system. Therefore, the focus of this dissertation is on tone and verbal morphology. The dissertation also contains a brief description of the phonology of Mbugwe as well as a description of the nominal system. Mbugwe has 7 vowels; length is distinctive. There are 21 consonant phonemes, not counting the NC sequences, which are analysed as clusters in this study. Mbugwe has 17 noun classes and the adnominals that agree with the noun are described and exemplified. The tones of the language are presented in detail. Mbugwe has two tones, high and low, and the low tone is considered the default tone. The tone-bearing unit is the mora. High tones spread one mora to the right, and the last high tone before a low tone is upstepped. There is both lexical tone and grammatical tone in Mbugwe, and grammatical tones that occur on the verb stem in certain verb forms are described. In the chapter on verb morphology, the structures of the simple and periphrastic verbs are presented, as well as a description of the infinitive and copula verbs. The various tenses, aspects and moods of Mbugwe are then presented. There are 25 affirmative forms and 15 negative forms. For the perfective verbs, there are three past tenses and a future tense. In the imperfective, there is only one past tense, as well as a present and one future tense. Other aspects are the progressive, the habitual and the persistive. Moods that are grammaticalized in Mbugwe are the subjunctive, the imperative and the counterfactual. Verb forms that are not readily categorized as tense, aspect or mood are the consecutive, the situative and the participial. They depend on other verbs for their time reference. Keywords: Bantu, grammar, fieldwork, Tanzania, tone, TAM, morphology Vera Wilhelmsen, Department of Linguistics and Philology, Box 635, Uppsala University, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden. © Vera Wilhelmsen 2018 ISSN 1652-1366 ISBN 978-91-513-0318-5 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-347793 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-347793) For the Mbugwe people Contents Abbreviations ................................................................................................ 11 List of Figures ............................................................................................... 13 List of Tables ................................................................................................ 14 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................... 17 1 Introduction and background ............................................................... 21 1.1 Purpose of the study ........................................................................ 21 1.2 Method and data .............................................................................. 23 1.3 Theory ............................................................................................. 27 1.4 Previous research on Mbugwe ........................................................ 28 1.5 Bantu languages: classification and history .................................... 29 1.5.1 Classification of Bantu languages .......................................... 29 1.5.2 History of Bantu languages .................................................... 31 1.5.3 Bantu zone F .......................................................................... 31 1.6 The Mbugwe people and language ................................................. 35 1.6.1 Is Mbugwe endangered? ........................................................ 36 1.7 Organisation of dissertation ............................................................ 38 2 Phonology ............................................................................................ 40 2.1 Consonants ...................................................................................... 40 2.1.1 Glides and consonant-glide sequences ................................... 44 2.1.2 Nasal-consonant sequences .................................................... 46 2.2 Vowels ............................................................................................ 52 2.2.1 Phonological processes concerning vowels ........................... 56 2.3 Syllable structure ............................................................................. 58 2.4 Summary ......................................................................................... 60 3 Tone ..................................................................................................... 61 3.1 Tone and tonal languages ................................................................ 62 3.2 Tone in Mbugwe ............................................................................. 65 3.2.1 Phonemic tone and TBU ........................................................ 65 3.2.2 Lexical tone ........................................................................... 66 3.2.3 Tonal processes ...................................................................... 72 3.2.4 Grammatical tone of verbs ..................................................... 84 3.3 Summary ......................................................................................... 99 4 Nominal morphology ......................................................................... 100 4.1 Noun classes in Bantu languages .................................................. 100 4.2 Nominals in Mbugwe .................................................................... 102 4.2.1 Nouns and noun classes ....................................................... 102 4.2.2 Personal pronouns ................................................................ 108 4.3 Adnominals and concord .............................................................. 110 4.3.1 Adjectives ............................................................................ 111 4.3.2 The adnominal ‘self, alone’ ................................................. 114 4.3.3 Associative markers ............................................................. 116 4.3.4 Possessive pronouns ............................................................ 119 4.3.5 Demonstratives .................................................................... 121 4.3.6 Numerals .............................................................................. 126 4.3.7 Quantifiers ........................................................................... 129 4.3.8 Inflected interrogatives ........................................................ 132 4.4 Summary ....................................................................................... 134 5 Verbal morphology ............................................................................ 135 5.1 The structure of the simple verb in Mbugwe ................................ 136 5.1.1 Negative 1 ............................................................................ 137 5.1.2 Subject Marker ..................................................................... 137 5.1.3 Negative 2 ............................................................................ 139 5.1.4 Tense, Aspect and Mood marker ......................................... 139 5.1.5 Ventive ................................................................................. 141 5.1.6 Object Marker ...................................................................... 142 5.1.7 Extensions ............................................................................ 145 5.1.8 Final Vowel ......................................................................... 147 5.2 Periphrastic constructions ............................................................. 148 5.3 Tense, aspect and mood ................................................................ 155 5.3.1 Perfective aspect .................................................................. 164 5.3.2 Imperfective aspect .............................................................. 167 5.3.3 Habitual aspect ..................................................................... 171 5.3.4 Progressive aspect ................................................................ 174 5.3.5 Persistive aspect ................................................................... 176 5.3.6 Consecutive .......................................................................... 177 5.3.7 Situative ............................................................................... 179 5.3.8 Participial ............................................................................. 180 5.3.9 Subjunctive mood ...............................................................