Syllables and morpheme integrity in Kinande reduplication

Abstract

Within the expanding framework of non-linear morphology, no wordformation process has sparked more interest than reduplication. Once relegated to a secondary status with a few examples, reduplication has now arrived centre stage as a testing ground for alternative theories of multitiered morphology and phonology. The innovative work of McCarthy (1981) and Marantz (1982) on this subject has laid the groundwork for subsequent formal treatments of reduplication, including Levin (1983), Broselow & McCarthy (1984), Clements (1985), Odden & Odden (1985), Schlindwein (1986, 1988), McCarthy & Prince (forthcoming), Kiparsky (1986), Mester (1986) and Steriade (1988), among others. These varying accounts of reduplication have been tested against a large and growing body of data from most parts of the world. Surprising to us, however, since every Bantu language we are familiar with has one or more reduplicative processes, relatively little attention has been focused on this rather large linguistic group of several hundred languages coverin a major part of the African continent.

Directional asymmetries in the morphology and phonology of words, with special reference to Bantu

“…A number of other CB languages, show similar bisyllabic word minimality conditions such as Kinande (Mutaka & Hyman 1990), Chichewa (Kanerva 1989) and Ndebele (Downing 2001, Sibanda 2004. Word minimality apparently is not found in NWB, which, as indicated in (57) Standard Swahili (which has lost its tone), but also languages such as Chizigula, where, as seen in (58b), a H prefixal tone is attracted to penultimate position (unmarked vowels = L tone):…”

Morphosyntactic Correspondence in Bantu Reduplication

“…double reduplicate the monosyllabic stem, e.g. sw-a-sw-a+sw-a 'grind here and there' in Kinande (Mutaka & Hyman 1990) As seen, Ndebele uses two of these strategies, allowing either the OM or the filler syllable yi-to appear in the reduplicant, when needed. Kinande, on the other hand, is one of several Bantu languages that double reduplicate monosyllabic verbs to fill out the bisyllabic template.…”

“…), in recognizing the important role that morphological structure plays in Bantu reduplication, which, therefore, is not solely a prosodic phenomenon. Mutaka and Hyman (1990) showed for Kinande the role that morphological considerations can play, as morpheme integrity can inhibit prosodic templatic effects in certain languages. Downing went further and showed the role that morphological constituent structure plays, noting effects of the derivational stem constituent on Bantu reduplication.…”

“…The motivation for augmentation with yi-in (24c) is clear: As in many other Bantu languages (Myers 1987, Kanerva 1989, Mutaka & Hyman 1990), Ndebele words are subject to the bisyllabic minimality condition in (25).…”

“…With respect to (91b) it is interesting to note that noun reduplication is, however, suffixal in Kinande. As Mutaka & Hyman (1990) demonstrate, noun reduplication is a word-level process:…”