The Macro-Sudan Belt and Niger-Congo Reconstruction

Abstract

Basing himself largely on areal and typological arguments, Güldemann (2010) claims that neither Proto-Niger-Congo nor Proto-Bantu had more than a "moderate" system of derivational verb suffixes ("extensions"), and that both proto-languages lacked inflectional verb prefixes. Although drawing largely on the same materials as Hyman (2004, 2007a, b), he arrives at the opposite conclusion that Niger-Congo languages which have such morphology, in particular Bantu and Atlantic, would have had to innovate multiple suffixation and prefixation. However, such hypotheses are weakened by two serious problems: (i) These proto-languages, which possibly reach back as far as 10,000–12,000 bp, have clearly had enough time for their morphosyntax to have cycled more than once. (ii) The areal properties of Güldemann's Macro-Sudan Belt most likely represent more recent innovations which have diffused after the Niger-Congo break-up. In this paper, I present further evidence that multiple suffixation and prefixation must have existed even in languages which have lost them. The general conclusion is that current areal distributions are largely irrelevant for long-range linguistic reconstruction.

Phylogenies based on lexical innovations refute the Rung hypothesis

“…Debates similar to the controversy addressed here are found in other language families, in particular Niger-Congo (Güldemann 2008;Hyman 2011) and Austroasiatic (Zide & Anderson 2001;Donegan & Stampe 2004). Our work suggests that the reconstructibility of morphology is essentially a question of phylogenetic nature: morphological features with low propensity for homoplasy yet shared by a set of languages are reconstructible at least to their common ancestor.…”

Chapter 7. Comparative consequences of the tongue root harmony analysis for proto-Tungusic, proto-Mongolic, and proto-Korean

“…In the specific case of Niger-Congo in the CSZ, it has been argued that TRH is an innovation (Dimmendaal 2001;Hyman 2011). Our claim is that RTRH is a retention in each of the families we have examined (KMT, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Nivkh, possibly Yukaghir).…”

“…In this region, it is obvious that [ATR] harmony is in part a contact-induced phenomenon, as it is distributed across language phyla (Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Afroasiatic). It has been argued that in Niger-Congo languages in this zone that [ATR] harmony is an innovation (Hyman 2011). Outside Korean, Mongolic, and Tungusic, [RTR) or [low]-dominant harmony is found in Chukchi and arguably in Yukaghir, height-sensitive vowel cooccurrence restrictions in Nivkh (Shiraishi & Botrna 2013), and a limited type of height or "periphery-sensitive" harmony in Ainu (Shibatani 1990}.…”

Revisiting the anasynthetic spiral

“…In the Niger-Congo (or Atlantic-Congo) language family, one sees a striking contrast between more synthetic languages like the well-known Bantu languages, and more analytic languages (often without gender categories) like the Kwa, Defoid and Igboid languages. There are also more analytic Bantu languages, especially those of the Bantu A subgroup in the northwest, and there has been an interesting recent debate between Güldemann (2011) andHyman (2011). While Güldemann claims that Proto-Bantu was more like the (analytic) Kwa languages, in line with the general features of the Macro-Sudan belt, Hyman thinks that the analytic northwestern Bantu languages are innovative and that Proto-Bantu was like the better-known Zulu or Swahili type.…”