Tonal head marking in Mande compounds: endpoint neutralization and outliers

Green, Christopher R.; Konoshenko, Maria

doi:10.4000/mandenkan.2699

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 42 publications

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“…In many Mande languages, the head noun in a genitival construction can be formally marked: in some languages it carries a low grammatical tone, while in some others it loses its lexical tone and is incorporated into the tonal domain of the dependent noun; for a survey see (Green & Konoshenko 2022a) . Constructions with tonal head marking usually belong to the type of "modification by noun", in the sense of (Nikolaeva & Spencer 2012: 221-225) (with the dependent noun fulfilling the role of modifying noun), while those with a tonally unmarked head have the meaning of inalienable possession .…”

Section: Head Markingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genitival constructions in Eastern Dan

Vydrin¹

2022

LiA

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In Eastern Dan (< Southern Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo), the common Mande strategies of marking genitival relations are available, namely head-marking by means of tone, and dependent-marking (by a specialized postposition) in the alienable possession construction. However, against this common background, some important modifications have evolved. The opposition between the head-marked and the head-unmarked constructions, although retained, has become semantically blurred: in the proto-language, the head-marked genitival construction had the semantics of “modification-by-noun”, while in the Eastern Dan, this meaning has undergone erosion. In the dependent-marked constructions, a case-like opposition has emerged in the alienable possession constructions: different possessive markers (postpositions) are used depending on whether the head noun of an NP containing the possessive construction stands in the locative case or not. Other postpositions can also serve as markers of genitival relations. In addition, morphological case can sometimes serve to mark genitival relations.

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Section: Head Markingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genitival constructions in Eastern Dan

Vydrin¹

2022

LiA

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Tones and paradigms: a study of grammatical tones in Mande verbal inflection

Konoshenko

2022

Journal of African Languages and Linguistics

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This paper explores how grammatical tones (GTs) are organized into inflectional paradigms in a sample of 20 Mande languages (Niger-Congo), where tonal morphology plays a central role in the expression of TAMP meanings. Adopting the Canonical Typology approach, I assess the degree of canonicity in Mande GTs based on their formal and semantic properties. I show that verbal grammatical tones are mainly realized as replacive in Mande; they are independent from segmental morphemes and may be strongly influenced by surface phonology. Verbal GTs tend to be used in idiosyncratic sets of TAMP constructions and form phonologically determined inflectional classes in Mande, as in many other African languages. I argue that GTs attested in Perfective and Irrealis constructions in modern Mande languages are likely to be an old phenomenon already present in Proto Mande. The consistency of morphological tone assignment in Mande verbs suggests that GTs may be genetically quite stable morphological markers.

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Tonal head marking in Mande compounds: endpoint neutralization and outliers

Cited by 2 publications

References 42 publications

Genitival constructions in Eastern Dan

Genitival constructions in Eastern Dan

Tones and paradigms: a study of grammatical tones in Mande verbal inflection

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