Consonant Voicing, Tonal Morphemes, and Downstep in Gwari

This paper studies the downstep phenomenon in Gwari, a West Benue-Congo language spoken in Nigeria and reports that high and mid tones are subject to downstepping in the language. The phenomenon is however blocked in syllables whose onsets contain voiceless obstruents. It is also reported that in the associative construction, the language marks the genitive relation with a floating high tonal morpheme (H-tomorph) that has the capability to dock directly onto the first tone bearing unit in the stem of the rightmost noun, whether that noun has a prefix or not. Downstep then arises when the docking of the tomorph is followed by the loss of a low toned prefix, and other structural conditions are met.Cet article traite du phénomène de faille tonale (downstep) en Gwari, une langue Bénoué-Congo de l’Ouest parlée au Nigéria et montre que, dans cette langue, les tons hauts comme bas peuvent être sujets à des failles tonales. Ce phénomène est cependant bloqué lorsque l’attaque de la syllabe considérée contient une obstruante sourde. Cet article illustre également le fait que, dans les constructions associatives, le génitif est marqué au moyen d’un morphème tonal flottant haut (tonomorphème-H) susceptible de s’associer directement à la première unité porteuse de ton (UPT) du radical du nom situé le plus à droite, indépendamment du fait que ledit nom comporte ou non un préfixe. Dans ce cas de figure, on observe une faille tonale lorsque l’association du tonomorphème à son UPT s’accompagne de l’effacement d’un préfixe à ton bas et que d’autres conditions d’ordre structurel sont également remplies

West African languages enrich the frequency code: Multi-functional pitch and multi-dimensional prosody in Ikaan polar questions

Cross-linguistically, statements tend to be pronounced with low or falling pitch and questions with high or rising pitch, a form–meaning pairing which has been attributed to the frequency code (Ohala, 1984). In many West African languages, however, questions are marked with a ‘lax’ prosody comprising falling intonation, low tones, lengthening, breathy termination, and open vowels (Rialland, 2007). This paper presents prosody findings from Ikaan (Niger-Congo; ISO 639-3: kcf) and proposes a re-analysis of the West African lax question prosody to integrate it with the frequency code model. The paper shows that the pragmatic functions of statement and polar question are expressed prosodically in Ikaan. Audio recordings of statements and morphosyntactically identical polar questions by six speakers were annotated segmentally, tonally, and for the presence of prosodic question markers. Speakers mark questions by using higher onset pitch, wider drops to final low tones, final breathy voice and voicelessness, final vowel lengthening, vowel insertion, and increased intensity. Breathiness may further contrast with creaky voice and glottal stops in statements. Phonation mode, and the accompanying vowel lengthening and insertion, are argued to indicate friendliness and appeals for collaboration, linking phonation mode to similar functions of higher pitch in the frequency code

Language endangerment and language documentation in Africa

Non peer reviewe

COMPARATIVE EDOID: PHONOLOGY AND LEXICON

This book explores a comparative analysis of twenty Edoid languages focusing on sounds and sound systems. It also examines the reconstructions for Proto-Edoi