Comparing CJ-DJ discrepancies in Matengo and Bemba

論

Benefactive and substitutive applicatives in Bemba

Benefactive applicative constructions can encode a range of different meanings, including notably recipient, substitutive and plain benefactive readings, which are often distinguished in cross-linguistic studies. In Bantu languages, this distinction has not received much attention, in part because most Bantu languages do not formally distinguish between different readings of benefactive applicatives. In Bemba (Bantu M42, Zambia), by contrast, substitutive applicatives, where the action of the verb is performed by the agent instead of, on behalf of, or in place of someone else, are formally marked by applicative morphology in addition to a post-verbal clitic -ko, based on a grammaticalised locative demonstrative clitic. The paper provides a detailed discussion of the construction and proposes that the interpretation of substitutive applicatives results from the interaction of abstract applicative and locative semantics and depends on underlying metaphors of spatial and abstract location. Bemba benefactive applicatives thus provide an illustration of the complex function and interpretation of Bantu applicatives and locative markers more widely. The construction is interesting from a historical- comparative and typological perspective because of the particular grammaticalisation process from a locative source involved in the historical development of the construction, and because substitution is marked in addition to applicative marking

A comparative study of depression in Bantu, Khoisan and Chinese Wu – laryngeal settings and feature specifications

This paper aims to provide an overview of our current understanding of depressors by offering a comparative perspective of the types of depressors from Bantu, Khoisan and Chinese Wu. Depressor effects in Bantu/Khoisan, on the one hand, and Chinese, on the other, are hardly dealt with together leaving a more holistic approach untapped. This paper begins to bridge that gap by bringing together current findings to establish the full scope of depressor effects, from which future analyses can then build on. It is systematically observed that depressors in these languages are not restricted to voicing only. Rather, they range from voiced and breathy sounds – the most unmarked – to voiceless unaspirated sounds and even voiceless aspirated sounds as the most marked depressor type. The expansion of depressors to voiceless aspirated sounds is particularly interesting, since these sounds are traditionally assumed to correlate with a high pitch which is characteristic of high tone. Thus, the laryngeal configurations for voiceless depressors are examined and compared between Bantu, Khoisan and Chinese Wu. Proposed feature analyses for depressors are also discussed and compared.Keywords: depressors, Bantu, Khoisan, Chinese Wu, laryngeal specificatio

Mental representation of tonal spreading in Bemba: Evidence from elicited production and perception

Previous research has shown that listeners from tonal languages are better at processing tone compared to speakers from non-tonal languages. However, most of this research has tested Asian tone languages, particularly those which have many tonal contrasts and a dense tone-to-syllable association. In this paper we investigate the mental representation of derived tones in Bemba, a Bantu language that has a two-way tone contrast but which shows robust tone spreading patterns. Specifically, we test ternary high-tone spreading, a process that is unique from a phonological perspective. In a production task we test whether ternary spread can be extended to non-words. We complement this with an AX discrimination task comparing binary vs ternary spread, which are phonologically contrastive, on the one hand, with a tonally similarly salient but non-phonologically relevant contrast, on the other. We show that in both the production and percep- tion of non-words, ternary spread is distinct from binary spread, suggesting that derived tone is equally mentally represented as lexical tone is in Asian tone languages

Phrasal phonology in Copperbelt Bemba

Copperbelt Bemba exhibits several rightward spreading tonal processes which are sensitive to prosodic phrase structure. The rightmost H tone in a word will undergo unbounded spreading if the word is final in a phonological phrase (phi). In an intonational phrase consisting of several single-word phi's, the rightmost H in the first word will spread through all following toneless phi's. From a rule-based perspective, this can only be accounted for by positing mutually feeding iterative rules, as a single H-tone spreading rule cannot account for the long-distance spreading. Rather, a second rule that spreads a H from the final mora of one word onto the initial mora of the following word is required, as a bridge to further unbounded spreading. Three phrase-sensitive OT constraints are proposed to account for H-tone spreading between words. One is of the domain-juncture variety, requiring the specification of two separate prosodic domains

Developing an Areal View of Intonation in Eastern Bantu

This paper is an initial attempt at trying to synthesise the state-of-art in the study on intonation in Bantu languages. The goal is to specifically investigate what central features emerge in the comparison of four Bantu languages to allow us to formulate a hypothesis on areal features and variation in Eastern Bantu languages. The base language used for the comparison is Bemba, for which details of local intonational effects such as final lowering in utterances, as well as global effects, such as pitch range expansion in questions, are provided. These same questions are compared and contrasted with findings in the literature on Chichewa, Tumbuka and Shingazidja. The results show that there are a number of areas of symmetry and areas of contrast, which allow us to begin to define features where we can expect parametric variation in Eastern Bantu languages

Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: The case of Setswana

Within the context of microvariation in Bantu, three processes are examined in Setswana – object marking, inversion constructions and diminutive marking. Setswana morpho-syntactic structures for these constructions present instances that distinguish Setswana from Eastern Bantu languages and yet also cases of similarity with patterns more commonly attested in Eastern rather than Southern Bantu languages. Using a comparative-parametric approach Setswana is shown to pattern with Southern Bantu in its default agreement and diminutive marking patterns while its flexibility in allowing multiple object markers with free ordering is more closely related to Eastern Bantu, suggesting complex historical patterns of contact