Cluster Algorithm for a Solid-On-Solid Model with Constraints

We adapt the VMR (valleys-to-mountains reflections) algorithm, originally devised by us for simulations of SOS models, to the BCSOS model. It is the first time that a cluster algorithm is used for a model with constraints. The performance of this new algorithm is studied in detail in both phases of the model, including a finite size scaling analysis of the autocorrelations.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures appended as ps-file

Contact-induced disturbances in personal pronoun systems in the Chadic – Benue-Congo convergence zone in Central Nigeria

The paper looks at personal pronoun systems in languages of the convergence zone on both sides of the borderline between Benue-Congo and Chadic. Focus is on inventories and systems, meaning the overall interrelationship of pronoun shapes across the categories of person, number, grammatical gender and noun class (3rd person concord). The issues to be explored are (i) whether the personal pronoun systems as such provide any further indication towards the Sprachbund idea implied in Wolff & Gerhardt (1977), and (ii) whether one can identify some unusual features of or patterns within the systems, which are shared by languages on both sides of the line separating Benue-Congo and Chadic, and which are of such nature as to strengthen the hypothesis of a cross-genetic convergence zone. The answers provided are affirmative: In addition to cross-genetic borrowing of pronoun shapes, which is generally considered rare and/or at least remarkable, pronoun systems as such and across the convergence zone show at least two rather quirky disturbances of the expected pattern that can hardly be explained but by rather surprising instances of cross-language interference. These two kinds of disturbance within systems will be discussed under the headings of “category shifting” and “circumfix conjugational pattern” emergence.Given the present state of knowledge, the paper can only point out promising lines of detailed historical research: Any attempt to provide final answers would be premature at this stage

Did Proto-Chadic have velar nasals and prenasalised obstruents?

Ever since the Afroasiatic affiliation of Chadic as a whole was suggested by Joseph H. Greenberg in his seminal re-classification of African languages since the 1950s and has been generally accepted, i.e. encompassing both ‘Chado-Hamitic’ and ‘Chadic’ languages of influential pre-Greenbergian genetic classifications, the issue of whether Proto-Chadic possessed prenasalised obstruents and velar nasals has been repeatedly raised and debated in the literature, yet without final consent. All of the 196 presently known Chadic languages would appear to possess these consonants in their synchronic phonemic inventories. The present article reviews the debate in view of recently available new insights on the historical phonology and lexical reconstruction based on data from 66 of the 79 known Central Chadic languages, i.e. the most numerous and most diverse branch of Chadic. According to these recent comparative studies of Central Chadic that allow to reconstruct Proto-Central Chadic phonology and lexicon, there is massive evidence to show that both velar nasals and prenasalised obstruents emerged as results of natural phonological processes probably already on the proto-language level, but need not be reconstructed for the proto-language’s phonemic inventory. And if Proto-Central Chadic did not have these consonants as inherited phonemes, then this would also be true for its predecessor, Proto-Chadic. The major processes leading to the emergence of velar nasals and prenasalised obstruents were segmental fusion and the emergence of prensalisation prosody that arose from the de-segmentalisation and prosodification of reconstructed nasals. The article summarises the evidence and gives illustrative examples for the reconstructed phonological processes, which created conditioned allophones that eventually became phonologised yielding synchronic phonemes in the modern Central Chadic languages.Ever since the Afroasiatic affiliation of Chadic as a whole was suggested by Joseph H. Greenberg in his seminal re-classification of African languages since the 1950s and has been generally accepted, i.e. encompassing both ‘Chado-Hamitic’ and ‘Chadic’ languages of influential pre-Greenbergian genetic classifications, the issue of whether Proto-Chadic possessed prenasalised obstruents and velar nasals has been repeatedly raised and debated in the literature, yet without final consent. All of the 196 presently known Chadic languages would appear to possess these consonants in their synchronic phonemic inventories. The present article reviews the debate in view of recently available new insights on the historical phonology and lexical reconstruction based on data from 66 of the 79 known Central Chadic languages, i.e. the most numerous and most diverse branch of Chadic. According to these recent comparative studies of Central Chadic that allow to reconstruct Proto-Central Chadic phonology and lexicon, there is massive evidence to show that both velar nasals and prenasalised obstruents emerged as results of natural phonological processes probably already on the proto-language level, but need not be reconstructed for the proto-language’s phonemic inventory. And if Proto-Central Chadic did not have these consonants as inherited phonemes, then this would also be true for its predecessor, Proto-Chadic. The major processes leading to the emergence of velar nasals and prenasalised obstruents were segmental fusion and the emergence of prensalisation prosody that arose from the de-segmentalisation and prosodification of reconstructed nasals. The article summarises the evidence and gives illustrative examples for the reconstructed phonological processes, which created conditioned allophones that eventually became phonologised yielding synchronic phonemes in the modern Central Chadic languages.Ever since the Afroasiatic affiliation of Chadic as a whole was suggested by Joseph H. Greenberg in his seminal re-classification of African languages since the 1950s and has been generally accepted, i.e. encompassing both ‘Chado-Hamitic’ and ‘Chadic’ languages of influential pre-Greenbergian genetic classifications, the issue of whether Proto-Chadic possessed prenasalised obstruents and velar nasals has been repeatedly raised and debated in the literature, yet without final consent. All of the 196 presently known Chadic languages would appear to possess these consonants in their synchronic phonemic inventories. The present article reviews the debate in view of recently available new insights on the historical phonology and lexical reconstruction based on data from 66 of the 79 known Central Chadic languages, i.e. the most numerous and most diverse branch of Chadic. According to these recent comparative studies of Central Chadic that allow to reconstruct Proto-Central Chadic phonology and lexicon, there is massive evidence to show that both velar nasals and prenasalised obstruents emerged as results of natural phonological processes probably already on the proto-language level, but need not be reconstructed for the proto-language’s phonemic inventory. And if Proto-Central Chadic did not have these consonants as inherited phonemes, then this would also be true for its predecessor, Proto-Chadic. The major processes leading to the emergence of velar nasals and prenasalised obstruents were segmental fusion and the emergence of prensalisation prosody that arose from the de-segmentalisation and prosodification of reconstructed nasals. The article summarises the evidence and gives illustrative examples for the reconstructed phonological processes, which created conditioned allophones that eventually became phonologised yielding synchronic phonemes in the modern Central Chadic languages

Genealogical Discontinuity and Recontinuity in Hidkala Oral Traditions

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Language ideologies and the politics of language in post-colonial Africa

Africa is highly ideologised in terms of two antagonistic positions. Facing two extreme ideological positions, namely what one might call ‘19th century European nation state-ideology’ vs ‘20th/21st century African Renaissance-ideology’, language planners and decision-makers in Africa are caught in a complex dilemma. The paper begins by sketching out salient differences between the two positions: (1) Ideologies based on European historical-cultural experience, which gave rise to a particular ‘Western’ mind-set; this mind-set is built on convictions regarding European exceptionalism and on notions linked to linguistically and culturally homogenous nations. (2) Ideologies informed by anti-colonialist struggle and anti-imperialist philosophy which, further, rest on the recognition of sociolinguistic realities in Africa that are different from ‘the West’, i.e. being characterised by extreme ethnolinguistic plurality and diversity. While the first position continues to have considerable impact on academic and political discourse in terms of prevailing Eurocentric perspective and attitudes infested by Orientalism, the second is rooted in idealistic romanticism relating to notions of Universal Human Linguistic Rights and of African Identity and Personality. Political strategies embedded in any of these apparently mutually exclusive ideological positions have been and still are widely discussed in academic and political circles across Africa. A third position and the one adhered to in this presentation, is that of bridging this ideological divide by advocating multilingual policies for Africa, which would combine indigenous languages of local and regional relevance with imported languages of global reach towards the strategic goal of mother tongue-based multilingualism (MTBML). Interestingly, the ongoing highly controversial debate in Africa tends to overlook the fact that MTBML is exactly the ‘language(s)-in-education policy’ that most so-called developed countries, including the former colonial powers of Europe, have long since installed to best serve their own political interests and economic progress. Therefore, it remains somewhat paradoxical that African postcolonial governments copy from European models those features that are incompatible with sociolinguistic facts on the ground, like monolingual policies in the face of extensive multilingualism, but do not copy features that would be beneficial in Africa as well, like operating professional foreign language teaching and learning through a familiar medium of instruction.Key words: Applied African Sociolinguistics, language ideologies, language policies and politics, linguistic and cultural imperialism, multilingualism and polyglossi