Tone in Bantu
John Goldsmith Fall 2003
Tuesday and Thursday 10:30 to 11:50 in Gates-Blake 401
The goal of this course is to survey some of what is known about the complex and elegant tonal systems of various Bantu tone systems. To this end we will:
1. Read selected articles from the two major collections on this subject:
Autosegmental Studies in Bantu Tone (1984, Foris Publications), ed. G. N. Clements and John Goldsmith
Theoretical Aspects of Bantu Tone (1998, CSLI Publications), ed. Larry M. Hyman and Charles Kisseberth
and papers available on the Internet
2. Explore some Bantu tone systems on our own, on the basis of published materials. There is a series of ILCAA books published in Africa on various Bantu languages analyzed to varyign degrees; they're sitting on the table in front of my office (Bantu Linguistics: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cutlres of Asia and Africa). Of course the library is full of grammars and journals with other sources of data. In the second half of the quarter, I'd like to devote the Thursday class to student presentations of data plus analysis of the data.
The grade will be based on the student presentations in class, and a written handout created for that.
I think the easiest way to distribute the readings which are not available on the Internet is for me to make copies once I know how many people are attending the seminar.
| Week | Tuesday | Thursday |
| 1 | Introduction | Tonga 1 |
| 2 | Tonga 2 | Tone in CiRuri |
| 3 | Digo | Digo |
|
4 |
Shona: Odden | Shona: Myers |
| 5 | Yao | Yao |
| 6 | Tone reduction vs. Metrical attraction | Student presentations |
| 7 | Olusamia | Student presentations |
| 8 | Llogoori | Student presentations |
| 9 | Tone and accent and getting the two together | Student presentations |
| 10 | KiRundi | Student presentations |
Papers we will try to read this quarter:
Tone and Accent in Tonga. John Goldsmith. In Autosegmental Studies in Bantu Tone, edited by G. N. Clements and J. Goldsmith, pp. 19-51.
Tone in Ci-Ruri. By David Massamba. In ASBT, pp. 235-254.
Digo Tonology. Charles Kisseberth. In ASBT, pp. 105-182.
Possibly: ASBT Introduction. By Clements and Goldsmith. pp. 1-18.
Stem Tone Assignment in Shona. David Odden. ASBT 255-280.
Shona: The phonetics and phonology of tone retraction in Shona. Scott Myers. http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~smyers/shonatone.pdf
Principles of tone assignment in Tanzanian Yao. David Odden. TABT. pp. 265-314.
Tone reduction vs. metrical attractio int he evolution of Eastern Bantu tone systems. Gérard Philippeson.TABT pp. 315-330.
Constraints on tonal association in Olusamia: An optimality theoretic account. Robert Poletto. TABT. pp. 331-364.
Tone and Accent in Llogoori. John Goldsmith. In The Joy of Syntax, edited by D.Brentari, G. Larson, and L. McLeod. John Benjamins.
Tone and Accent and Getting the Two Together. John Goldsmith. Proceedings of
the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, edited
by
Jon Aske, Natasha Beery, Laura Michaelis, and Hana Filip.
The KiRundi Verb. John Goldsmith and Firmard Sabimana. In Mod[...] edited by Francis Jouannet, pp. 19-62. Paris: Editions du CNRS.
Some papers by me on Bantu tone systems:
Tone and Accent in Xhosa (with Karen Peterson and Joseph Drogo). Current
Approaches to African Linguistics (vol. 5), ed. Paul Newman and Robert Botne.
Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
Prosodic Trends in the Bantu Languages. In
Autosegmental Studies in Pitch Accent, edited by N. Smith and H. van der Hulst.
Dordrecht:
Foris Publications.
The Rise of Rhythmic Structure in Bantu.
Phonologica 1984, ed. W. Dressler. Pp. 65-78 Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Tone and Accent and Getting the Two Together. Proceedings of the
Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, edited
by Jon
Aske, Natasha Beery, Laura Michaelis, and Hana Filip.
Some papers we may talk about (Internet available)
Evolution des systès prosodiques dans les langes bantu : de la typologie à la diachronie. Gérard Philippeson. Ms.
HH and *HL tone patterns in Bemba and the Bemba tone system. Gérard Philippeson. Ms.
Resources
Web resources for Bantu languages. Quite a phenomenal resource by Jouni F. Maho.
Bantu Lexical Reconstructions: http://linguistics.africamuseum.be/BLR3.html
Sukuma bibliography:
Joseph Mbele.
Bantu online resources: by Jacky Maniacky.
Bantu maps (CBOLD)
A Survey Report for the Bantu Languages by Derek Nurse SIL Internatioanl 2001
Bantu languages FAQ!
Bantu expansion:
Lolke Van der Veen and Jean-Marie Hombert: A multidisciplinary approach