Papers by Kristopher Ebarb
Language: Phonological Analysis, 2016
This article presents the results of a study of verbal tone patterns in Kabarasi [lkb], a Kenyan ... more This article presents the results of a study of verbal tone patterns in Kabarasi [lkb], a Kenyan Bantu language of the Luhya [luy] group. Kabarasi tone has a number of features that are common to Bantu languages (Kisseberth & Odden 2003, Downing 2011, Marlo & Odden 2017), including a lexical contrast between /H/ and /∅/ verb roots and a rich system of tonal inflection. Long H spans that extend across several words may be created by a pair of iterative, mutually feeding rules. One of these rules only applies across word boundaries and exhibits look-ahead effects; the other motivates a novel morphophonological domain: the limitative stem.*
This paper provides an original description and analysis of processes in the morphophonology of s... more This paper provides an original description and analysis of processes in the morphophonology of several Luyia languages of western Kenya, focusing on the differential behaviour of long vowels across and within languages. We discuss patterns of allomorphy of the perfective suffix which are either sensitive or insensitive to the contrast between short vs long vowels, depending on the number of syllables in the base to which the suffix attaches. We also discuss tonal patterns which differ from one another in their sensitivity to vowel length differences. We show that some tonal rules operate solely in terms of moras, while others require reference to whole syllables, irrespective of whether the syllable has a long or short vowel. Others still are sensitive to vowel length differences in some syllables but not others.
This paper offers an overview of verbal tone melodies within Luyia, a cluster of Bantu languages ... more This paper offers an overview of verbal tone melodies within Luyia, a cluster of Bantu languages spoken in Kenya and Uganda. Luyia tone is diverse, possessing three types of verbal tonal systems: ‘conservative’, ‘predictable’, and ‘reversive’. We illustrate the general tonal characteristics of each type of system with an exemplar language variety, describing the complex interactions of lexical and melodic tones.
Bantu languages commonly signal tense, aspect, mood, polarity, and clause-type distinctions with ... more Bantu languages commonly signal tense, aspect, mood, polarity, and clause-type distinctions with tonal as well as segmental cues. The inflectional tonal melodies on verbs may be viewed as underlyingly floating H tones (henceforth ‘melodic Hs’) contributed by the morpho-syntax that are assigned by rule to different positions within the verb. Along with a small set of construction specific tonal adjustment rules, the number and position of melodic Hs distinguish one tonal melody from another.
The present dissertation makes two contributions to the study of the special role that tone plays in Bantu verbal morpho-syntax. First, it contributes extensive novel documentation of the verbal tone system of Idakho: a variety of the Luhya cluster of Bantu languages spoken near Lake Victoria in western Kenya and eastern Uganda. Second, I show how aspects of the Idakho system and that of other Luhya varieties like it have contributed to the development of rich diversity within the verbal tone systems of Luhya.
Part I comprises the descriptive component of the dissertation and emphasizes the impact of several factors known to influence verb tone in Bantu. Because many language consultants contributed to the project, the dissertation makes note of variation within and across speakers of Idakho. In Part II, I demonstrate the role that a preference for prosodically well-cued morphological boundaries has played in two striking tonal developments within the Luhya macrolanguage: the loss of a lexical tonal contrast reconstructed to Proto-Bantu and the introduction of tonal melodies in constructions for which there is no historical precedence for tonal inflection.
Indiana University Working Papers in Linguistics 8, 2009
Nyala-West (Bantu, Kenya) marks tense-aspect-mood-polarity and clause-type distinctions in verbs ... more Nyala-West (Bantu, Kenya) marks tense-aspect-mood-polarity and clause-type distinctions in verbs with grammatical H tones, called "melodic Hs". Nyala-West has six basic tonal melodies in which melodic Hs target three positions of the verbal stem: the first mora of the stem, the first mora of the second syllable of the stem, and the final mora of the stem. The present paper shows how certain aspects of the prosody of the verb stem, the presence or absence of H-toned affixes, and the application of several tonal processes influence the realization of the melodic H in two of the tonal melodies of Nyala-West.
Handouts / Slides by Kristopher Ebarb
In this poster, we compare the principles of tone assignment in Bukusu nouns and verbs.
In this talk, we present an overview of nominal and verbal tone patterns in Bukusu, a Bantu langu... more In this talk, we present an overview of nominal and verbal tone patterns in Bukusu, a Bantu language of western Kenya. In Bukusu, tone distinguishes lexical items and is also a major feature of teh marking of grammatical distinctions such as tense. We discuss data from a variety of morphological and syntactic contexts and illustrate some of the ways in which components of grammar interact to produce complex surface tonal patterns.
This paper describes and analyzes the primary tonal patterns found in Bukusu nouns and their alte... more This paper describes and analyzes the primary tonal patterns found in Bukusu nouns and their alternations in a phrasal context.
This talk offers an overview of verbal tone patterns in the Kabras [lkb] variety of the Luyia [lu... more This talk offers an overview of verbal tone patterns in the Kabras [lkb] variety of the Luyia [luy] macrolanguage. Kabras has a primary tonal contrast between H-toned and toneless moras, contour tones are generally avoided, phrase-final Hs are shifted to the penult, and Hs are deleted when they follow another H.
This paper also discusses how an unbounded leftward spreading process, High Tone Anticipation, provides evidence for the Limitative Stem, a morpho-prosodic domain that includes the macrostem and a limited set of aspectual prefixes. This talk also identifies the ways in which the notion of the Limitative Stem simplifies the analysis of a tonally aberrant aspectual prefix in Kinande, another J zone Bantu.
Presentation Goals (i) Trace the course of a diachronic re-analysis of the lexical contrast betwe... more Presentation Goals (i) Trace the course of a diachronic re-analysis of the lexical contrast between */H/ and */Ø/ verbs in Proto-Bantu (Stevick 1969) within languages of the Luhya (a.k.a. Luyia) cluster spoken in Western Kenya and (ii) identify some of the factors that catalyzed such re-analyses.
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Papers by Kristopher Ebarb
The present dissertation makes two contributions to the study of the special role that tone plays in Bantu verbal morpho-syntax. First, it contributes extensive novel documentation of the verbal tone system of Idakho: a variety of the Luhya cluster of Bantu languages spoken near Lake Victoria in western Kenya and eastern Uganda. Second, I show how aspects of the Idakho system and that of other Luhya varieties like it have contributed to the development of rich diversity within the verbal tone systems of Luhya.
Part I comprises the descriptive component of the dissertation and emphasizes the impact of several factors known to influence verb tone in Bantu. Because many language consultants contributed to the project, the dissertation makes note of variation within and across speakers of Idakho. In Part II, I demonstrate the role that a preference for prosodically well-cued morphological boundaries has played in two striking tonal developments within the Luhya macrolanguage: the loss of a lexical tonal contrast reconstructed to Proto-Bantu and the introduction of tonal melodies in constructions for which there is no historical precedence for tonal inflection.
Handouts / Slides by Kristopher Ebarb
This paper also discusses how an unbounded leftward spreading process, High Tone Anticipation, provides evidence for the Limitative Stem, a morpho-prosodic domain that includes the macrostem and a limited set of aspectual prefixes. This talk also identifies the ways in which the notion of the Limitative Stem simplifies the analysis of a tonally aberrant aspectual prefix in Kinande, another J zone Bantu.
The present dissertation makes two contributions to the study of the special role that tone plays in Bantu verbal morpho-syntax. First, it contributes extensive novel documentation of the verbal tone system of Idakho: a variety of the Luhya cluster of Bantu languages spoken near Lake Victoria in western Kenya and eastern Uganda. Second, I show how aspects of the Idakho system and that of other Luhya varieties like it have contributed to the development of rich diversity within the verbal tone systems of Luhya.
Part I comprises the descriptive component of the dissertation and emphasizes the impact of several factors known to influence verb tone in Bantu. Because many language consultants contributed to the project, the dissertation makes note of variation within and across speakers of Idakho. In Part II, I demonstrate the role that a preference for prosodically well-cued morphological boundaries has played in two striking tonal developments within the Luhya macrolanguage: the loss of a lexical tonal contrast reconstructed to Proto-Bantu and the introduction of tonal melodies in constructions for which there is no historical precedence for tonal inflection.
This paper also discusses how an unbounded leftward spreading process, High Tone Anticipation, provides evidence for the Limitative Stem, a morpho-prosodic domain that includes the macrostem and a limited set of aspectual prefixes. This talk also identifies the ways in which the notion of the Limitative Stem simplifies the analysis of a tonally aberrant aspectual prefix in Kinande, another J zone Bantu.