04 vowels rev

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Draft September 2012

1

Chapter ##

PHONOLOGY: VOWELS

ole has a five vowel system and, like most Chadic languages, it has a contrastbetween long and short vowels. Bole is unusual in having a length contrast forall five vowels, both within a word and word final. Most Chadic languages, atleast those of the West Branch, if they have mid vowels at all, have only thephonologically long variants, and for high vowels, a four-way contrast

between long and short variants is often marginal and/or environmentally restricted. Boledoes share with most other Chadic languages a prohibition against long vowels in closedsyllables, and the length distinction in high vowels is neutralized before homorganicglides. Vowels tend to be quite stable. There is one limited elision process affectingshort high vowels, and for vowels than can be viewed as epenthetic, there is somevariation between short i and short u.

1. Inventory of vocalic nuclei

The monophthongal vowel system of Bole is the following, where a macronrepresents a long vowel:

i u e o

a Convention for marking vowel length and contour tones: Contour tones (F and R) areallowed only on heavy syllables, the only exception being the Previous Reference Markery (##), which has a short vowel with a F tone when final in a phrase. We therefore donot mark vowel length on syllables bearing a contour, e.g. z [z] cubit, m [m] you(pl.), min [min ] these.

Bole also has a full set of diphthongs rising to the high vowels, though all but ai andau are restricted in occurrence (3):

ui iuei ouoi euai au

2. Monophthongal Vowel Contrasts

Bole is unusual among Chadic languages in having a five vowel system with bothlength and quality contrasts for all vowels in open syllables. In Hausa for example, short

B

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Segmental Phonology: Vowels 2

mid-vowels contrast with their long counterparts only in word final position, and thecontrast between medial short i and u is marginal, if there is a contrast at all (Parsons1970, Schuh 2002).

2.1. Word medial contrasts

Contrasts in length

i ~ lo voice lo windinge ~ lele smearing lle rock outcroppingu ~ buyo blowing by beardo ~ sni year sni honeya ~ d Combretum spp. da peanut sauceContrasts in short vowels

i ~ e kirkir all kerker (id.) stubbyi ~ a dila

jackal t

la

failed attempt

i ~ u bid thatching needle bd male servanti ~ o mi python b nightu ~ o yule saliva le smallu ~ a yula testicle yla guinea cornu ~ e kur red earth ker a tipe ~ o ble crying bl scare ~ a pt exiting pt tailo ~ a b night b five

Because contrastive medial short mid vowels are not common in languages related toBole, the question arises as to their source. A full answer to this question must awaitfurther comparative linguistic work, but one source may be a reconfiguration oflabialized and palatalized consonants + a. Proto-West Chadic had at least labializedvelars and possibly palatalized velars, whereas Bole has no phonologically distinctlabialized or palatalized consonants. In borrowing from Hausa, Bole realizes Cwa as[Co] and Cya as [Ce].

gd blanket < Hausa gwdkob kobo coin < Hausa kwabkndo basket < Hausa kwndk

yi greed < Hausa kw

y

gngei nodding from drowsiness < Hausa gyngyakellbi headscarf < Hausa kyallbknkes cockroach < Hausa kynkyas2.2. Word final contrasts. As opposed to word medial position, where the lengthcontrast in vowels bears a high functional load, there are no lexical distinctions based onfinal vowel length alone, and the small number of words that end in long vowels almost

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all fall into restricted sets of semantic and syntactic categories. Below are lists of mostwords that can occur before pause and end in long vowels. Ideophonic adjectives of thekololo type (##) and ideophones of the kolola and Cv types (##) always have longfinal vowels, so the lists include only one word exemplifying each vowel. This listexcludes words and clitics that appear only phrase medially. Such items are nearly allmonosyllabic conjunctions, prepositions, pronominal clitics, and suffixes, e.g. bif, l= ywhich, that (relative clause marker), gin, interior of , t her, to her (non-final object suffix),jprogressive marker (originally a bound form ofjwo body), mus, to us (non-final object suffix), l even if, every- (as in ll everyone), kob=kab let not (prohibitive operator). The lists are sorted by lexical category.

Words ending in long -gll ideophonic adj. small and roundmbrr n. mud-dauber waspsh pronoun you (f.s. indep. pronoun)Words ending in long -mrss ideophonic adj. big, strongmbrr n. a type of colorful locustgu = gb(Gadaka) n. corpseWords ending in long -mll ideo. adj. lying long and stretched outp id. exhalingk= k= ky part. indeed, also (H. kuma, ma)d part. used for emphasis as in Hausa ba or ko

(yes/no question)em det. m. this; this one (masculine)osh det. m. this; this one (feminine)min det. pl. theseten adv. loc. heress presentative heres , here it ismamm adv. man. thusnn(from yn emthisthing)

1 part. so-and-so, whateverused as a hesitationmarker or filler (H. abin nan)griy< gru + y adv. loc. this townsniy< sni + y adv. tem. this year1 The item nnis, historically at least, not a unitary word. The derivation from this thing is speculative,based partly on a reasonable phonological resemblance, partly on the functional relationship to themorphologically transparent Hausa counterpart. An item with a somewhat different function, but probablywith the same historical source is nn, a particle introducing an surprising or unexpected event, e.g.nnka nd bn saso you didnt go home after all. Functionally this item cannot occur phrase final andhence is not listed here.

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payy< pai place adv. loc. over thereconcn= honcn adv. tem. nowsh adv. man. like this, thusb n. son

(VN of

- mount)

n. copulation by animalsk(VN ofk- transplant) n. seedlingWords ending in long -shrr ideophonic adj. wateryinsh = inshyi adv. tem. todayy = y interjection well, mhmnd-k ventive VN suff. coming, arrivalb n. mouth; language; sharpness (of blade)Words ending in long

2

prtt ideo. adj. tall, strongdk id. very dirtyp id. falling with a bangyy interjection (as question) is that right?!gidib interjection how amazing!hb interjection come on, now!am[am] det. m. that; that one (masculine)ss[ss] presentative theres , there it ismin[min] det. pl. thoseosh[osh] det. f. that; that one (feminine)tan[tan] adv. loc. therepaipayy(

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mb n. upper arm; wing; branchng adj. strong, healthyptn kiy [ptn kiy] adv. temp. day before yesterday

rkk n. heavy silver bracelets n. oclock

s n. victory, lucks= sra n. handsh n. circumcisiontm n. thinking, believingz n. ell, cubitzl n. mudfishWords ending in long vowels fall into the following categories:

Ideophonic adjectives: These are ideophone-like words that can directly modify nouns(##). The kololo type have three syllables, all H or all L and the last two syllables areidentical, with a long vowel, e.g. mbrr small and skinny (see ## for moreexamples). There are a couple of insect names that seem to be ideophonic adjectives inorigin, e.g. mbrr mud-dauber wasp.

Ideophones: All CV ideophones end in a long vowel, e.g. p exhaling, as do allideophones of the kolola type (##) e.g. dk dirty.

Interjections: A significant number of interjections end in long vowels. Unlike theideophonic categories typified by long final vowels, there are no apparent formalgeneralizations that differentiate interjections ending in long vowels vs. those ending inshort vowels. For example, nothing about the form ofyyis that right?!ending in a

long vowel seems to distinguish it from aww how terrible! ending in a short vowel.

Modal particles: A few monosyllabic modal particles end in long vowels. Likeinterjections, however, final long vowels are not a universal property of such particles,e.g. m emphasizer for imperative, pa indeed (stressing the certainty of a statement)end in short vowels.

Demonstratives and related words: All demonstratives end in long vowels as do wordsbroadly related to the demonstrative system, including the words for here and there,a set of locatives derived from pai place, the near and far presentatives, and probablythe words mammthus and the words for now, today, and day before yesterday.The words griy this town and sniythis year derive from gru town and sniyear respectively plus the Previous Reference Marker y (##), but the PRM in its

productive function has a short vowel, and in fact the expressions this town and thisyear contrast with the corresponding analytic constructions meaning the town/year inquestion (##).

Ventive verbal noun suffix -k: This suffix has a final long vowel, and hence everyverbal noun bearing this suffix ends in long -.

Independent pronouns; The independent pronouns sh you (f.s.) and m you (pl.)have long vowels. Significantly, these are the only independent pronouns which would

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have only one mora if they ended in short vowels (see ## for the full independentpronoun paradigm).

Monosyllabic nouns: All monosyllabic nouns except ko head, lo meat,jo running,and ya thing have long vowels. This is the instantiation of a widespread minimumword feature of Chadic languages requiring non-clitic words to have at least two

moras.3

The only other monosyllabic words in Bole that can occur independently andend in short vowels are l who? and l what?. All other short monosyllables aresyntactic clitics: sa negative, n quotative, g with, ko from, nko because of, tavia (< Hausa), and several phrase-ending clitics.

Miscellaneous nouns and adjectives with final contour tones or derived fromdisyllables: A fair number of nouns and adjectives have long vowels with contourtones on the final syllable. Nearly all are loanwords and all end in long with theexception of a few deictic words ending in . A few words have long vowels resultingfrom elision of a consonant between two short vowels (see corpse and hand). Theresultant nouns are monosyllables and hence conform to either the two moraprinciple and/or the contour tone principle for requiring long vowels.

Aside from the rarity of words with long final vowels and the lexical restrictedness ofsuch words, it is not at all clear that there is a consistent phonetic contrast between longand short vowels before pause. Some speakers add a glottal stop after prepausal shortvowels, at least for nouns. This is not a consistent diagnostic for final short vowels,however, since pronunciation without glottal stop is also common. There is, however,one morphosyntactic category of words where presence or absence of final glottal stop isa lexical property. All deictic words (demonstratives, presentatives, wordsdifferentiating distal vs. proximal space or time) distinguish proximalwith final long -and no glottal stop vs. distalwith final long/-. The distal is always terminated bya glottal stop before pause.

4These facts are exemplified here by the words for here and

there. A complete list of relevant deictic words is found in the tables above. See ##

for discussion of tones.

Final Medial

Proximal ten, *ten here ten sa not hereDistal tan, *tan there tan sa not there3. Diphthongal Contrasts

The diphthongs ai and au are fairly common in both root medial and root finalpositions:

au ndur gum Arabic kshu sesameai ik squirrel di red

3Ba- daughter is cited as bati, with a suffix ti or takes a possessive pronoun, whose consonant isgeminated, e.g. batt her daughter, both forms presumably related to the minimum word principle.4 This property is reminiscent of a group of Hausa words and grammatical morphemes described in(Newman Ma 19##) that have final long vowels terminated by glottal stops phrase final but not medial, e.g.the monosyllabic verb [sh] drink, the first person singular possessive suffix ([gidn] my house, andventive verbs ([tah] came.

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The remaining phonetic diphthongs are not common, and, with a couple of apparentexceptions, they occur only in morpheme final position, though they may be word medialas part of reduplicant or a root with a suffix added.

Since there are so few tokens, we list

all those in currently available data:

ui: dnkui the treeMitrascarpum scabrum, di gossiping, kuimi a type of tree, ruiideophone for striking, ri ideophone for swelling, si thats good!, (w)ipregnancy, bish blowing (< buyu- blow), kitu stimulate pompousbehavior (< kuyu- be pompous)

iu: jingiu a type of fish trap, klliuliu fulvous tree duck, liuliu flexible, liuliupurlin inside thatched roof, lyyu slimy, miu ideophone for stinging pain,pu awl, piu ideophone for sourness, zingu bouncing, ziriu sacred ibis

oi: Bamoi nickname for Muhammad, boi back, goib guava, gigoi a type ofspirit, jgi small mound in which seeds are planted, koikod

5beads worn

around waist, mbi fleshy part of birds ribs, moi king, emir, poishi drought(cf. pu- dry up), zi pleasant, tasty, mish watching (< moyu- watch)

ou: blou two, monu how many?, zu life; next year,

oushe scorning (

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4. Vowel Alternations

4.1. Short non-high vowel assimilation and height matching. Bole has a rule thatapplies in some morphological environments to assimilate short a to e when the nucleusof next syllable is e:

ae / ___Ce

This assimilation takes place most productively in class B verbs. Verbs of this class allhave CvC(C)- root structure (V = short vowel). Most have verbal nouns of the formCVCe (tone lexically determined), FUTURE CvC(C), HABITUAL CvC(C)e, andSUBJUNCTIVE CvC(C)e. If the root vowel is /a/, which is it for most class B verbs, thisvowel assimilates to the final -e of the verbal noun, FUTURE, HABITUAL, andSUBJUNCTIVE. The table below illustrates the alternation between PERFECTIVE, with stemfinal -a and hence no root vowel alternation, and verbal nouns with final -e. The samealternations take place for the other forms, e.g. PERFECTIVEptw he went out, butFUTURE pt he will go out, HABITUAL pete he goes out, SUBJUNCTIVEpte that

he go out.

PERFECTIVE Verbal Noun

ptw pete go outbswyi bse spin (thread)wwyi ewe openkrwyi kr cut, slaughterbttwyi bette trick, scarelmwyi leme lickkrrwyi(pluractional ofkrwyi)

krr slaughter repeatedlycf. dswyi

grwyiwhich do not have /a/ in the firstsyllable and do not assimilate

disegr lean againstdig away

The conditioning for the ae alternation is both phonological and morphological.On the one hand, it applies in class B verbs even when the environmental e is not in acontiguous syllable. This arises in pluractional verbs with an infixed -gi- (##), whichinterrupts the contiguity between the initial /Ca-/ syllable and the syllable with theconditioning -e-. Compare the following forms with the same verbs in the table above.

kryi he will cut kgryi he will cut repeatedly ewyi he opens egiwyi he opens repeatedly

On the other hand, the a e rule is not an automatic morphophonemic alternation.For example, it does not apply to noun plurals ending in -e nor to verbs of other classes informs that end in -e.

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manshe (sg. mnshi) old peoplegarr (sg. gra) tall, long (pl.)gajje (sg. gz) roostersishi kcc that he intercept (SUBJUNCTIVE ofkccu- class A2)ishi kmt that he persevere (SUBJUNCTIVE ofkmtu- class A2)

Although ae /__e in verbs is the only assimilation process that has the nature ofa rule affecting the quality of underlying vowels in Bole, there is a tendency for any shortnon-high vowel to match a non-high vowel in a following syllable,6 i.e. e-e (rwe tree,shk foot, etc.), o-o (bz well, gdo much, etc.), a-a (pt tail, d dog,etc.). There are a number of lexically related pairs where members of the pair havematched non-high vowels, but the vowels are different.

gompor bamboo door closure gmprm metal awningwro fart yr biliousnessrkku- chase away rekke chasing birds from farmmb

ttm

7heavy and fat =mb

ccm

kkkk hard =kkkk =kekkiekbni house (bound form, as in

bni uww pen for goats)bn house

A number of loanwards, particularly from Hausa, have been nativized by assimilatinga short a- in the source language to a following mid vowel, as in the following non-exhaustive lists.

a > e

rke < Hausa rk sugar canedembe < Hausa dambe boxingbrwa < Hausa brw gazellegde < Kanuri gde other differenta > o

bongo < Hausa bang wallorgo < Hausa arg marrowmongr < Hausa mangwr mangozong < Hausa zang area of town where travelers stay

6 The vowel-matching tendency applies only to SHORT non-high vowels. There are many words with LONGnon-high vowels followed by non-matching non-high vowels, e.g. tr anvil, jsa mane of a horse,grlizard, ko tick, krtype of mans gown, radiarrhea.7 The words mbttm = mbccm and kkkk = kkkk=kekkiek are ideophonic adjectives (##).One property of this class of words is matching vowels, and there are others with variants like those here,all involving non-high vowels. Note that the matched vowels skip the medial syllable, where the -i- can beconsidered epenthetic.

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Borrowed words also show a tendency to vowel matching through perseverativeassimilation if a syllable containing a shorta- in the source language FOLLOWS a syllablecontaining a mid-vowel. This includes cases where, as described in 2.1, Bole nativizesthe source configurations Cwa > Co and Cya > Ce in the earlier syllable.

lokshi time < Hausa lkckellbi headscarf < Hausa kyallbori effort < Hausa arkoyi greed < Hausa kwayRETHINK THIS: RATHER THAN ATTEMPT TO GIVE EXHAUSTIVE LISTS FOREACH CONFIGURATION, MAYBE MAKE A TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBEROF NON-VERBS WITH e-e, o-o, a-a vs. THE NUMBER OF NON-VERBS WITHEACH OF THE PAIRINGS, PLUS SELECTED EXAMPLES.

The following lists give an idea of the strength of the matching tendency for eachpairing of vowels. The apparent avoidance of the sequence eC(C)[-high, -front] isparticularly strong. Avoidance ofaC(C)[-low] seems somewhat less strong, but the fact

that a number of loanwords have assimilated a

e/o, suggests that this is a dispreferredsequence. On the other hand, words with the sequence oC(C)[-high, -round] are morecommon than the other sequences, and loanwords do not show a tendency to assimilate oto following non-high vowels.THIS LIST IS COMPLETEe-o: Two words have an eCo sequence, and four words have an eCCo sequence:

knkes cockroach < Hausa kynkyasnjnjel a type of tag gametto bitterleaf (Vernonia amygdalina)kerto flintstonekerwo fish

pensh pensionNOT YET CHECKED IN THE NEW DICTIONARY FOR FURTHER EXAMPLESe-a: Only one word has an eCa sequence, and only four words have an eCCa sequence:

prey a type of calabash decorationlkebb burnous < Hausa lkyabb< ArabicKebb name applied to a hefty woman (cf. kw- be well nourished)mbccmbrm rhinocerostemka sheep (pl. oftmshi; Gadaka has tamka)ADDITION OF ITEMS FROM THE NEW VERSION OF THE DICTIONARY MAKESTHE CLAIM ABOUT BEING DISFAVORED LOOKED QUESTIONABLE.a-e: The sequence aCe is disfavored lexicallythe list below may be complete.

alad pig ? < Hausa ladr type, kindAt, Bat mens namesbad greater bustardkarkare Karekaremt them

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FROM NEW DICTIONARY: kkkare, pagji, mbr, tabbar-tabbar, bar, jakt,pirmr, sakatar, kast, Ym; also mlka, mlna

There is a substantial number of words such as rknanny goat, bang baboon,ass big (ones) (plural ofsr) where two consonants separate the vowels. Note in theverb table above, however, that this underlying sequence changes to [eCCe] in class Bverbs.NOT YET CHECKED IN NEW DICTIONARY FOR FURTHER EXAMPLESa-o: Unlike the ae rule affecting class B verbs, there is no comparable active processofa assimilating to following o. Verbs with underlying short a in the first syllable retaina in a productive class of verbal nouns ending in o (##), e.g. baro withdrawing < baru-,kacco intercepting < kccu-. Nonetheless, there are more words with an o-o sequencethan a-o, and there is a tendency for source a to assimilate to o in borrowings. Below isan (nearly?) exhaustive list of roots with an aCo sequence. There are also fewer than 20words with the sequence aCCo, such as yuno elephant, ka'ng gum Arabic.

goggo clock < Hausaggo kar collision ? < Hausa karlayypo spinach ? < Hausa layyh ngm Ngamowo stomach rw bowstringBamoi a mans name shato drops of rain

Bbay a mans name ynylo a game

gro Euphorbia unispina ywo granary

kmo wrestlingNOT YET CHECKED IN NEW DICTIONARY FOR FURTHER EXAMPLESo-e: The following is a (nearly?) exhaustive list of non-derived words with this sequence.This list is large enough that there is some question as to whether there is a trueavoidance of this sequence. Moreover, nouns with o in the first syllable and pluralsending in -e resist assimilation ofo to e, e.g. bbb fathers < bwu, tosse gourd cups

< tsum. Finally, we have not identified any cases ofoe assimilation in loanwords,though medial short o would not exist in languages that would be the main sources ofBole loanwords.

8

bl scar ynge strip of palm frond forweaving

bon difficulty < Kanuri zng Balanites aegyptiacale small znge hyenambole dove konte a type of trapmbl sexual intercourse bongl mans sleeveless shirt

mle younger sister gotigjje Tribulus terrestristombole snail shell osh this (f.s.)nglngole dum palm shshonge a type of plantNOT YET CHECKED IN NEW DICTIONARY FOR FURTHER EXAMPLES

8 Kanuri, a primary source of loanwords in all Yobe State Chadic languages, does not have a vowel lengthdistinction. Kanuri o is normally borrowed as long in Chadic languages.

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o-a: The list below is (nearly?) exhaustive for words with an o-a sequence. As in thecase ofo-e, the list is large enough that it provides only weak evidence for avoidance ofthe vowel sequence. Moreover, class A1 verbs, which end in -a in the Future and manyof which have verbal nouns ending in -a, do not assimilate a root o to final -a, e.g. lotu-,VN lot chip a piece off. As in the case of the o-e sequence, borrowed words thatmight illustrate oa assimilation would be rare to non-existent because likely sourcelanguages would not have medial short o.

gma marketwn dancing9korkr mat used for a door coveringlosh flower balls of locust bean tree which are putting out beansdkolba a dance in which the feet are shuffled forwardgomnat government < Hausa gwamnat < Englishgnd a type of womens wrapperkry stormlnga a decorative band tied around the hair on the top of the head

nzonna twins(cf. singularnznni and general resistance of vowel alternation in plurals)osh this (feminine)wkk=wkk large calabashngorwa guests

(cf. singularngropi and general resistance to vowel alternation in plurals)

4.2. Long vowel shortening in closed syllables. The maximal syllable in Bole has twomoras (##). A two-mora syllable may have rimes of one of three types:

Long vowel: z beforeDiphthong: ju difficult

Consonant coda: zan Kanuri

In order to maintain the two-mora limit, Bole shortens underlying long vowels thatsurface in syllables closed by a consonant. A number of morphological situations createthe condition for shortening.

Noun plurals: Some nouns with a long root vowel in the singular have a plural with ageminate, creating a closed first syllable and concomitant shortening of the root vowel.

bti, (pl.) byyti elder brotherbwu, (pl.) bbb fatherddati, (pl.) dddti elder sistergz, (pl.) gajje rooster

gsho, (pl.) gucce stonennu, (pl.) nnnti motherywi, (pl.) ybbi chickenzti, (pl.) zppti compatriot

9 Formally and semantically wn dancing looks like a class A1 verbal noun. There is a related verb, butit is derived from the noun, viz. wntu- make dance, make dance movements.

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The vowel in the singular shows whether the root vowel is underlyingly long or short.There are nouns with plurals of this type have short vowels in the singular, e.g.

bd, (pl.) budde servantdshti, (pl.) dkkti grandfather; grandsongra, (pl.) garr tallmj, (pl.) mojje husband

PERFECTIVE verbs with feminine and plural subjects or the ventive extension: Verbsin the PERFECTIVE show feminine singular subject agreement by adding -aG--G- (G =geminate copy of the next consonant) and plural subject agreement by adding -an--n-.PERFECTIVE verbs with the ventive extension add -n--n- (plus a verb stem vowelchange in some verb classes). Pronoun clitics that fall in the slot indicated by dots haveunderlying long vowels, which surface as short in the three environments here becausethe second element closes the syllable including the pronoun.

bs-at-ta-k-k she shot her cf. bs-t-w he shot her

ngr-an-ta-n-t

they tied for her cf. ngor-t

-t

he tied for herppi-n-ta-n-go he followed her (here) cf. ppi-t-wo he followed her

SUBJUNCTIVE ventive; The SUBJUNCTIVE with the ventive extension geminates theconsonant of a pronoun clitic. If the final vowel of the verb is underlyingly long, itbecomes short.

bse-t-t-yi that he shoot (and bring) her cf. bs-t that he shoot heri-t-to that he do for her (and bring) cf. -to that he do for her

Class C and D IMPERATIVES with agreement clitics: IMPERATIVES of Class C and Dverbs (verbs with only one root consonant) have alternative forms: C-V and C-V-G-Pro.

In the latter, the vowel of the IMPERATIVE stem is short because of the syllable beingclosed by G (gemination of the next consonant).

ri-k-ko enter! (m.s.) = r-ri-sh-shi enter! (f.s.) = r-ra-k-ku enter! (pl.) = r-

Miscellaneous cases of CVC + C CVCC: There are a few forms that are lexicallyrelated through non-productive processes showing an originally long vowel appearing asshort in a closed syllable:

sai-n wet, stative related to syu- be cold

could uses some more miscellaneous examples

4.3. Neutralization of high vowel length before homorganic glides. Conforming towhat may be a universal feature of Chadic languages, the distinction between long andshort u is neutralized to short u before w and the distinction between long and short i is

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neutralized to short i before y.10

Thus, there are words such as those in the left handcolumn, but none such as those in the right.

gwa forging but no *gwarw strolling *rwbiy sauce *byya honey comb *ya

Evidence that the neutralization is specific to the SHORT variants, not just to a vowelof indeterminant length comes from metrics. Native Bole poetry/song metrics usesyllable weight as the organizing principle. The syllables Ci /__y and Cu /__w scan aslight. For example, in the song kona, in the lines Bba Dll an dniy Baba Dalelithe worldly one, Kn Ds b Kwuw But its Disa, son of Kawuwa, the underlinedportions must scan v , i.e. the boxed syllables must be short

11(Schuh 2001).

There are words containing the sequence uwwV-, e.g. tuww day after tomorrowand iyyV-, e.g.jmiyy political party. One might thus hypothesize a rule /wV/ [uwwV], e.g. /tw/ [tuww] day after tomorrow and similarly for /yV/. This

analysis fails, however, because in cases where an underlying long high vowel combineswith a homorganic glide, the result is not V + geminate glide but rather a short vowelfollowed by the glide, e.g. /ld-w/ [ldu-w] it has been cancelled. This verbappears in the kona line Yya Gimb wn lduw Big brother Gimba the dance hasbeen cancelled, where the scansion requires vv v . See 4.4.2 for evidence that thevowel is underlyingly long.

A second argument against the sequence -uwwV being underlying /wV/ (andsimilarly foriyyV) is the fact that the sequences wV and yV exist in Bole. There areno roots containing such sequences and shortening demonstrably takes place in somecases (see preceding paragraph), but under certain morphological conditions, speakersmay retain a long high vowel before a homorganic glide (##). Object pronouns beforethe PERFECTIVE suffix -wo have a lengthened final vowel (4.4.2) as do object pronouns

in the IMPERATIVE before the suffix -yi (4.4.1):12

ngor-n-wo he tied mengor-sh-wo he tied you (fs)ngor-m-wo he tied usngor-t-yi! tie her!ngor-s-yi! tie them!ngori-n-yi! tie him!10 Bole does have a length contrast in high vowels before NON-homorganic glides: bybeard vs. buyowinnowing, wa looking at vs. bwr naked. Note also, that unlike Hausa, Bole has a phoneticcontrast between short /i/ and /u/ before glides, e.g. buyo winnowing vs. biy sauce, bwr nakedvs. kwi handle of an axe or hoe. Finally, there is a length contrast of long and short MID vowelsbefore homorganic glides, e.g. wsit down! vs. dw horses, byi place vs. pyroast!.11 Line final syllables are weight-neutral, so the final syllables are arbitrarily scanned as heavy though theyare phonologically light in these examples.12 As pointed out in ##, the -yi suffix on IMPERATIVES with object pronouns is anomalous inasmuch as thissuffix is normally present only on transitive verbs where there is no expressed object. It is thus anunexplained feature particular to IMPERATIVES, but presumably it is the same suffix as the object markerfor transitive verbs elsewhere.

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Speakers feel that the vowels on the pronouns are long in all these cases,including -m- before the -w of the completive suffix and -n-before the -y of theimperative suffix. Inspection of vowel duration in spectrograms of a small set ofexamples confirms this intuition of speakers.13 It may be the case that speakers have asense of paradigm uniformity. Pronouns with vowels that do not match the glides clearlyhave long vowels. To fit the overall paradigm, pronouns of the form C before w (ngor-m-wo) and pronouns of the form C before y (ngor-n-yi) also must have long vowels.

4.4. Morphologically conditioned vowel lengthening. Bole has no phonologicallyconditioned processes of vowel lengthening that are parallel to processes of vowelshortening described in 4.2. There are, however, several morphological environmentsthat condition lengthening of underlyingly short vowels. These all involve stem finalvowels when certain suffixes are added, but unlike the tone rule ofPRE-SUFFIX LOWERING(##), which is an essentially exceptionless rule H L /H__+suffix, pre-suffixlengthening is restricted to specific suffixes and/or to specific lexical items with suffixes.

4.4.1. -y object suffix. Transitive verbs without an overtly expressed object requirethe object marker, -yi. This suffix conditions lengthening of the preceding vowel. Theclearest examples are FUTURE and HABITUAL verbs. In these TAMs, the final vowel ofthe verb stem is long before -yi, but with transitive verbs, the final vowel is short beforeboth pronominal and nominal objects, and intransitive verbs always have a final shortvowel.

ngr-yi he will tie (it) ngra-n he will tie him ngra temshi he will tie a sheep yra he will stopopp-yi he follows (it) opp-n he follows him oppo temshi he follows a sheep sro he falls4.4.2. -w PERFECTIVE suffix. Evidence that the PERFECTIVE suffix -wo conditionslengthening of a preceding vowel is circumstantial, but it explains certain facts. Considerthe following verb forms:

13 It is difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the phonetic facts about duration of the high vowels fromimpressionistic listening because there is no clear demarcation point between the end of the high vowel andthe beginning of the homorganic glide. Measurement of the vowels in spectrograms reveals no significantdifferences in duration between the different vowels before the glideindeed, in the case of uw, the uactually appears to be a bit longer than a ori. What we are really talking about, however, isphonological.length, rather than phonetic duration. Evidence from metrics above shows that in roots and in at least somemorphologically complex environments, such as ldu-w it has been cancelled, speakers treat Cu beforew and Ci before y as having phonologically short vowels. As an independent test that the vowel in ngor-m-wo is phonologically long, we would like similar metrical evidence, but currently available data doesnot include examples of the crucial type.

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-u before -wo Long -No extensions ppu-w-yi he followed (it) pp tmshi he followed a sheepTotality extension ppu-t-wo he followed (it) ppu-t tmshi he followed a sheepWithout and with

ICP

sru-w he fell sr jn he fell down

Verbs of class A2 have final stem vowel -u in the PERFECTIVE, as does the TOTALITYextension -tu. Vowel length ofu is neutralized before the homorganic glide w of thePERFECTIVE suffix (4.3), but we assume that the PERFECTIVE -u stem vowel isunderlyingly short since it is short preceding the TOTALITY extension -tu, and -tu has noeffect on the length of the preceding vowel (cf. Class B verb bs-t-wo he shot (it)which has a long stem vowel -). In the column labeled Long - in the paradigmabove, the final vowel of the verb and the vowel of the TOTALITY extension are longwhen followed by an object or the Intransitive Copy Pronoun (ICP##). ThePERFECTIVE suffix is suppressed in phrase medial position (##), but the explanation for

the long vowels in the Long - column must be that the underlying presence of -woconditions lengthening. We propose the following derivations for the forms in the Noextensions row above:

Underlying14

PRE-SUFFIX LOWERING Lengthening before -wo Suppression of-wo u /__wppu-wo-yi ppu-w-yi pp-w-yi --- ppu-w-yippu-wo tmshi --- pp-wo tmshi pp tmshi ---

It is this the last two steps in the derivation, working together, that obscure thelengthening effect of-wo: if-wo is overt, its initial glide, w, undoes the lengthening ofuthat the suffix conditioned (4.3), but if the suffix is absent, the vowel is free to retain the

length that the underlying suffix conditioned.

4.4.3. Certain nouns with genitive pronouns. A small set of nouns, mainly body partterms, kin terms, and common household items, lengthen their final vowels beforegenitive pronoun suffixes. Though it is the nouns that undergo lengthening that must belexically marked, it is the pronoun suffixes that trigger the lengthening. These nouns allend in either -a or -e, and in the Fika dialect, all have two syllables, but there are noskewings with respect to root syllable weight or tone pattern. See ## for a complete listof nouns that undergo pre-genitive suffix lengthening and more discussion.

yul-n his testicle(s) (< yula with PRE-SUFFIX LOWERING##)tmb-n my navel (tmba)kul-to her calabash (kul)j-no my hoe (j)dnd-su their children (dnd)shk-no my foot (shk)

14 The object marker -yi in the left-hand column is present only with transitive verbs when no overtobject is present.

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4.4.4. Class B verbs in the FUTURE and HABITUAL with object suffixes. Intransitiveclass B verbs and transitive class B verbs with a nominal direct object have short finalvowels in the FUTURE and HABITUAL, but with pronominal suffixes (direct or indirectobjects) the final vowel is lengthened. Class A1 and A2 verbs do not undergolengthening in this environment (e.g. A1 FUTURE ngrat he will tie her, A2HABITUALoppn he follows him). Thus, lengthening before object suffixes is notan instatiation of a general rule, but rather is a process restricted to a specific class ofverbs in a specific environment.

FUT. bs-to he will shoot her/for her cf. bs tmshi pt

he will shoot asheep

he will go out

HAB. bes-to he shoots her/for her cf. bese temshi pete he shoots a sheephe goes out

4.4.5. -wa plural suffix. A number of nouns, particularly those referring to ethnic and

occupational groups, add a suffix -wa to the singular stem, which takes all low tones anda lengthened final vowel.

Singular Plural

bulam ward head blmwaKarekare Karekare person Krkrwalkli judge lklwakro donkey krwa5. Vowel Epenthesis and Elision

5.1. Vowel epenthesis. Bole is quite restrictive in the types of consonant sequences thatit allows. As a general statement, obstruent+obstruent sequences are disallowed. Thus,for example, the word bakit white cloth from Kanuri bakt has added an epentheticvowel between k+t. See ## for a detailed discussion of syllable structure and epenthesis.

5.2. HIGH VOWEL ELISION. As a counterpoint to epenthesis, Bole has the followingprocess of vowel elision:

HIGH VOWEL ELISION: i, u /CV[C, +sonorant]/___# X]PHRASE (# = stem final, X )

That is, stem final short high vowels may be elided under certain specific circumstances.

Consider the following tables, which is (as far as we know) comprise an exhaustive list ofenvironments for this rule:

CVCi/uNOUNS + GENITIVE

BASE to her NOUN

a. byi bit bi Bamoi place

b. dyi dit di Bamoi herding

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c. lyi lit li Bamoi birth

d. gru grt gr Bamoi town

e. sni snt sni (*sn) Bamoi year(s), age

f. bni bl l? bni (*bn) Bamoi house15

cf. shi shit shi Bamoi skinzwu zwut zwu Bamoi message

LH-oBODY PARTS + GENITIVE

BASE to her NOUN

g. lo lt l Bamoi voice

h. kmo kmt km Bamoi ear

i. pdrno pdrt pdr Bamoi side

j. tlo tlt tl Bamoi heart

k. wo wt wu (*w) Bamoi stomachl. do ditt di (*dib) Bamoi neck

cf. pndo pndit pndi Bamoi thigh

sra srat sra Bamoi hand

SUBJUNCTIVE A1 VERBS + OBJECT SUFFIXES

OBJECT to her NOUN

m. ly lit lyi Bamoi give birth

n. dw dwt dwi Bamoi beat

o. ngr ngrt ngri temshi tie (sheep)

p. wl wlt wli dwun throw down (mat)

q. kn knt kni kari pick up (load)

r. tm tmt tmi Bamoi threaten

s. ng ngtt ng lo eat (meat)

cf. wd wdit wdi Bamoi bite

PERFECTIVE A1 ROOTS + PERFECTIVE SUFFIX -wo

NOUN DO VERB-w-DO

t. ley lw leiwyi progeniter (child)

u. duw Bamoi duwwyi [dwyi] beat

v. ngor tmshi ngor(u)wyi tie (sheep)

w. wol dwun woluwyi throw down (mat)

x. kon kari konuwyi pick up (load)

15 House with pronoun possessors is expressed by the form bn rather than bni, e.g. bnko your (m)house. Elision of the final in the possessed form is unique to this word.

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y. tom Bamoi tomuwyi threaten

z. nga lo ngauwyi eat (meat)

cf. wod Bamoi woduwyi bite

PERFECTIVE A1 VERBS + OBJECT SUFFIXES

VERB-t-PERF. SUFF.VERB her

aa. leitwo progeniter

bb. duwtwo [dtwo] beat

cc. ngortwo tie

dd. woltwo throw down

ee. kontwo pick up

ff. tomtwo threaten

gg. ngattwo eat

cf. woditwo bite

a-f. C1VS2i/u NOUNS + GENITIVE. The nouns in this list are disyllabic with a light firstsyllable, where S2 is a sonorant consonant or. They also all have a LH tone pattern.

16

Only nouns ending inyi consistently elide the finali in all genitive environments. Thewords in d-f, which end in other sonorants, each have idiosyncrasies, shown in the table.No noun ending in a non-sonorant undergoes elision (exemplified by shi skin), and infact, the only nouns that end in sonorants that do undergo elision are those listed in a-f.The word zwu message shows that even when elision would result in an acceptableword form (cf. zu life), it is prohibited, as is also the case with nouns like bnigrindstone, li land, shri theft, slu building, and numerous others.

g-l. LH-oBODY PARTS + GENITIVE. Body part terms that end in a LH tone pattern and thevowelo change theo toi in genitive constructions, as exemplified by pndo thigh(see ## for details). When the last consonant of the noun is a sonorant or, thei maybe elided, as examplified in g-l. The word in (k), wo stomach, changes the final vowelto u rather than i, presumably under the influence of the preceding w-. This u iselided before pronoun genitives but not nouns. The word in (l), do neck likewisedoes not allow elision before a nominal genitive. With a pronominal genitive, -i doeselide, and the resultant syllable final - completely assimilates to the followingconsonant, a regular process for // (##). Though // assimilation is not idiosyncratic tothis word, its tonal behavior is: for (l) neck the tone becomes H with a suffixedpronoun. For all other words, the tone pattern of the base is presevered even after elision.The original LH pattern is realized as R in a-k and also in m-s below, esp. (s), where S2 is

16 For unknown reasons, nouns of the C1VS2i/u configuration are heavily skewed toward a LH pattern. InGimba and Schuh (forthcoming), there are 24 such nouns (including those in the table here). The followingis an exhaustive list of all nouns having the C1VS2i/u configuration with other tone patterns: HH biricorral, kuri first ten verses of the Koran, jimu a type of grass, kulu a type of small gourd; HL halpersonality, ker a tip, kur red earth, shay tea, jur brownish-grey horse. There are no LLnouns with this pattern. None of these nouns undergo elision of the final vowel in genitive constructions.

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//. The word sra hand shows that if the final vowel is not a high vowel, it is notelided.

17

m-s. SUBJUNCTIVE A1 VERBS + OBJECTS. SUBJUNCTIVES of A1 verbs (verbs with a CVC-base, see ##) have a LH tone pattern with finali, seen in the left-hand column as well asfor all forms of bite.

18With a pronominal object suffix, the finali is elided for verbs

whose C2 is a sonorant or. Unlike the nouns in a-l, where the finali elides beforepronominal complements and before nouns as well in most cases, the finali may not beelided with SUBJUNCTIVE verbs.

t-z. PERFECTIVE A1 ROOTS + PERFECTIVE SUFFIX -wo. Class A1 verbs have a PERFECTIVEstem vowel u, which shows up as long before noun objects (seen in the left-handcolumn of t-z), as shortu before PERFECTIVE suffixwo (see in v-z, optionally in u), andas being elided when C2 is a glide, optionally when C2 is r (seen in t-v). The fact thatelision ofu before w applies after a smaller class of sonorant consonants than in a-s canbe accounted for by thesonority hierarchy and the Sonority Sequencing Principle (??bestref.). Language sounds can be classed as more to less sonorous as in this diagram:

MORE SONOROUS vowels > glides > r > l > nasals > glottalized > fricatives > stops LESSSONOROUS

By the Sonority Sequencing Principle, syllables want to increase in sonority from onset tonucleus. When a syllable begins in a glide (as with the PERFECTIVE suffixwo) and thepreceding syllable ends in a less sonorant consonant (as would be the case ifu wereelided after anything other than a glide), there is a clash, since there would be a tendencyto want to group w with the preceding consonant (following the Sonority SequencingPrinciple), yet Bole does not allow CC syllable onsets (##). This clash is obviated by noteliding the stem vowelu.

aa-gg. PERFECTIVE A1 VERBS + OBJECT SUFFIXES. Class A1 verbs (also class A2) have a

stem vowel i before object suffixes, as seen in bite, unless the verb root ends in asonorant consonant, as in aa-gg, in which case thei is elided.

19

The environments illustrated in a-gg have in common that they all involve stem final(but not phrase final) short high vowels following light syllables. From a typological

perspective, this is a natural and commonly encountered process. On the other hand,HIGH VOWEL ELISION is in no sense a general phonological process of Bole. Each of the

environments where it takes place has restrictions and idiosyncrasies that cannot begeneralized across the whole set of elisions. Such restrictions range from what appears to

be almost entirely specific lexical idiosyncrasies in a-f, to a highly specific phonosematicclass in g-l, to regular but morophologically specific cases as in the verb forms in m-gg.

Stem-final vowel elision seems to be an old property of the Bole-Tangale group of

17There are no body part terms with root structure C 1VS2- ending ine, -i, oru, and none with o other

than those in g-l.18 The forms in the left-hand column all end in a falling tone, the result of attaching a -object suffix .Intransitive verbs have the expected LH pattern, e.g. yri that he stop.19 One might argue that thei is epenthetic and inserted before pronouns exceptafter A1 roots ending in asonorant. In modern Bole, the presence or absence of particular stem vowels in verbs seems to becompletely grammaticalized, i.e. vowel insertion in verb forms does not seem to fall under some moregeneral process of epenthesis.

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languages. For example, in Tangale it basically applies to all word final vowels that arenot phrase final (Kidda 19##). In modern Bole, it seems to have sorted itself out in the

rather ragged way described here.

04 vowels rev

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