東華大學圖書館 |

Language: English

Help

回圖書館首頁

手機版館藏查詢

Back

Switch To: Labeled | MARC Mode | ISBD

Linked to FindBook

Google Book

Amazon

博客來

Explorations in the Phonology, Typology and Grounding of Height Harmony in Five-Vowel Bantu Languages.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Explorations in the Phonology, Typology and Grounding of Height Harmony in Five-Vowel Bantu Languages./
Author:	Nichols, Stephen.
Published:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, : 2021,
Description:	321 p.
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-04, Section: B.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International83-04B.
Subject:	Language. -
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=28801825
ISBN:	9798544276111

Explorations in the Phonology, Typology and Grounding of Height Harmony in Five-Vowel Bantu Languages.
Nichols, Stephen.

Explorations in the Phonology, Typology and Grounding of Height Harmony in Five-Vowel Bantu Languages. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2021 - 321 p.

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-04, Section: B.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Manchester (United Kingdom), 2021.

This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.

Vowel harmony is extremely widespread among the Bantu languages (see e.g. Clements 1991; Hyman 1999; Odden 2015). In this thesis, I present an investigation of progressive vowel height harmony in five-vowel Bantu languages using quantitative and experimental data, the results of which contribute to our understanding of the grounding of phonological patterns and have implications for synchronic formal analyses.A defining aspect of height harmony in Bantu is the asymmetric behavior of front and back vowels. Though this is characteristic of the "canonical" variety of height harmony (after Hyman 1999), a front-back asymmetry is also seen in many non-canonical systems of height harmony. Certain non-canonical languages can even be seen to lack front height harmony but not back height harmony.To explore this and further issues, I present a study of vowel-pair frequencies in canonical Chewa, Kalanga and Yao and non-canonical Pende, Lozi and Makhuwa in which alternations due to height harmony are found only with verbal extensions. Here, I concentrate on vowel pairs in nouns. In general, pairs considered non-harmonic in height harmony were not necessarily under-represented in nouns, though this was the case in specific instances. For example, both [e.i] and [o.u] are under-represented in nouns; however, [o.u] was consistently more under-represented than [e.i]. This is reminiscent of the typological observation that though certain Bantu languages exhibit only back height harmony, none are known to possesses only front height harmony (Hyman 1999: 245). Together, these facts suggest that the avoidance of these pairs is particularly well motivated but more so for [o.u] than [e.i]. In addition, I argue that, upon closer examination, though alternations are only seen in verbs, Lozi in fact shows a wider-ranging phonotactic prohibition against [o.u] alone and that other gaps in verbs are synchronically accidental rather than phonotactic.This is followed by a production experiment carried out with speakers of canonical Bemba and Nyanja and non-canonical Lozi which investigated the potential effects of vowel-to-vowel coarticulation on F1 in relation to harmony. The results show that, overall, differences in F1 due to coarticulation do not echo the alternations of height harmony. In the case of [e.i] and [o.u], the production experiment does not fully align with the frequency study. Though there was evidence for lowering of [i] after [e], the evidence for lowering of [u] after [o] was weaker, thus showing an asymmetry in the opposite direction to both the typology and findings of the frequency study.The combined results of these studies may be seen either as suggesting that the grounding for progressive height harmony is perceptual rather than articulatory or that the coarticulatory processes that could have given rise to harmony belong to the phonetics of a previous stage of such Bantu languages and that this has since changed.Additionally, the results show how it can be informative to employ a whole language approach when analyzing a language's phonology as this can provide further details not found in data pertaining only to a particular process which are key to the system as a whole.

ISBN: 9798544276111Subjects--Topical Terms:

643551
Language.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Phonology

Explorations in the Phonology, Typology and Grounding of Height Harmony in Five-Vowel Bantu Languages.
LDR:04526nmm a2200385 4500 001 2342476
005 20220408085733.5
008 241004s2021 ||||||||||||||||| ||eng d
020 $a 9798544276111
035 $a (MiAaPQ)AAI28801825
035 $a (MiAaPQ)Manchester_UKe2c1de17-63d6-4740-aa33-c94b7426af4d
035 $a AAI28801825
040 $a MiAaPQ $c MiAaPQ
100 1 $a Nichols, Stephen. $3 3680862
245 1 0 $a Explorations in the Phonology, Typology and Grounding of Height Harmony in Five-Vowel Bantu Languages.
260 1 $a Ann Arbor : $b ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, $c 2021
300 $a 321 p.
500 $a Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-04, Section: B.
500 $a Advisor: Bermudez-Otero, Ricardo;Kimper, Wendell.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Manchester (United Kingdom), 2021.
506 $a This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.
520 $a Vowel harmony is extremely widespread among the Bantu languages (see e.g. Clements 1991; Hyman 1999; Odden 2015). In this thesis, I present an investigation of progressive vowel height harmony in five-vowel Bantu languages using quantitative and experimental data, the results of which contribute to our understanding of the grounding of phonological patterns and have implications for synchronic formal analyses.A defining aspect of height harmony in Bantu is the asymmetric behavior of front and back vowels. Though this is characteristic of the "canonical" variety of height harmony (after Hyman 1999), a front-back asymmetry is also seen in many non-canonical systems of height harmony. Certain non-canonical languages can even be seen to lack front height harmony but not back height harmony.To explore this and further issues, I present a study of vowel-pair frequencies in canonical Chewa, Kalanga and Yao and non-canonical Pende, Lozi and Makhuwa in which alternations due to height harmony are found only with verbal extensions. Here, I concentrate on vowel pairs in nouns. In general, pairs considered non-harmonic in height harmony were not necessarily under-represented in nouns, though this was the case in specific instances. For example, both [e.i] and [o.u] are under-represented in nouns; however, [o.u] was consistently more under-represented than [e.i]. This is reminiscent of the typological observation that though certain Bantu languages exhibit only back height harmony, none are known to possesses only front height harmony (Hyman 1999: 245). Together, these facts suggest that the avoidance of these pairs is particularly well motivated but more so for [o.u] than [e.i]. In addition, I argue that, upon closer examination, though alternations are only seen in verbs, Lozi in fact shows a wider-ranging phonotactic prohibition against [o.u] alone and that other gaps in verbs are synchronically accidental rather than phonotactic.This is followed by a production experiment carried out with speakers of canonical Bemba and Nyanja and non-canonical Lozi which investigated the potential effects of vowel-to-vowel coarticulation on F1 in relation to harmony. The results show that, overall, differences in F1 due to coarticulation do not echo the alternations of height harmony. In the case of [e.i] and [o.u], the production experiment does not fully align with the frequency study. Though there was evidence for lowering of [i] after [e], the evidence for lowering of [u] after [o] was weaker, thus showing an asymmetry in the opposite direction to both the typology and findings of the frequency study.The combined results of these studies may be seen either as suggesting that the grounding for progressive height harmony is perceptual rather than articulatory or that the coarticulatory processes that could have given rise to harmony belong to the phonetics of a previous stage of such Bantu languages and that this has since changed.Additionally, the results show how it can be informative to employ a whole language approach when analyzing a language's phonology as this can provide further details not found in data pertaining only to a particular process which are key to the system as a whole.
590 $a School code: 1543.
650 4 $a Language. $3 643551
650 4 $a Acoustics. $3 879105
650 4 $a African studies. $3 2122725
653 $a Phonology
653 $a Height harmony
653 $a Bantu languages
653 $a Diachronic analysis
653 $a Vowel harmony
690 $a 0679
690 $a 0986
690 $a 0293
710 2 $a The University of Manchester (United Kingdom). $3 3422292
773 0 $t Dissertations Abstracts International $g 83-04B.
790 $a 1543
791 $a Ph.D.
792 $a 2021
793 $a English
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=28801825