Explaining the role of the morphological continuum in Bantu spirantisation1
Laura J. DOWNING
1. Introduction
This paper presents a case study of spirantisation in Jita (E/ J 25; Suguti, dialect spoken on the island of Ukerewe in Tanzania) as the basis for a re-evaluation of the correlation between morphological scope of spirantisation and 7 > 5 vowel reduction proposed in Schadeberg (1994-5) and Labroussi (1999). Bastin (1983), Hyman (2003) and Labroussi (1999) have argued that spirantisation, triggered by the degree 1 [+ high] vowels of the Proto-Bantu 7-vowel system, first affected morpheme-internal stop+ high vowel sequences. Its domain then extended to other morphological contexts: more commonly before causative, adjective and agentive suffixes, *-i, *-u, *-i; less commonly before the perfective suffix, *-ide. The developmental continuum in (1) expresses not only that frication is more common, cross-Bantu, in the leftward contexts than in the rightward ones, but also that more consonants can be affected in the leftward contexts: (1) Continuum of evolution for spirantisation (S) and vowel reduction (Labroussi 1999: 338)
No SPIR Limited SPIR Extensive SPIR Full SPIR
Morpheme-internal *-i, *-u, *-i *-ide 7V Languages Æ 5V Languages
Labroussi (1999), building on Schadeberg (1994-5), shows further that languages with only morpheme-internal spirantisation (the leftmost context in the continuum) have retained the Proto-Bantu 7 vowel system. More extensive
1. This paper is a revised and expanded version of the paper presented at the Bantu Spirantisation conference held in Lyons, France, June 22-23, 1999, portions of which have been published in Downing (2001, 2005). I would like to thank the participants in that conference – especially the Tervuren colleagues who urged me to look at historical spirantisation in Jita – as well as two anonymous reviewers, Koen Bostoen, Silke Hamann, and audiences at UC-Berkeley, UCL and UBC for discussion and comments which have improved both the content and the presentation of the paper. The usual disclaimers apply.
