The Tone System of Geviya (Bantu B30/Gabon)

(Abstract for 30 minutes talk)

Lolke J. Van der Veen

Dynamique Du Langage

(UMR 5596 : CNRS/Université Lumière-Lyon 2)

vanderve@univ-lyon2.fr

Geviya is a nearly extinct Bantu language spoken in the central part of Gabon and belongs to the southern subgroup of the B30 language group. Within Southern-B30, at least two basic types of tone systems can be distinguished: one characterized by the absence of tone spreading and the other by the presence of such a tonal parameter. Geviya possesses this feature. In this paper an updated version of the main lines of the tone system of this language will be presented within the framework of Nonlinear Phonology.

The inventory of surface tones is made up of two level tones (H and L) and two contour tones (falling and rising). The rising tone only occurs before pause as a variant of underlying H. The falling tone also has a very limited distribution: it can only be found in penultimate position, for words being underlyingly /LH/ (see below). Downdrift occurs but will not be taken into account here.

From the phonological point of view, Geviya has basically four underlying tonal melodies for the nouns (ie. /H/, /L/, /HL/ and /LH/) and two for the verbs (ie. /H/ and /L/). The domain of these tonal melodies is the phonological word, not the syllable.

Through the application of the Universal Association Convention, the tone melodies associate to the units on the segmental tier in a one-to-one fashion, from left to right. After this initial association, Rightward Spreading may occur. The Obligatory Contour Principle plays a role at the lexical level: no adjacent identical tones are admitted in the lexical representation of morphemes. A tone may thus be associated, as a result of initial linking and subsequent spreading, to more than one Tone-Bearing Unit (TBU). Only vowels function as TBUs in Geviya.

The process of rightward spread is entirely conditioned by the nature of the underlying tone situated immediately at the right. If the subsequent morpheme is tonally unspecified or if the following structural tone (which may be floating or linked) is low, spreading takes place. In case a H-tone follows immediately at the right, the tone(s) remain linked to their initial skeletal position and spreading is blocked.

Spreading ceases when the moving tone reaches a H-tone. In accordance with the Line Crossing Ban, spreading won't go beyond the first association line in case the following tone is a multiply linked L-tone. Neither is tone allowed to spread across a second word boundary.

Tone-delinking rules apply in two cases: (1) as a repair strategy applying when WFC_max is violated (see below), (2) when multiply linked H are preceded by L. In the latter case, delinking applies to all association lines of a multiply linked H-tone except for the final one (which will be maintained) if this particular H-tone is preceded by a (floating or associated) underlying L-tone, a tonally non-specified morpheme or a utterance-initial boundary. This automatic partial delinking of multiply linked H following L results in tone lowering on the surface. No delinking will occur if a H-tone precedes. In that case, a plateau of H-tones will appear.

Another important aspect is the language-specific Well-formedness Condition (WFC) according to which in Geviya only one tone should be associated to each TBU. This WFC implies an efficient way of avoiding contour tones and downstep in Geviya. It englobes two constraints: one concerning the maximum number of tones (ie. WFC_max) and another concerning the minimum number of tones (ie. WFC_min).

Violations of these constraints will be repaired by the application of special rules. If for some reason during derivation WFC_max is violated (ie. two tones linked to one TBU), the second (L-)tone is delinked. In case this delinked tone cannot reassociate it will be deleted towards the end of the derivation. However, the violation of WFC_max is licensed in the prosodically marked penultimate position for words with an underlying LH melody only. A falling HL-tone will appear here on the surface. Violations of WFC_min are repaired either by a non-initial spreading rule or by a default L-insertion rule.

H-replacement occurs in utterance-final position. Every H-tone in this position will be systematically replaced by a L-tone. This rule, which applies after most of the other tonal rules, accounts for a specific lowering process observed in this position.

From what precedes, it is clear that underlying H and L behave asymmetrically.

In order to account for specific tonal phenomena, analysis claims the existence of lexically marked floating tones for certain morphemes. The latter seem to be similar in behavior to tones which become floating through delinking at some stage of the derivation. This behavior is governed by specific constraints which cannot be commented on here. Floating tones that cannot (re)associate will be deleted.

Most tonal rules in Geviya reveal to be strictly ordered. They apply in the following order:

Spreading > H-delinking following underlying L >

WFC_max > WFC_min (or Non-initial Spreading) >

Deletion of tones which cannot (re)associate > H-replacement.

References

Van der Veen L. J. (1992), "Le système tonal du ge-via (Gabon)", Journal of West African Languages, vol. XXII.2, Dallas, pp. 17-41.

________________ (1999a), Les Bantous eviya (Gabon-B30) : langue et société traditionnelle, note de synthèse soutenue en janvier 1999 devant l'Université Lumière-Lyon 2 en vue de l'obtention de l'Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches.

________________ (1999b), "La propagation des tons et le statut des indices pronominaux précédant le verbe en geviya", in D. Creissels & J. Blanchon (eds.) Issues in Bantu Tonology, Köln: Rüdiger KÖPPE Verlag, pp. 15-36.