In Nata, an endangered Eastern Bantu language (E45) spoken in the Mara region of Tanzania, deverbal nominalizations present certain properties. Morphologically, they consist of four morphemes, ordered left to right: (i) a phonologically predictable pre-prefix; (ii) an N-Class prefix; (iii) a verb stem; (iv) a harmonic final vowel (FV) suffix. Semantically, Nata nominalizations fall into three classes: entity-denoting, state-denoting, and event-denoting. Syntactically, (i) entity Ns have a singular/plural distinction, but event Ns are number-neutral; (ii) entity Ns cannot be modified by an adverb, but event Ns can be; (iii) entity Ns optionally introduce an internal argument, while event Ns do so obligatorily. It is proposed that Nata nominalization construal arises compositionally via features introduced by the final vowel (ACTOR, THEME, EVENT), and features introduced by the N-class prefix (HUMAN, NON-HUMAN). Nata confirms the relevance of proto-roles and event arguments and shows that the event/entity partition is derived compositionally.
This chapter introduces the research context of three chapters in this volume (Anghelescu et al., Déchaine et al., Gambarage & Pulleyblank), all of which discuss an aspect of the grammar of Nata (Guthrie E45), an under-described Eastern Bantu language spoken in Tanzania. This overview also presents issues that situate the theme of these papers within the larger context of the documentation of endangered languages.
This chapter examines core tonal properties of Nata, a Lacustrine Bantu language (Guthrie E-45) spoken in the Mara region of Tanzania. In most instances, both in nouns and verbs, a Nata word exhibits a single high tone, which is restricted to a small number of locations. Though Nata’s tone system might appear simple, close examination of nouns and verbs uncovers considerable complexity in the system. Nouns exhibit lexically encoded distinctions; verb roots exhibit no lexical distinctions, but inflected verbs differ tonally depending on tense/aspect/mood. The sparse distribution of high tones follows from simple edge effects whereby tones are located relative to well-motivated morphosyntactic boundaries. The analysis, framed in a lexical allomorphy approach, crucially depends on correct identification of the macrostem, with a novel aspect being the extension of the macrostem to nouns. This extension is adopted on the grounds that nouns and verbs share similar surface patterns, captured by reference to a common domain.
An examination of vowel harmony in Nata (Bantu, E45), reveals a fairly straightforward pattern of harmony in tongue root values for adjacent mid vowels. A problem arises, however, when we look at the behavior of harmony in prefixes. In some nouns, the class prefixes are retracted when the initial root vowel is retracted and advanced when the initial root vowel is advanced. Problematic, however, are other forms in which roots with initial retracted vowels condition the appearance of high vowels in the noun class prefixes. In earlier work, Gambarage argued that to account for the distinction between cases where mid vowels retract and cases where mid vowels raise to high, it is necessary to invoke two distinct co-phonologies. It is argued that the two patterns observed in Nata are readily accounted for within an “allomorphy account,” without the need to invoke multiple co-phonologies. The integration of general phonotactics governing vowel harmony with allomorphy appropriate for particular roots derives the two patterns in a unified fashion.
Bantu vowel phonemes are reflexes of the Proto-Bantu seven-vowel system /*i *ɪ * ε *a *ɔ *ʊ *u/. While lax high vowels were supplanted in some systems because of vowel mergers in the first two degrees /*i *ɪ/ and /*u *ʊ/, lax mid vowels / ε ɔ/ are attested across most Bantu languages either underlyingly or at surface. Widespread use of roman orthographic vowels has left the phonemic status of mid vowels fuzzy. Here the orthography is treated as a “mask” disguising the phonetic quality of vowels, to be “unmasked” with the help of proper documentation and description. With examples from endangered Bantu languages of Tanzania and from Swahili current vowel documentation methodologies and theoretical approaches for unmasking are discussed. The distribution of mid vowels is characterized with a theory of markedness which contributes to understanding why lax mid vowels may be either triggers or targets of harmony and why a low vowel may be opaque or transparent to harmony.
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