An OT Analysis of Efik Contrastive Verbal Reduplication

Abstract

This paper provides an optimality-theoretic analysis of two types of contrastive verbal reduplication in Efik (Niger-Congo; Nigeria). Lexical contrast reduplication puts contrastive focus on the meaning of the verb while performance contrast reduplication puts contrastive focus on the tense/aspect of the verb. Lexical contrast and performance contrast reduplication have distinct phonological patterns in the affirmative but do not contrast in the negative, giving rise to three patterns (Cook 1985). I posit three verbal reduplicants, REDNEG, REDLEX, and REDPRF, and derive their segmental and tonal properties in Generalized Template Theory (McCarthy & Prince 1995). I propose that REDLEX and REDPRF are affixes while REDNEG is a root. REDLEX and REDPRF exhibit TETU effects that REDNEG does not, including onset cluster simplification, coda deletion, monosyllabicity, and the absence of high vowels. These effects are derived by ranking various markedness constraints between IO and BR-Root faithfulness and BR faithfulness. As a root, REDNEG has faithful tones. I analyze the polar tone of REDLEX as a case of alternating fixed autosegmentism (a TETU effect driven by the OCP) and the fixed high tone of REDPRF as a case of morphological fixed autosegmentism. Finally, the constraint *HLH explains the tonal behavior of LH verbs.

Reduplication, repetition and sound symbolism in Fungwa

“…As shown earlier, the reduplicant consistently bears a L tone regardless of the tone of the following base TBU. Across languages, tonal asymmetries between base and reduplicant are either analysed as (i) prespecified tone of the reduplicative morpheme (Qu 1995;Kawu 2002;Pulleyblank 2009) or (ii) an epenthetic tone (Glewwe 2017). Under the prespecification account, the intensifier is expected to have a L tone, regardless of whether the base of reduplication is a root or prefix-root composite.…”

“…To satisfy the constraint OCP-(H) with the epenthetic solution, a L tone has to be inserted in the reduplicant. The option of epenthesis will result in the violation of the constraint DEP-BR, which requires every element of the reduplicant to have a correspondent in the base (McCarthy & Prince 1995;Glewwe 2017).…”