Ikalanga Phonetics and Phonology

This book is the first comprehensive study of the sound system of Ikalanga, a Bantu language of the Shona group, and its distribution in the phonology. Using both phonetic factors and typological evidence from other languages of the world, Bantu as well as non-Bantu, the book provides a careful and elaborate study on different phonological processes such as High Vowel Frication (spirantization), palatalization, velarization, aspiration and depressor consonants and tones, all of which are of great interest to linguists in general. It further considers how these different processes produced certain sound changes diachronically some of which are still manifested as active morphophonemic alternations in this language today. These morphophonemic alternations are found in such morphological processes as diminutive formation, causativization, and passivization. Its inclusion of the two appendices on verb paradigms and a lexicon respectively makes it a very useful source of information for comparative Bantuists.

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2/15/99