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ABSTRACT
In this dissertation, I describe in detail the phonology and morphology of Mono, a
language found in the northwestern corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo. I
provide acoustic evidence to support my claims concerning the sound system. This is the
first acoustic study of Mono in the literature.
There are several unique features in the Mono phonological system. Mono has a
phonemic labial flap, a rare speech sound found almost exclusively in central Africa. I
devote one appendix to a cross-linguistic study of this sound. The vowel system has two
front and three back vowels, which contradicts a putative universal concerning vowel
systems. Mono has three level tones which have both lexical and grammatical function.
Tonal melodies and tonal polarity are attested. There are two secondary articulations,
labialization and palatalization, which are phonetically mid rather than high, and which
are a challenge for interpretation. A large number of words contain a bisyllabic CV1LV1
sequence in which the two vowels are identical in quality and tone. The first V may be
shortened or elided in rapid speech. A word minimality condition on nouns requiring two
syllables is satisfied via the reduplication of a vowel. A large number of words have the
shape V1CV1LV1 suggesting that the reduplication overapplies in such cases. Mono
morphology is predominantly prefixing, but reduplication and suprasegmental
modification are also attested. There are implicational restrictions on the leftward spread
of vocalic features.
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