Beyond Time - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

Syll Ø Root Pattern H Root Pattern
1 mu-wê L-HL mu-syê L-HL
2 mu-sáke L-H-L mu-hóhe L-H-L
2L mu-zíìke L-HL-L mu-bíìke L-HL-L
3 mu-úkúte L-(H)-H-L mu-hálíke L-(H)-H-L
3L mu-zááníne L-(HH)-H-L mu-tééngáme L-(HH)-H-L
4 mu-ñátáwúle L-(H-H)-H-L mu-tándábále L-(H-H)-H-L
5 mu-nyámúkílíle L-(H-H)-H-L mu-húlúmúkílíle L-(H-H-H)-H-L
Table C.8: Hortative (given here is 2pl): ’may you X!’
C.6 Grammatical tone
Three major tone patterns emerge in tense/aspect/mood marking:
1. No grammatical tone: Surface forms reflect (anticipated) input tones, subject to
Meeussen’s Rule.
(536) a. nda-ka-mú-bona ‘I saw him (yesterday or before)’ (H root, Ø OM)
b. nda-ká-ba-bona ‘I saw them (yesterday or before)’ (H root, H OM)
Examples: indicative non-completive, completive, dissociative past and future, with
and without object markers
2. Grammatical H on 2nd root syllable: Surface forms have H on the first mora
(avoiding LH contours), unless Meeussen’s Rule applies.
(537) a. ta-ndi-sáki ‘I don’t want (to)’ (Ø root)
b. ta-ndí-hoha ‘I don’t pull’ (H root)
c. mu-ka-mú-babalele ‘go take care of him (elsewhere)’ (H root, Ø OM)
d. mu-ká-ba-bábalele ‘go take care of them (elsewhere)’ (H root, H OM)
Examples: imperatives and hortatives with object markers, negatives (non-completive,
completive, dissociative past, persistive -chi-) with and without object markers
3. Grammatical H on final vowel: Surface forms have penultimate H, sometimes with
H plateauing. 6 Causatives and passives behave as if they have an extra final mora,
resulting in (e.g.) yendisâ rather than *yendísa ‘walk a lot!’. 7
6Toneless TBUs may raise before Hs in other contexts as well. This was the clearest case I found of
plateauing.
7Some other forms that are not causative but end in -sa, or are not passive, but end in -wa also take this
tone pattern at least sometimes, by analogy. For example fosâ ‘make a mistake!’ and even suwâ ‘listen!’
(ZT2009Elic151).
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