The phonology of Cicipu
Table of Contents
1Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 2
2Syllable and word structure................................................................................................................ 2
2.1Unambivalent syllables .............................................................................................................. 2
2.2Labialisation and palatalisation .................................................................................................. 6
2.3Long consonants ......................................................................................................................... 7
2.4Long vowels and diphthongs...................................................................................................... 8
2.5Prenasalised stops and affricates .............................................................................................. 10
2.6Approximants ........................................................................................................................... 16
2.7Other word classes ................................................................................................................... 16
2.8Word structure .......................................................................................................................... 18
2.9Summary .................................................................................................................................. 19
3Consonants ....................................................................................................................................... 20
3.1Phonemic inventory.................................................................................................................. 20
3.2Allophones and general phonetic rules .................................................................................... 20
3.3Distribution in noun and verb roots.......................................................................................... 22
3.4Length ....................................................................................................................................... 26
3.5Cross-linguistic comparisons ................................................................................................... 32
4Vowels ............................................................................................................................................. 33
4.1Phonemic inventory.................................................................................................................. 33
4.2Allophones and general phonetic rules .................................................................................... 34
4.3Nasal vowels ............................................................................................................................ 37
4.4Long vowels and diphthongs.................................................................................................... 37
4.5Distribution............................................................................................................................... 42
5Tone ................................................................................................................................................. 42
5.1Tone inventory ......................................................................................................................... 42
5.2Downdrift, downstep, and upstep ............................................................................................. 43
5.3Depressor consonants ............................................................................................................... 45
5.4Spreading .................................................................................................................................. 46
5.5Polar tone.................................................................................................................................. 50
5.6Lexical tone in nouns ............................................................................................................... 51
5.7Grammatical tone ..................................................................................................................... 52
6Vowel harmony ................................................................................................................................ 61
6.1Distribution of vowels in CVCV noun roots ............................................................................ 61
6.2Affixes ...................................................................................................................................... 61
6.3Compounds and larger domains ............................................................................................... 65
6.4Loanwords ................................................................................................................................ 66
6.5Cross-linguistic comparisons ................................................................................................... 66
7Nasalisation ...................................................................................................................................... 66
7.1Phonemes affected.................................................................................................................... 67
7.2Direction ................................................................................................................................... 67
7.3Domain ..................................................................................................................................... 68
8Morphophonemic processes ............................................................................................................. 68
8.1Coalescence and elision ........................................................................................................... 68
8.2Homorganic nasals ................................................................................................................... 71
8.3u-anticipation ............................................................................................................................ 72
8.4i-anticipation............................................................................................................................. 73
8.5Vowel/approximant interaction ................................................................................................ 74
1
Introduction1
This paper provides a phonological sketch of the Cicipu language of north-west Nigeria. Cicipu is
part of the West Kainji subgroup of Benue-Congo, and is spoken by approximately 20,000 people
in Niger and Kebbi States. Almost everyone is bilingual in the lingua franca Hausa, and many speak
a further West Kainji language. The analysis in this paper is based on two field trips to the Cicipu
area made by the author; from September 2006 until March 2007, and from January-April 2008.
During that time I made recordings of approximately fifteen hundred words as well as several hours
of text, six hours of which has been transcribed and annotated. My analysis here is based on this
data, together with elicitation sessions with Musa Ɗanjuma mai Unguwa, Markus Mallam Yabani,
and Ibrahim Ɗanjuma mai Unguwa. They are all speakers of the Tirisino dialect of Cicipu, from
which all the data in this paper is taken. The other six dialects are very similar with respect to
lexico-statistical counts (> 95%), but no serious phonological analysis has been carried out for any
of them. This fact should be taken into account in any orthographic decisions.
The paper starts with an analysis of syllable and word structure in Cicipu (§2), which then informs
the discussion on consonants (§3) and vowels (§4). The next three sections deal with three
important suprasegmental topics in Cicipu: tone (§5), vowel harmony (§6), and nasalisation (§7).
Finally (§8) I discuss some of the more important morphophonemic processes in Cicipu. Sections 5
and in particular 7 and 8 are by no means complete – they are intended to provide a point of
departure for more detailed research in the future, rather than a polished presentation.
Cicipu examples are given in a phonemic transcription, unless enclosed in [square brackets] in
which case an IPA phonetic transcription is used. In the phonemic transcription /y/ stands for the
palatal approximant [j], /c/ and /j/ for the affricates [tʃ] and [dʒ] respectively, the apostrophe /'/
represents the glottal stop [ʔ]. A double vowel /aa/ indicates a long vowel [aː]. Tone and nasality
are marked on the first vowel only (/a ̃́a/) but apply to both vowels ([a ̃́ː]) – in the case of a
contour tone this is usually realised over both vowels together. Phonetic transcriptions are varyingly
broad or narrow depending on the distinctions in question in the relevant section.
2
Syllable and word structure
I will first consider the unambivalent syllable structures found in noun and verb roots (§2.1), before
turning to the more complex ambivalent cases (§2.2-§2.6). Section 2.7 deals with prefixes and
ideophones, which allow extra syllable types, and in §2.8 I will look at the overall structure of
nominal and verbal roots, in terms of their constituent syllables.
2.1 Unambivalent syllables
The only unambivalent syllable structure found in Cicipu noun and verb roots is CV, although as
we will see there is a convincing case for analysing some roots as beginning with a V syllable, as
well as a fairly strong one for admitting CVN2 word-initially. Firstly, here are some examples of
CV syllables in noun roots:
1 Thanks to Roger Blench, David Crozier, Steve Dettweiler, David Heath, James MacDonell, Heidi Rosendall, Becky
Smith, and Israel Wade for their help with certain parts of the analyses here, and for sharing their data on other West
Kainji languages.
2 Standard abbreviations are used when referring to syllable typesː C(onsonant), V(owel), and N(asal) consonant.
(1)
kà-kúlù
à-kúlù
NC1-hailstone
NC2-hailstone
hailstone
hailstones
[eamy003.1337]3
(2)
kù-dávù
à-dávù
NC9-mortar
NC2-mortar
mortar
mortars
[eamd002.083]
(3)
s-síró
ì-síró
NC8-mane
NC3-mane
mane
manes
[eamd020.1033]
The following examples show CV syllables in verb roots:
(4)
ù-páɗà
u-paɗa-LHL4
3S-slaughter-RLS
he slaughtered
[eamy031.097]
(5)
ù-sítà
u-sita-LHL
3S-swell-RLS
it swelled
[eamd013.213]
3 Abbreviations used in this paper are 1 = first-person, 2 = second-person, 3 = third-person, ART = article, CAUS =
causative, CMPL = complement case, AG = agreement, APPL = applicative, COP = copula, DIR = directional, FUT =
future, GEN = genitive, HAB = habitual, IMP = imperative, IRR = irrealis, ITER = iterative, LOC = locative, LW =
loanword, NC = noun class, NEG = negative, NMLZ = nominaliser, P = plural, PASS = passive, PFV = perfective, POSS =
possessive, PRO = pronoun, REDUP = reduplicated, RES = resultative, RLS = realis, S = singular. The Leipzig glossing
rules are followed where possible.
4 Verbs in Cicipu are inherently toneless. The three moods (realis, irrealis, and imperative) are encoded by different
tone patterns superimposed on the verbs, and are distinguished in the glosses where relevant.
(6)
ù-náhà
u-naha-LHL
3S-leave-RLS
he left
[eamd006.022]
The identification of vowel-initial syllables is less straightforward, since they do not always appear
as such on the surface. A number of roots, however, can be set apart from the rest because of their
unusual behaviour. Consider the forms in (7-9) (nouns) and (10-12) (verbs), given in a broad
phonetic transcription:
(7)
kóosì
óosì
NC1ːeye
NC2ːeye
eye
eyes
[eamd004.022]
(8)
kwéetú
éetú
NC9ːmedicine
NC2ːmedicine
medicine
medicines
[eamd013.209]
(9)
vɔ́ɔmɔ̀
yɔ́ɔmɔ̀
NC8ːmonkey
NC3ːmonkey
monkey
monkeys
[eamd020.1001]
(10)
mǔuwà
NC4:hear:RLS
it heard
[eate002.001.054]
(11)
mǎayà
AG5:come:RLS
they came
[saff001.002]
(12)
wǔutò
3S:go_out:RLS
he went out
[eaim003.1408]
The nouns in (7-9) and the verbs in (10-12) differ from their counterparts in (1-3) and (4-6) in two
ways. First, they take a different set of nominal and verbal prefixes. While most nouns behave like
-kúlú 'hailstone' and -dávù 'mortar' which take a CV-shape prefix in the singular, the second type
of nouns appear at first sight to have a C-shape prefix, as suggested by the pair vɔ́ɔmɔ̀ 'monkey'
and its plural yɔ́ɔmɔ̀. A better way of looking at this is that the prefix remains CV-, but that its
vowel has coalesced with the first root vowel, resulting in a long vowel with the same quality as the
root vowel. This process can be represented as follows using standard autosegmental notation:
Figure 1: Autosegmental representation of examples (7) and
(10)
x x
x x x
k a - o s
L
H
i
L
x x
x x x
ma - u w a
L
H
L
The first diagram shows what happens when a noun class prefix is attached to a vowel-initial root.
The prefix vowel is de-linked from the timing tier, and the [o] vowel quality spreads to the empty
slot. Thus the number of timing slots (and hence morae) is preserved, but the prefix tone is lost. The
second diagram represents a subject agreement prefix plus vowel-initial verb root, and differs
slightly from the first. Although the number of weight units still remains the same, this time the
tone of the prefix is not lost, but spreads to the /u/ vowel. This vowel is therefore now attached to
two tones, LH, and this is realised phonetically as a rising tone.
Vowel-initial roots in Cicipu are rare (49 out of 950 nouns, 10 out of 471 verbs), and may well be
derived from consonant-initial roots, especially those beginning with an approximant. For example,
the vowel-initial verb uto 'go out' is pronounced wuto by some speakers. The only example of the
latter in the corpus was spoken by a grandmother in response to her grandson, who had used the
vowel-initial form in the previous utterance. The Tirisino word for 'eye', kóosì, may be in the
process of undergoing this change. The plural in Tirisino is òwósì, and in the Tikula dialect the
singular is kò-wósì. This suggests that the Tirisino word may be changing from a w-initial root to a
o-initial root, with the plural retaining the older form.
The second difference between consonant- and vowel-initial roots involves the selection of the
prefix consonant. Certain noun classes prefixes (and also some person agreement prefixes) surface
with a different consonant depending on whether the first phoneme of the root is a vowel or a
consonant. Compare first the words in (3) with those in (9); in the former example, with a
consonant-initial verb, the plural NC3 prefix is i-, while in the latter example, with a vowel-initial
verb, the plural NC3 prefix is y-. While this variant can be considered a phonotactically-conditioned
allomorph of an underlying /i/ prefix, the same cannot be said for the NC8 singular prefixes found
in the same examples. The consonant-initial root -síró 'mane' in (3) occurs with a consonantlengthening prefix C- (see §4 for details), whereas the vowel-initial root -ɔ́mɔ̀ 'monkey' has a prefix
beginning with the v-. The same situation obtains for the person prefixes on verbs. Considering the
verbs in (6) and (12); in the first example the consonant-initial verb takes an u- 3S prefix, in the
second the vowel-initial verb takes a w- 3S prefix, similar to the i-/y- alternation just discussed.
However for the 1S, 2S, and 3P person prefixes shown in tables 1 and 2 below, the two variants are
less predictable and have to be independently-specified – providing further motivation for the
separation of consonant- and vowel- initial roots. In these tables, and in the rest of the paper, the
symbol A represents an underspecified vowel which harmonises with the root to which it is attached
(see §6 for details). V represents a vowel which assimilates totally with the following vowel, and
likewise C represents an underspecified consonantal weight unit, which assimilates completely to
the consonant to which it is attached. N represents a nasal homorganic with the following
consonants. Note that these abbreviations are not at the same level of phonological representation as
those used when discussing syllable types (see footnote 2) – here we are dealing with individual
morphemes, not syllables.
NC1
NC2
NC3
NC4
NC5
NC6
NC7
NC8
NC9
C-initial kA-
A-
i-
mA-
N-/mi-
ti-
u-
C-/Ø-
ku-
V-initial kV-
V-
yV-
mV-
mV-
tV-
wV-
vV-
kʷV-
Table 1: Consonant-initial and vowel-initial noun class prefixes
1S
2S
3S
1P
2P
3P
C-initial N-
C-/Ø-
u-
ti-
i-
A-
V-initial mV-
vV-
wV-
tV-
yV-
hV-
Table 2: Consonant-initial and vowel-initial person agreement prefixes
Borrowed words with CVC syllables in the source language (invariably this is Hausa) are
pronounced with a transitional schwa vowel, since CVC syllables are generally unacceptable in
Cicipu.
(13)
[kà-húsᵊ kà]
NC1-face
face [Hausa fuska]
[eamd004.020]
(14)
[ʔàlᵊ máːdʒìɾíː
]
beggar
beggar [Hausa almajiri]
[eamd016.405]
Words such as 'àlmáajìríi 'beggar' which begin (phonetically) with a glottal stop are considered
to be underlyingly vowel-initial in many languages, the glottal stop being inserted to prevent a
vowel-initial syllable. However in Cicipu, words beginning with a glottal stop should not be
considered vowel-initial, as can be seen from the plural form of (14), ì-'àlᵊ máajìríi 'beggars'5.
5 The glottal stop in Cicipu is not always phonemic however. See §8.1 for further discussion.
In summary, the two types of root illustrated in (1-6) and (7-12) show differences in prefix
consonant, vowel-length, and tone, and the simplest way to account for this is to assume that the
second type of root is vowel-initial. Therefore in underlying representations we have V syllables as
well as CV, but the former are never realised phonetically.
2.2 Labialisation and palatalisation
In the last section I gave examples of words containing V and CV, and stated that these are the only
unambivalent syllable types. Not surprisingly, there are also words in Cicipu where the syllable
types are less easy to discern. This subsection and the next four will consider five different
complications. First of all, a number of consonants can be labialised or palatalisedː
(15)
[ù-kʷáɾí
mɔ̀-ʔʲ ɔ́ʔʲ ɔ́
ù-ʔʷ âː
ù-hʲa ̃̂ː]
ù-kwárí
mɔ̀-'yɔ́'yɔ́
ù-'wâa
ù-hya ̃̂a
NC7-next_year
NC4-fish
3S-pass\RLS
3S-say\RLS
next year
fish
he passed
he said
These sequences (kʷ, ʔʲ etc...) could be interpreted either as single consonant phonemes, as two
separate consonants, or as a consonant followed by a rising diphthong. There are no unambivalent
rising diphthongs in Cicipu, nor any unambivalent consonant clusters, so in the absence of any
further evidence from patterning in phonological processes, economy of description would dictate
that these should be considered as single consonant phonemes. However there is also positive
evidence that that these should be considered single phonemes, coming from the allomorphs of the
conjunction /ǹ/ 'and'. Before short consonants we find the [ǹ] allomorph, while before long
consonants we find [nì], since NCː clusters are not allowed in Cicipu. The relevance for this
discussion is that words beginning with labialised consonants pattern with the words beginning with
short consonants, as shown by [ìn kʷánda ̃́i] 'with the dry season'.
In contrast to other West Kainji languages such as Pongu (MacDonnell 2007) or Duka (Heath and
Heath 2002) where almost every phoneme has labialised or palatalised versions, there are only six
such consonants in Cicipu (kʷ gʷ ʔʷ ʔʸ hʷ and hʸ ), and therefore the decision to treat
them as phonemes does not greatly increase the Cicipu phoneme inventory. As a result of this
analysis the roots in (15) are assumed to consist of CV rather than CCV syllables.
2.3 Long consonants
Long consonants occur word-initially in nouns of class 8, and word-medially in a few verbs. They
are perhaps best considered to be single segments phonetically, but to be ambisyllabic
phonologically. Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996ː 92) point out that a phonological distinction can
be drawn between geminates and a sequence of two-identical stops, such as may occur across a
morpheme boundary. In Cicipu, it seems that long consonants are true geminates. They never have
an intervening epenthetic vowel (unlike the borrowed words in (13-14)), and when complex
segments such as affricates are lengthened the resulting sound consists of a single long closure
followed by a single frication period, rather than a simple repetition of the short version. Both these
facts suggest that long consonants should be treated as a single phonetic segment. Nevertheless in
weight-sensitive phonological phenomena long consonants pattern with other 'heavy' sequences
such as long vowels. For example, the tone pattern on CVCV verbs in the habitual is L L H H, but
for CVVCV and CVNCV verbs the pattern is L L HL L. Verbs with a long C26 consonant pattern
with the other 'heavy' words, as shown in the examples below:
(16)
ù-sì-tá'á
3S-HAB-want
He wants
(17)
ù-sì-pɔ́ǹtɔ̀
3S-HAB-clap
He claps
(18)
ù-sì-wîinà
3S-HAB-sell
He sells
(19)
ù-sì-câa
3S-HAB-give
He gives
(20)
ù-sì-hɔ́ttɔ̀
3S-HAB-warm_oneself_by_fire
He warms himself by the fire
Phonetically, when there is a long consonant in C2 it closes off the previous syllable, so that V1 is
shorter than it would be in an open syllable. Therefore a word such as hɔttɔ in (20) should be
analysed as CVC.CV rather than CVCV. Thus it seems we have to admit the syllable pattern CVC
as well as CV, at least for syllables which end in a long consonant.
2.4 Long vowels and diphthongs
A sequence of a consonant followed by a long vowel can be analysed either as CVː or as CV.V. In
the latter case there are two syllables.
Historically it seems likely that long vowels in Cicipu are derived from the coalescence of two
syllables with the disappearance of the intermediate consonant, as with the emergence of vowelinitial roots (§2.1). Many of the long vowels in Cicipu have cognates in other languages where this
consonant remains, and there is also evidence from amongst the different Cicipu dialects. The
following tables show some of the relevant examples.
6
V1 = first vowel of the root, V2 = second vowel of the root, C1 = first consonant of the root, and so on.
Tirisino form
Gloss
Cognates
hyãa
say
hyã'ã (Tikula7)
tâa
food
tá'à (Tikula)
kɔ̀-kɔ̃̂ ɔ
n-náa
egg
cow
kɔ̀-kɔ̃́ 'ɔ̀ (Tizoriyo, plural ɔ̀-kɔ̃̂ ɔ), ko-kowo (Western Kambari)
ka-naka (Western Kambari)
koo
die
kuwə (Central and Western Kambari)
sɔɔ
drink
sɔwɔ (Central Kambari and Tsuvaɗi), so'o (Western Kambari)
raa
eat
lya'a (Western Kambari)
ì-ɗáa
ground
i-ɗaha (Tsuvaɗi)
zɔɔsɔ
laugh
zɔ'ɔsɔ (Central Kambari)
Table 3: Roots containing long vowels in Tirisino and their cognates in other Kambari cluster varieties
Tirisino form
Gloss
Cognates
c-cɔ́'ɔ̀
sheep
c-cɔɔ (Tikula)
ta'a
want
taa (Tikula)
kè-ré'è
tongue
kè-rêe (Tikula)
rì-hya ̃́'a ̃̀ arrow
ri-hyaa (Ticihun)
mò-hi ̃́'i ̃̀ blood
mə-hii (Ticihun)
tóríhi ̃̀
tə̃́ːlí (Central Kambari)
six
Table 4: Roots containing long vowels in other dialects from the Kambari cluster and their cognates in Tirisino
Given this historical relationship, we might expect to find that long vowels pattern as two syllables
rather than one synchronically as well. Certainly long vowels are more prone than short vowels to
carry a contour tone, but this does not allow us to decide whether they are disyllabic, or
monosyllabic with two morae (i.e. heavy), as in example (17) with a prenasalised consonant. In fact
the habitual tone pattern discussed in the previous subsection provides relevant data. Examples (16),
(18), and (19) are repeated here for convenience:
(21)
ù-sì-tá'á
3S-HAB-want
He wants
(22)
ù-sì-wîinà
3S-HAB-sell
He sells
7 Data on Tirisino, Tikula, and Tizoriyo is from my own fieldwork. Data on Ticuhun is from Dettweiler and
Dettweiler (2002), Tsuvaɗi – Lovelace (n.d.), Western Kambari (Stark 2004), Central Kambari (Hoffman 1967 and
Crozier p.c.).
(23)
ù-sì-câa
3S-HAB-give
He gives
Recall that the habitual tone pattern is L L H H if the first syllable of the verb root is light as in (21),
and L L H L otherwise. The important point here is that a certain group of monosyllabic verb roots
such as caa behave as if they consist of one heavy syllable CVV rather than two light syllables
CV.V. Other monosyllabic verb roots with apparently long vowels pattern with CV.CV roots, as in
(24):
(24)
ù-sì-da ̃́a
3S-HAB-stretch
He stretches
There are two possible interpretations of (24) – either that dãa and other such verbs have
underlyingly short vowels and so the root is CV and therefore light, or that they consist of two light
syllables CV.V, and hence pattern with CV.CV. It would seem to do less violence to the facts to
analyse such verbs as CV.V, but the matter is complicated and will be taken up again in §4.4. For
the moment all we can say is that some roots with long vowels appear to be bimoraic monosyllables
(e.g. caa).
Diphthongs differ from long vowels (and other ambiguous CVV/CVyV/CVwV sequences) in that
their duration is not noticeably longer than short vowels, and there cannot be a 'dip' in the
waveform. When words are broken down into syllables by native speakers then the diphthong is
pronounced as part of one syllable. Therefore diphthongs are considered to be a single vowel with
regard to syllable structure (see §4.4 for further detail).
2.5 Prenasalised stops and affricates
In addition to unambivalent CV consonants, it is common to find what appear to be CVN syllables,
as in [kòdõntú] 'stool'. These are only found in a highly-restricted environment, which
although complex can be defined precisely. The basic observation is that apparent CVC syllables
always have a nasal as the coda, and this nasal only occurs after nasal vowels and before oral stops
or affricates, as in (25).
(25) [kòdõntú
kàbu ̃́ŋgú
ku ̃̀mbáǃ
ko ̃̀ndóǃ ]
kò-dõtú
kà-bu ̃́gú
ku ̃̀báǃ
ko ̃̀dóǃ
NC1-stool
NC1-snake
climb\IMP
enter\IMP
stool
snake
climbǃ
enterǃ
Prenasalisation affects all oral stops and affricates (26), with the exception of the glottal stop and its
palatalised and labialised variants (27).
(26) [ìtʃi ̃́ntʃú
ùle ̃́nʒí]
ì-ci ̃́cú
ù-le ̃́jí
NC3-intestines
NC7-sun
intestines
sun
(27) [kàhi ̃́ʔi ̃̀
hʷa ̃́ʔʲ a ̃̀
tʃa ̃́ːʔʷ
a ̃́ĩ]
kà-hi ̃́'i ̃̀
hwa ̃́'ya ̃̀
caa ̃́'wa ̃́i
NC1-night
day_before_yesterday
NC6-sweat
night
day before yesterday
sweat
In what follows I will address two questions about these [ṼNC] sequences. The first concerns the
nature of the [NC] portion – should it be regarded as one or two segments phonetically. The second
question is whether the [ṼNC] sequence should be represented phonologically as /ṼC/, with the
nasal supplied by a predictable phonetic rule, or as /ṼNC/8.
Prenasalisation is fairly widespread in African languages, and Childs (2003: ???) describes it in
articulatory terms as follows:
The tongue is moved into position to form the closure, as for a normal stop. However there is a
lag in raising the velum, and so there is an intermediate period where the air still escapes
through the nose, giving rise to the nasal segment.
Given this description, we might expect the duration of the nasal component to be relatively short –
and this is just what happens in many Bantu languages, where the vowel lengthens before prenasalised consonants to compensate for the nasal 'giving up' its timing unit (Ladefoged and
Maddieson 1996ː 123). However in Cicipu the duration of the nasal portion of NC sequences is
usually quite long, sometimes up to five times the length of the preceding vowel, and often it is
even longer than a straightforward nasal consonant. This can be seen from the waveform in Figure
2.
8 A third possibility, of course, is /VNC/ with the vowel assimilating to the following nasal. This has been ruled out
because nasalisation generally spreads to the right in Cicipu (see §7), and because it does not account for the lack of
/ṼC/ sequences.
0.1754
0
-0.3539
0
0.936792
Time (s)
Figure 2 ìnámá yi ̃́bɔ ̃̀ ‘certain animals’
The arrow points to the [m:] in yi ̃́bɔ ̃̀ [ji ̃́mːbɔ ̃̀] ‘certain’– this is clearly longer than
either the [n] or the [m] of the word ì-námá ‘animals’, and in fact is as long as the entire [ájí]
sequence immediately before it. Such a discrepancy makes it hard to maintain that the nasal and the
following stop form a single segment.
In addition to the argument from length, the behaviour of the sequence with respect to voicing
strongly suggests that the NC sequence is not a single phonetic segment – the nasal portion is
always voiced, whether it precedes a voiced or voiceless plosive. As Ladefoged and Maddieson
(1996ː 123) point out “a change of voicing within a unitary segment is quite exceptional”.
Phonetically, then, it seems that the sound is best described as a sequence of nasal plus stop, rather
than as a prenasalised consonant. However that does not rule out the possibility that the nasal
portion of such sequences is supplied by a predictable rule – indeed Ladefoged and Maddieson
(1996ː 127) point out that the motivation for analysing an NC sequence as a prenasalised stop is
often phonological rather than phonetic.
Therefore we will now consider the evidence for the /ṼC/ analysis. The clearest motivation for this
analysis comes from their distribution. Since Cicipu has both oral and nasal vowels, and nasal
vowels do not generally occur directly before stops, it is possible to regard the nasal contoid in
words such as [kòdo ̃́ntú ] as conditioned by a combination of the preceding vowel and the
following consonant. The environment for prenasalisation is summarised in the phonological rule in
Figure 3. Hence the apparent CVC patterns are predictable and can be derived from CV syllables
involving the sequence of a nasal vowels and a non-continuant9.
9 It is not known how implosives behave with respect to prenasalisation – no words have been found with either a
nasalised vowel or a nasal before an implosive. According to Childs (2003ː ???), there is debate as to the value of
the feature [constricted glottis] for implosives, and so the rule here makes no firm prediction either way.
Figure 3: Environment for the prenasalisation
rule
[+nasal]
V
C
[-continuant]
[-constricted glottis]
There is a 'hole' in the distribution of nasal vowels (i.e. they do not occur before non-continuants),
and this hole can be filled by assuming the existence of the phonetically and typologically sound
rule given in Figure 3.
Although most instances of prenasalisation are found root-internally, as in the examples we have
discussed so far, the process does also happen, albeit rarely, across morpheme-boundariesː
(28) [mu ̃́ ɡʷàːnùkʷà
n
m-úu
gwàanùkwà
1S-FUT see\IRR
tʃé]
cé
NEG
I wouldn't know
[sayb001.102]
(29) [kɔ̀ɓɔ ̃́ː kè]
n
kɔ̀-ɓɔ ̃́ɔ k-è
NC1-axe
AG1-COP
it's an axe
[eamd002.054]
We would have to construct a prenasalisation rule such as the one given in Figure 3 to account for
these examples, quite independently of considerations of syllable structure in roots. The rule could
then be re-used to account for root-internal prenasalisation.
Further evidence comes from the reduplication process found in NC5 nouns10 derived from roots
with long initial consonants. The class 5 prefix takes the form ǹ- before roots beginning with short
consonants. If the root begins with a long consonant then one of two alternative strategies is
adopted, both of which can be regarded as ways to avoid triple consonant clusters, which are not
attested in Cicipu. The first strategy, which occurs with only a few monosyllabic roots, is for the
prefix to undergo a kind of metathesis, so that, for example, the plural of the 6/5 noun cí-llú 'neck'
10 This reduplication also occurs optionally with NC2 nouns, but it is NC5 that concerns us here.
is not ìn-llú, but mí-llú 'necks'. The second strategy, which occurs for all other roots with class 5
nouns, is to reduplicate the first syllable, but with the consonant shortened. So instead of ìnhhóiyú, we find ìn-hóihóiyú 'streams'.
Recall that C1ːV1C2V2 roots form class 2 and class 5 nouns with the structure ìn-C1[í/ú]C1ːV1C2V2,
where the vowel inserted between the reduplicated consonant and the original consonant is u if V1
is rounded, and i otherwise. So for example the root -ggɔ́dɔ́ 'lump' forms the class 5 noun ìngúggɔ́dɔ́ 'lumps', as shown below:
(30) [mɔ̀ɡːɔ́dɔ́]
[ìnɡúɡːɔ́dɔ́]
mɔ̀-ggɔ́dɔ́
ìn-gú-ggɔ́dɔ́
NC4-lump
NC5-REDUP-lump
lump
lumps
Of relevance here is the fact that if V1 is nasal, the inserted vowel may also be nasal – in other
words the [nasal] feature of V1 spreads onto the inserted vowel along with the [round] feature.
Unfortunately the corpus only contains three such words, and only one token of each. So it is
impossible to say at the moment whether the relevant factor is sociolinguistic variation, lexical
variation, or even 'free' variation within the speech of individual speakers. Nevertheless in two of
the three tokens nasal spread did occur, and one of these (32) also contained a prenasalised
consonant.
(31) [kàhːu ̃́ːtʃí]
[àhu ̃́hːu ̃́ːtʃí]
kà-hhu ̃́ucí
à-hu ̃́-hu ̃́ucí
NC1-cloud
NC2-REDUP-cloud
cloud
clouds
(32) [mɔ̀ɡːu ̃́ntú]
[ìnɡu ̃́nɡu ̃́ntú]
mɔ̀-ggúntú
ìn-gu ̃́n-gu ̃́ntú
NC4-short
NC5-REDUP-short
short thing
short things
The nasalisation on the first [ɡu ̃́n] in (32) cannot have come from the class 5 prefix – as (30)
illustrates, nasality does not spread on to the vowel after the stop. Instead it has been copied from
the first root vowel, just as in (31). Since the reduplication rule does not usually copy complete
syllables, only C1 and certain features of V1, the n in the second syllable of ìngúngúntú must have
come about as a result of a further application of the prenasalisation rule.
Lastly, there is also some evidence from loanwords to support the prenasalisation analysis. The
Hausa word mugu 'evil' has been borrowed as kò-múngù [kòmu ̃́ŋɡù]. Nasalisation spreads from a
nasal to the vowel immediately to the right, and this accounts for the nasalisation on the first root
vowel. This vowel seems to have in turn resulted in the nasal [ŋ] before the [ɡ], just as the rule in
Figure 3 predicts. Another interesting piece of evidence is provided by the loanword kà-ma ̃́ya ̃̀
[kàma ̃́j a ̃̀] 'elder', from the Hausa word manya 'elders'. The Cicipu word is pronounced without
a nasal consonant, suggesting that either (i) CVN is not one of the underlying syllable types in
Cicipu, or (ii) it is a possible syllable type, but only before non-continuants. One might have hoped
for more such evidence, but in all the other Hausa words with an NC cluster which have been
borrowed into Cicipu, the C is either a plosive or affricate11, and so does not allow us to distinguish
between prenasalisation and a true CVN syllable. This no doubt reflects a more general constraint in
Hausa.
Stating the environment for the prenasalisation rule as in Figure 3 is not quite sufficient to account
for all the data on prenasalisation. This is because not all phonetically-nasal vowels trigger
prenasalisation before stops. Vowels which have become nasalised because of a preceding nasal
consonant may appear before consonants and affricates without an intervening nasal segment, as
illustrated by mita 'squeeze', kù-mócì 'old woman'. It is only underlyingly nasal vowels which
result in prenasalisation. To cater for these examples the rule handling the rightward spread of
nasalisation must be ordered after the prenasalisation – in technical terms the rules are in a 'counterfeeding' relationship. Some roots beginning with a nasal such as /mĩto/ [mĩnto] 'shut mouth' do
contain a ṼNC sequence – these are assumed to have underlyingly nasal vowels just as the
examples in (25-26).
So far, all the data has been consistent with the idea that NC clusters are the result of a phonological
process of prenasalisation, so that the nasal consonant is not to be considered part of the underlying
representation of the roots concerned. We now turn to a problematic scenario for this analysis. As
well as the spread of nasalisation from nasals to vowels, there is evidence that nasalisation also
spreads from nasals to following plosives or affricates. This evidence is provided by the fact that
only a small number of voiceless non-continuants take part in NC clusters – it is much more usual
for the C to be voiced (see Table 10 for the exact figures). This fact seems to favour the “underlying
nasal phoneme” analysis – voicing would then spread to the right straightforwardly using the rule
introduced in the previous paragraph. If we wish to maintain the stance that [ṼNC] sequences are
underlyingly /ṼC/ then the analysis becomes rather complex here. First, voiceless plosives would
be responsible for the appearance of the nasal segment. Second, this nasal segment would then, in a
subsequent derivation, turn the tables on its creator and cause it to become voiced – in technical
terms the rules are in a 'feeding' relationship. Of course this means that the rule causing nasal spread
on to non-continuants has to be ordered before the prenasalisation rule, quite the opposite
conclusion of what was reached in the previous paragraph. Thus we would have two separate rules
of rightward-spread of nasalisation, applying at different stages and to different classes of
phonemes. This level of complexity is certainly not to be welcomed, but apart from this problem the
prenasalisation analysis holds up well. It should be noted that the restriction of NC clusters to
voiced C's is only absolute for velar plosives. Table 10 shows that there are quite a number of cases
of root-medial /nt/ clusters for both nouns and verbs. Consequently it may not be appropriate to
attempt to account for this kind of 'relative' distributional data using standard phonological rules.
The evidence assembled above largely supports the claim that prenasalisation is a phonological
process, and that [ṼNC] sequences are underlying /ṼC/, with the nasal segment supplied
predictably, according to an ordered rule such as that given in Figure 3. Nevertheless the resultant
nasal segment (which, as we have seen, can be quite long) contributes to syllable weight in weightsensitive processes. Two such cases are briefly discussed here.
Firstly, long nasal vowels do not seem to trigger prenasalisation. There are only three examples of
long nasal vowels preceding a consonant in the corpus, but they pattern consistently – none of them
have a nasal intervening between the vowel and the stop.
11 Or the ejective ts, which resolves to tʃ when borrowed in Cicipu.
(33) kà-hhu ̃́ũcí
kà-ti ̃́ĩti ̃́ĩ
kɔ̀ɡʷɔ ̃̀ɔ ɡʷɔ ̃̂ɔ
NC1-cloud
NC1-foreskin
NC1-crow
cloud
foreskin
crow
There does not seem to be any obvious reason why long vowels should not trigger pre-nasalisation,
unless the resultant nasal forms the coda of a CVC syllable. In this case the restriction would be
simply a matter of syllable weight: it is not unusual for languages to have special restrictions on
'super-heavy' CVVC syllables. The environment given in Figure 3 can be allowed to stand, with the
proviso that this more general constraint prevents it from applying to a long vowel.
Secondly, the tone pattern on verbs are sensitive to syllable weight. The habitual tone pattern has
already been mentioned in §2.3. Verbs with ṼNC sequences, as in (17), generally12 pattern with
other 'heavy' syllable patterns such as CVVCV and CVCCV. Similarly, for the realis tone pattern
such verbs also pattern with other heavy syllables in taking a falling tone on the first root vowel
rather than a high tone:
(34) ùbánà
ùkôo
ùko ̃̂ndò
u-bana-LHL
u-koo-LHL
u-kondo-LHL
3S-invite-RLS
3S-die-RLS
3S-enter-RLS
he invited
he died
he entered
In summary, prenasalisation in roots is a predictable phonological process, but the resulting nasal
segment is both longer in duration than might be expected and contributes to the weight of the
syllable in weight-sensitive processes. Given the complexity involved here, it is strongly
recommended that any competing orthographic choices with respect to ṼNC clusters are thoroughly
tested in the speech community.
Before leaving the topic of prenasalisation, it should be noted that a small number of noun roots
begin with an NC sequence, where C is a stop, exemplified by (35-36):
(35) ma ̃́-ndá
mi ̃́-ndá
NC4-calabash
NC5-calabash
calabash
calabashes
(36) wú-ntò
ví-ntò
NC7-guest_hut
NC8-guest_hut
guest hut
guest huts
The NC clusters in these words should not be considered products of the prenasalisation process, at
least not synchronically. We have already seen that vowels which are nasalised because of a
preceding nasal consonant do not go on to cause pre-nasalisation. And in any case, in (36) neither of
12 There are three exceptional verbs which are not yet understoodː yinda 'see', panda 'forget', and kanda 'mark'.
the prefixes has a nasal consonant.
2.6 Approximants
The ambivalent vocoids [i] and [u] can be analysed either as consonants /y/ and /w/, or as vowels /i/
and /u/. Given that the only unambivalent syllable type is CV, semi-vowels are analysed as
consonants when they occur in onset position, and as vowels when they occur in nucleus position.
2.7 Other word classes
The above discussion has concerned only noun and verb roots, which are usually made up of CV
syllables, with arguments for CVN and CVC. Other word classes, however have different
possibilities, in particular prefixes (nominal or verbal) and ideophones.
Nominal prefixes and subject agreement prefixes are all monosyllabic, and can be of the form V,
CV, or VN, as was illustrated in tables 1 and 2, repeated here for convenience.
NC1
NC2
NC3
NC4
NC5
NC6
NC7
NC8
NC9
C-initial kA-
A-
i-
mA-
N-/mi-
ti-
u-
C-/Ø-
ku-
V-initial kV-
V-
yV-
mV-
mV-
tV-
wV-
vV-
kʷV-
Table 5: Consonant-initial and vowel-initial noun class prefixes, repeated from Table 1
1S
2S
3S
1P
2P
3P
C-initial N-
C-/Ø-
u-
ti-
i-
A-
V-initial mV-
vV-
wV-
tV-
yV-
hV-
Table 6: Consonant-initial and vowel-initial person agreement prefixes, repeated from Table 2
With respect to syllable structure, the most interesting prefixes are NC8 and 2S, specifically the
allomorphs represented here as C-. The application of this prefix results in the lengthening of the
first consonant of the root, whatever this consonant happens to be. Any consonant can be
lengthened in this manner; a few examples are given in (37-38).
(37) z-zá
k-ká
c-cɔ́'ɔ̀
s-síró
NC8-person
NC8-woman
NC8-sheep
NC8-mane
person
woman
sheep
mane
s-sâabà
l-láttà
j-jântà
2S-want\RLS
2S-used_to\RLS
2S-sleep\RLS
2S-want\RLS
you(s.) want
you(s.) are used to
you(s.) slept
you(s.) crushed
(38) t-tá'à
[eamy036.001]
As we saw in §2.1, the first vowel of a vowel-initial nominal or verbal root either coalesces with a
noun or agreement prefix, or else is obligatorily preceded by a w- or y- 'dummy' consonant. For the
prefixes themselves, the situation is similar – if they are preceded by another prefix, then usually
(but not always – see §8.1) coalescence occurs. In connected speech they are usually elided with the
preceding vowel (again see §8.1). Utterance-initially, and sometimes in the middle of an utterance,
they are pronounced with a (non-phonemic) preceding glottal stop.
The NC5 and 1S prefixes are most often pronounced as syllabic nasals, but they may also occur with
a very short preceding [ĩ] vowel, especially utterance-initially. Arguments can be made both for /N/
and /ĩN/ as the underlying representation. Most of the time there is no vowel, and this argues in
favour of /N/. When the vowel does appear, this can be assumed to be a co-articulatory timing
effect, in much the same way as the prenasalisation discussed in §2.5, except in this scenario the
opening of the velar flap is delayed rather than anticipatory. On the other hand, a case can be made
for /ĩN/ by considering the conjunction ǹ 'and/with', which has the same phonetic properties.
Furthermore this conjunction and the NC5 prefix have similar allomorphs before long consonants,
both involving the vowel ĩː mĩ- for the nc5 prefix and ni ̃̀- for the conjunction, shown in (39-40).
(39) mì-nnú
NC5-bird
birds
[eamd004.009]
(40) sée
nì-t-tôonò
until and-2S-come_home\RLS
until you come home
[saat002.002.355]
If the vowel is analysed as being part of the underlying representation then these allomorphs
become the product of a straightforward metathesis process triggered by the need to avoid triple
consonant clusters.
Because of the short duration and infrequent occurrence of the ĩ vowel it is considered to be nonphonemic in all of these cases, and the underlying morphemes are therefore held to be /m/ for the 1S
and NC5 prefixes and /n/ for the conjunction. The transitional vowels that appear in examples such
as (39) and (40) take the [i] quality as a default – and in fact we have to posit something similar to
account for the epenthetic [i] vowels in the reduplication process discussed in §2.5.
This analysis also find support when one considers when another prefix occurs before the NC5 or 3S
prefixes. If the ĩ vowel was part of the underlying representation, and somehow suppressed
utterance-initially, then we might expect it to surface in this environment. On the other hand if it is
merely the result of an occasional co-articulatory timing effect, then it should not occur – if the
opening of the velar flap was delayed, then the first prefix vowel would simply lengthen until the
flap did open. In almost all cases that have been examined the ĩ vowel is not there, as in (41):
(41) 'á-nà
à-zá
PL-some NC2-
há-ǹ-kàcì
m-ì
AG2-NC5-hunting NC5-COP
person
there were some hunters [lit. 'people of hunting']
[sami001.016]
Cross-linguistically, ideophones are often phonologically 'deviant' in some way (Childs 1994ː 181).
In Cicipu ideophones are characterised by CVC syllables, which as we have seen do not normally
occur in the language. So far ideophones have been found with deviant codas containing nasal
consonants, the plosive p, and the fricative s. Some examples are given in (42):
(42) vɔp
splatǃ
pass
ɗo ̃́oŋ
pɔm
dʒáràs
very white
very black
wholly
like sand that is wet and cool
2.8 Word structure
Noun and verb roots in Cicipu are usually disyllabic, although there are still a significant number of
mono- and tri-syllabic roots. The monosyllabic roots all appear to have long vowels, and many are
demonstrably derived from former disyllabic roots (see §2.4).
A few words for birds and trees have four or even five syllables, but often these are reduplicated. In
the following tables Hausa loanwords are omitted because they have a markedly different
distribution from native Cicipu words, being more likely to have tri-syllabic roots. The distribution
is given in Table 7:
Syllables in root
Tokens
Examples
1
106
kò-lúu 'knee', kù-tɔ́ɔ 'hen'
2
520
kù-cíi.nó 'back', kù-dá.vù 'mortar'
3
94
mé-bbè.ríi.sè 'swift', cìc.cé.rè 'star'
4
16
kà-'a ̃́.gà.là.mì 'traditional bag'
Table 7: Syllable structure of noun roots
Verbs follow a similar pattern to nouns, with an even higher percentage of disyllabic roots. Several
monosyllabic verbs have grammatical as well as lexical meanings (e.g. yãa 'do', yoo 'be'), and the
remainder are all high-frequency morphemes. Again it is possible that historically these are derived
from disyllabic roots – for example koo [kʷoː] 'die' can be reconstructed as *kuwə for West Kainji.
Of the tri- and quadri-syllabic roots, it is likely that the majority were once bi-morphemic. In some
cases fossilised present-day derivational processes can be identified. In the two verbs with four
syllables gituwana 'inhale' and kusiyanu 'smell (with nose)' the infix -uw- and the suffixes -na
and -nu are present-day affixes, but it is not possible to derive the meanings of the verbs
compositionally. Similarly a number of trisyllabic roots appeared to be contain the infix -il-,
although they cannot appear without this affix (e.g. tobilo 'to cool liquid by repeatedly pouring').
If such verbs are analysed synchronically as disyllabic roots with an obligatory affix then the bias
towards disyllabic roots is even stronger than shown in Table 7.
In other cases, while it is not possible to identify grammatical morphemes in present day use,
patterns still emerge. For example, titɔmɔ 'thresh', ziza'a 'shiver', and zizaɓa 'tickle' all combine
a reduplicated prefix with an inherently iterative meaning. Similarly cekete 'crush into pieces',
pɔkɔtɔ 'brush off' and valata 'wag tail' all end in -tA, and are also amenable to an iterative
interpretation. These do not seem to be productive processes/affixes in Cicipu now, but they may
well have been in the past. If we exclude such verbs from the count, as well as the less speculative
cases mentioned above, then there are probably not many more than a dozen irregular verbs with
more than two syllables.
Syllables in root
Tokens
Examples
1
18
caa 'give', yãa 'do'
2
311
na.ha 'leave', la.sa 'greet'
3
69
hee.pi.ye 'ask', mi.ri.ɗa 'twist'
4
3
gi.tu.wa.na 'exhale', ku.si.ya.nu 'smell (i.e.
with nose)'
Table 8: Syllable structure of verb roots
Disyllabic verbs in Bantu languages are usually considered to have CVC roots, with the 'final
vowel' V2 supplied according to rule. In some languages this vowel has a constant value /a/, in other
languages it is a copy of one of the root vowels (Lutz Marten p.c.). In Cicipu, as with other West
Kainji languages (e.g. C'Lela – Steve Dettweiler p.c.), the situation is more complex. In just over
half (148 out of 276) of disyllabic verb roots V1 and V2 have identical vowel qualities, but in the
remainder V2 must be lexically-specified. This has morphological consequences since if the final
vowel in Cicipu is actually part of the root, then the causative <is> and iterative <il> morphemes
must be analysed as true infixes rather than suffixes. The verb roots in examples (43-44) are pina
'shave', pino 'boil', dooho 'disappear', and goonu 'help'.
(43)
ù-pín<ìl>à
ù-pín<ìl>ò
3S-shave<ITER>
3S-boil<ITER>
he shaved [many times]
it boiled [many times]
[2008-02-12.008]
(44)
ù-dôoh<ìs>ò
ù-gôon<ìs>ù
3S-disappear<CAUS>
3S-help<CAUS>
he caused s.t. to disappear
he had s.o. to help
[2008-02-12.008]
2.9 Summary
While noun and verb roots in Cicipu may begin with a vowel, words are always consonant-initial on
the surface. Roots with long vowels may be analysed as two syllables CV.V, roots with
prenasalised stops may be analysed as CVN.CV. A small number of roots begin with an NC cluster
(e.g. 35-36), but once the prefix is taken into account they syllabify as CVN.CV.
If we may talk of underlying syllabification, then Cicipu allows CV, V, and N syllables in noun and
verb roots. On the surface, however, the possibilities are CV, CVC (where C2 is an ambisyllabic
long consonant) and CVN. Only the first of these three may occur word-finally.
3
Consonants
3.1 Phonemic inventory
The consonant phonemes of Cicipu are given in Table 9.
Table 9 – Consonant chart (phonemic)
Bilab Lab-dent
Stops p b
Impl
ɓ
Affric
Fricat
v
Nasals m
Liquid
Rhotic
Appx
Dental/Alv
td
ɗ
Post-alv
Palatal
Velar
k g kʷ gʷ
Labio-velar
Laryng.
ʔ ʔʷ ʔʲ
tʃ dʒ
h hʷ hʲ
sz
n
l
r
j
w
Although the coronal consonants in the above table have been labelled 'dental/alveolar', at least /d/
and /t/ were found to be dental (and laminal), rather than alveolar. This was only checked for one
speaker, however. It is not yet known whether /n/ and /l/ are alveolar or dental, although they might
be expected to pattern with /d/ and /t/. Unlike some languages the voiced stops /b/, /d/, and /g/
continue their voicing during the closure. Glottal stops often fall short of complete closure, other
than when they are long, resulting in creaky voiced vowels instead (this is fairly common according
to Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996: 75).
The implosive /ɓ/ seems to be a true implosive rather than the creaky-voiced Hausa ɓ. The voicing
appears normal rather than biphasic and the amplitude of the voicing increases towards the end of
the closure indicating the lowering of the larynx (see Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996: 84).
The phone [f] is extremely rare in Cicipu. It has only been found in one loanword felle 'cut
branches' (Hausa falle) and one ideophone kèfée 'way of walking, k.o.', which may also be
borrowed. Because of its rarity and marginal distribution, f is not analysed as a phoneme here. This
restriction to loanwords is something of a conundrum since the standard Hausa [f] phone is
apparently not found in the Western Hausa dialect spoken in the Acipu area (Newman 2000: 393),
which has [h/hʷ] instead.
3.2 Allophones and general phonetic rules
The bilabial plosives /p/ and /b/ sometimes undergo lenition to [ɸ] and [β] when they occur intervocalically, especially in quick speech. For example /yapu/ 'two' may surface as [jaɸu], and /jiibo/
'have breakfast' as [dʒiːβo]. This inter-vocalic distinction between voiced bilabial and labiodental
fricatives is a common feature of Bantu languages (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996ː 139). This
lenition does not appear to be found with non-labial plosives, a split which is common crosslinguistically (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996ː 17).
As well as the labialised and palatalised phonemes which appear in Table 9 there are a number of
non-phonemic allomorphs which also have these modifications. /m/ and /v/ have labialised
allomorphs [mʷ] and [vʷ] before rounded vowels, while /k/ and /g/ have palatalised allomorphs [kʲ]
and [gʲ] before front vowels. Before rounded vowels /k/, /'/ and /h/ do not contrast with their
labialised counterparts, and so the underlying consonant in such sequences cannot be determined.
Similarly before front vowels /'/ and /h/ do not contrast with their palatalised counterparts.
The phoneme /t/ is sometimes, but not always, realised as [tʃ] before [i], for example in the verb
tiyo 'get'. [tijo] seems to be considered the 'correct' form by native speakers. Ladefoged and
Maddieson (1996ː 90) point out that affricates are an “intermediate category” – every stop has a
certain amount of frication, and while it is usually considered as part of the release of the stop, there
is no discrete phonetic boundary between a stop and its corresponding affricate. So it is not
surprising to find [tʃ] and [t] occurring in 'free' variation.
The fricative [ʃ] is non-phonemic but does occurs as an allomorph of /s/ before [i]. Individuals seem
to vary quite a bit in this regard. With some the [ʃ] is very strong, with others it is less so. There
may also be dialectal differences, with Tidipo speakers seemingly more likely to have a strong [ʃ]
than Tirisino speakers13.
There are only two phonemic nasals in Cicipu, /m/ and /n/. [ŋ] and [ɱ] are found as allophones
before velar and interdental consonants respectively.
/r/ is realised as a flap/tap14 [ɾ] utterance-medially. Utterance-initially, and when lengthened (see
§3.4), it is realised as an approximant [ɹ] (or an r-coloured vowel [ɚ]). Often this segment is
followed by a flap/tap, so that the sequence is [ɹɾ] or [ɚɾ].
(45) [ɹ̃̀e ̃́
ⁱ ],
[kàdámá
kéɹ̃̀ɾe ̃̀ⁱ ]
r̃̀réin,
kà-dámá
ké-r-rèin
NC8-
NC1-word AG1-NC8-town
town
towns, the word 'towns'
[eamy032.024]
Sometimes the flap/tap surfaces as the retroflex/post-alveolar [ɽ], especially after the vowel /a/, but
unlike Hausa there does not seem to be a phonemic distinction between the coronal and postalveolar flaps.
The approximants /y/ and /w/ have nasalised allophones [j] and [w] which occur in the
neighbourhood of nasalised vowels. Note that the former differs from the nasal [ɳ] since it does not
have a closure.
As well as the allomorphic variation found in individual phonemes, there are alternations involving
two different phonemes. In some cases this can be put down to dialectal or even idiolectal variation,
but in other cases there is no obvious pattern. The alternation between /c/ and /t/ has already been
discussed. Another such case is the alternation between /l/ and /n/ found in the verbs laha/naha
'let' and lapa/napa 'know', amongst other roots. Naha is used in the Tikula dialect and laha in
Tidipo. Within the Tirisino dialect either form is possible, and there is even variation within the
same family. The two Tirisino speakers I have observed using laha are both elderly, so it may be
that naha is the newer form in Tirisino. Lapa is found in Tirisino and napa in Tikula.
3.3 Distribution in noun and verb roots
The distribution of the consonant phonemes given in Table 9 depends on both the word class and
the position of the phoneme in the root. Table 10 shows the distribution of consonant phonemes in a
lexicon containing 626 native noun roots and 358 native verb roots. Multi-morphemic and
borrowed words were not included in the count. Although no statistical analysis has been carried
out, certain figures do stand out and these have been highlighted in the table. For root-medial nasals
and non-continuants the figure in brackets shows how many of the tokens in that cell are part of NC
13 The presence of the [ʃ] sound in English is a linguistic stereotype for the Acipu, who sometimes refer to the English
language using the metonym ù-pépí 'wind'.
14 It is not known whether this sound is a flap or tap (See Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996ː 230-231 for a proposed
distinction between the two).
consonant clusters.
N initial N medial N total
V initial V medial V total
Overall total
p
29
19 (2)
48
25
14 (0)
39
87
b
20
26 (13)
46
7
10 (3)
17
63
ɓ
7
4
11
5
9
14
25
t
37
46 (7)
83
32
57 (11)
89
172
d
30
30 (15)
60
18
14 (6)
32
92
ɗ
13
22
35
8
21
29
64
k
81
6 (0)
87
36
7 (0)
43
129
kw 11
1 (0)
11
0
2 (0)
2
13
g
30 (22)
57
15
8 (6)
16
69
gw 2
3 (2)
5
1
8 (8)
9
14
'
63
81
25
23
48
129
'y 2
5
7
0
0
0
7
'w 2
1
3
2
9
11
14
c
38
25 (2)
63
25
1 (0)
26
89
j
21
8 (5)
29
9
1 (1)
10
39
v
11
13
24
14
10
24
48
s
52
31
83
30
33
63
146
z
16
10
26
14
4
18
44
h
20
0
20
22
2
24
44
hy 1
0
1
1
0
1
2
hw 0
0
0
0
0
0
0
m
13
52 (16)
65
10
16 (3)
26
91
n
15
65 (30)
80
6
55 (20)
61
141
l
28
47
75
12
40
52
127
r
23
49
72
5
15
20
92
y
41
51
92
14
10
24
116
w
9
11
20
4
37
41
61
27
18
Table 10: Distribution of consonant phonemes according to word class and root position
Some of the distributional restrictions can be put down to the rarity of the phonemes in question.
For example /'y/ is a very rare phoneme (only seven tokens altogether), so it is not all that
surprising that it is not found in verbs. /hy/ is not attested root-medially, but again this is very rare.
/hw/ occurs only in the noun tù-hwí'í 'C'Lela'15 and in the time adverb hwa ̃́'ya ̃̀ 'day before
15 This word was excluded from the above count. It is not known to be borrowed, but given that it refers to the name of
yesterday'.
Some of the more common phonemes also have distributional restrictions, and these are more likely
to be significant and not just gaps due to a limited sample size. One of the most striking restrictions
is that /h/ very rarely occurs root-medially. There are only two tokens out of 44 – dooho 'disappear'
and naha 'leave'. The phoneme /h/ is also found word-medially in the numeral tóríhi ̃̀ and the
time adverb rúhu ̃̀ 'last year'.
The affricates /c/ and /j/ are rare root-medially, especially in verbs. Both the examples of rootmedial affricates in verbs involve trisyllabic roots of uncertain derivation: /kucɔ'ɔ/ 'shake off' and
/mɔnjuwɔ/ 'glare'.
As has already been mentioned in the discussion on prenasalisation (§2.5), voiceless noncontinuants (plosives and affricates) are much less likely to be found in NC clusters than voiced
non-continuants. This is especially clear for the velar plosives, where /k/ is not found in NC clusters
at all. In contrast root-medial /g/'s are largely limited to such cluster. Quite apart from
considerations of prenasalisation, it should be noted that velar plosives are rare root-medially.
The next two tables show examples of nouns and verbs containing all the phonemes except /hw/.
Apart from this one exception, all the phonemes contrast root-initially in native Cicipu nouns as
demonstrated in Table 11.
a language this would not be surprising.
p
ù-pácí
difficulty
b
kà-bárá
old man
ɓ
mà-ɓásà
mole (on skin)
t
kà-tádá
palm (of hand)
d
kà-dábá
bush/countryside
ɗ
ù-ɗángà
tree
k
mà-kántú
knife
kw
m̃̀-kwá'á
orpheme
g
ù-gálù
side
gw
mà-gwáwá
deaf/mute
'
cì-'ádì
trap
'y
mɔ̀-'yɔ́'yɔ́
fish
'w
ù-'wîi
distance
c
kà-cá'ùn
husk (of maize)
j
kù-jénè
river
v
kà-várá
goat hut
s
kù-sáyú
spear
z
à-zá
people
h
cì-hávì
scratching
hy
à-hyán'àn
arrows
hw
tù-hwí'í
C'Lela language
m
kà-mángá
rope
n
ì-námà
meat
l
kà-lánà
scar
r
kà-rákátáu
heel
y
kà-yáyù
root
w
mà-wáa
dog
Table 11: Root-initial consonant phonemes in nouns
Apart from /'y/, /kw/ and /hw/ all the consonant phonemes contrast root-initially in native Cicipu
verbs. /kw/ occurs root-medially in the verb dukwa 'go' and cukwa 'praise' but neither /'y/ nor /hw/
are found in verbs at all. This is not really surprising given their overall rarity.
p
pasa
cross
b
bana
invite
ɓ
ɓasa
slap
t
tasa
meet
d
dasa
castrate
ɗ
ɗasu
soak
k
kanda
mark on wall
g
gava
kick
gw
gʷ iya
can
'
'etu
dry by hanging out
'w
'waa
pass
c
ca'a
harvest
j
janta
crush
v
vasa
hit
s
saɓa
embrace
z
zaa
find
h
hala
coil
hy
hyãa
say
m
mata
give birth
n
naha
leave
l
lawa
escape
r
raa
eat
y
yaa
arrive
w
waana
twirl
Table 12: Root-initial consonant phonemes in verbs
3.4 Length
While many languages have long consonants, it is rare (although not unheard of) for them to occur
root-initially and word-initially (Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996ː 93). As with Central Kambari
(Crozier 1984) any consonant can be lengthened in Cicipu, even if this means considerable phonetic
changes in how the phoneme is realised (see the discussion of /r/ in §3.2). The difference in length
between short and long consonants is relatively mild, with the lengthened often no more than half as
long again as its counterpart16. The distinction often seems to be neutralised altogether in normal,
fast, speech.
The waveforms in figures 4-8 demonstrate the length differences for the nasal /n/, the lateral /l/,
16 Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996ː 92) note that cross-linguistically long consonants tend to be longer than short ones
by between 1.5 to 3 times.
and the voiceless plosive /k/. The words in figures 4-7 all belong to NC8, which has either Ø- or Cfor allomorphs. The former occurs with Ø-náatà 'small spider' (Figure 4) and Ø-lóokàcíi 'time'
(Figure 6), resulting in a short initial consonant. The latter occurs with n-náa 'cow' (Figure 5) and
l-lámà 'noise' (Figure 7), resulting in a long initial consonant.
n
a:
t
a
0
0.595667
Time (s)
Figure 4: Waveform of náatà 'small spider'
n:
a:
0
0.597313
Time (s)
Figure 5: Waveform of nnáa 'cow'
l
o:
k
a
c
i:
0
0.604
Time (s)
Figure 6: Waveform of lóokàcíi 'time'
Figure 8 demonstrates the difference between an utterance-medial short and a long /k/:
(46) kà-dámá
ká-k-kà
NC1-word AG1-NC8-woman
l:
a
m
0
0.6005
Time (s)
Figure 7: Waveform of llámà 'noise'
a
the word 'woman'
[eamy032.014]
k
a
d
a
m
a
k
a
0
k:
a
0.853604
Time (s)
Figure 8: Waveform of kàdámá kákkà 'the word “woman”'
As can be seen from the waveform in Figure 8, long consonants are not formed simply by the
repetition of short ones. A long /k/ only has one period of closure and one period of release, and it
apparently differs from a short /k/ only in length of the closure. The difference between long and
short voiceless plosives is easy to hear utterance-medially, but difficult (perhaps impossible) to
detect utterance-initially, since the lengthening is confined to the closure. For some languages it is
possible to detect the differences between short and long voiceless plosives utterance-initially
(Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996ː 94), perhaps because of a change in amplitude of the following
vowel. This has not yet been tested for Cicipu, although it would be relatively simple to do.
Most of the long consonants are formed by an extension of some (as in /k/) or all (as in /n/ and /l/)
of the short consonant. However as discussed in §3.2, in the case of /r/ there is a qualitative
difference between the long and short variants – short /r/ is a tap/flap [ɾ] utterance-medially but
long /r/ is realised as an approximant [ɹ] (or an r-coloured vowel [ɚ]), optionally followed by a
flap/tap, giving [ɹɾ] or [ɚɾ] as shown in Figure 9:
The majority of long consonants in Cicipu words are ambi-morphemic, although as discussed in
§2.3 they are true long consonants rather than simply sequences of short consonants. They arise
from the application of the C- lengthening allomorph of the NC8 prefix to a noun root beginning
with a short consonant. All the examples in the waveforms given above are of this kind.
Long consonants in noun roots are mostly found root-initially. Out of 626 native Cicipu noun roots,
51 start with a long consonant. Most of these are likely to have arisen through the reinterpretation of
an NC8 C- prefix as part of the root, in conjunction with the addition of an additional noun prefix, so
that, for example, *g-gombo 'bat' > *ko-g-gombo > kó-ggòmbò. Occasionally the NC8 prefix is still
analysable, as in the case of kà-ddá'u ̃̀ 'guinea-corn husk':
(47)
kà-d-dá'u ̃̀
d-dá'u ̃̀
NC1-NC8-guineacorn
NC8-guineacorn
guineacorn husk
one guineacorn plant
In this case the kà- is an example of what are sometimes called 'augments' or 'pre-prefixes' in the
Bantu literature.
k
e
r
r
0
ein
0.386021
Time (s)
Figure 9: Waveform of ké-r-rèin 'of towns'
Twelve of the fifty-one nouns with root-initial long consonants begin with /k/ alone. Given that the
NC1 prefix kA- is the most common by far, it is likely that a number of these words had kAprefixes originally. On the addition of an extra pre-prefix, the original prefix vowel was lost. So for
example. we might derive má-kkàngà 'small drum' as followsː *ka-kanga > *ma-ka-kanga > mákkàngà .
Long consonants in verbs are rare. They do not occur root-initially, and there are only a few
examples root-medially – 16 out of 358 verbs. The only long consonants attested are /t/ (eight
tokens), /l/ (four), /n/ (two), /w/ and /'w/ (one each). The meanings of some of the verbs suggest that
the long consonants have come about as a result of the fossilisation of affixes. For example tanna
'descend' may have been derived from *tana plus the present-day directional suffix -na. Similarly
the /l/ examples kalla 'clear', kullo 'burn', 'isilla 'insult' and hullo 'blow' are all
amenable to an iterative interpretation, suggesting derivation from the present-day iterative infix
<il>. There is no present-day verbal affix containing /t/, but recall the examples of trisyllabic roots
discussed in §2.9, where a historical affix -tA was postulated. Many, if not all, of the verbs with
long /t/ are open to an iterative interpretation, for example hatta 'yawn', jitto 'blink', yɔttɔ
'impersonate', hɔttɔ 'huddle round fire', and sɔttɔnu 'urge'. There may also be synchronic
evidence of this process: the usual way to add a directional component of meaning to the verb is by
adding the suffix -nA, but for the verb dɔnɔ 'follow' *dɔnɔ-nɔ is ungrammatical – instead we find
dɔnnɔ.
3.5 Cross-linguistic comparisons
Compared to its close relatives Central Kambari and Tsuvaɗi, Cicipu has a rather simplified
inventory of consonants. The labiovelars gb and kp are missing17 as are the affricate ts and the
fricative ʃ. Sound correspondences exist between Kambari /ts/ and Cicipu /t/ (Table 13), and
between Kambari /ʃ/ and Cicipu /s/. Labiovelars in Kambari are rare and no relevant Cicipu
cognates have been found.
Gloss
pour
belly
obtain
buttock/
thigh
turn.around/ mat
oscillate
Cicipu
tuun
kò-túmó
tiyo
kà-gúutù zito
ì-táatú
mò-tôon
Kambari
tsun
ə́tsɨ̃́mə́
ts̠ɨrə
àa-gùtsû jits ə
íivá'átsú
mə̀-tsə̃̂n
Tsuvaɗi
tsun
ho-tsimo tsuro
haggutsu
i-vatsu
mo-tsso
Gloss
buy
ear
we
three
go.back
sleep
Tirisino
tila
kù-tívì
óttù
tâatù
gitu
la t
a
C. Kambari
tsɨla
ùutsɨ̃̀vû
ə̀tsú
tà'àtsú
gitsə
la n ts
a
Tsuvaɗi
tsela
u-tssuvu òtsú
ta'ɔtsu
la
a
saliva
t
ts
Table 13: ts~t Kambari/Cicipu correspondences
17 This has been confirmed independently by Israel Wade, a native speaker of ut-Ma'in, another West Kainji language
which does have labiovelars.
Gloss
redness
fart
feather
pestle
song
rainy
season
twin
Tirisino
ù-sílá
suwon
kàsín'ín
ù-síin
ì-sípá
ru-úsì
mè-pésé
C. Kambari
ùu-shìlî shuwə
áaúusshín'ín shínyín
íi-shípá lyùushî
Tsuvaɗi
u-shiili
hashi'in
ma-shin
vi-shipa lyuushi
Gloss
four
wring
rot
mosquito
weep
Tirisino
nósì
pisa
sama
sìpíyú
sɔɔn
C. Kambari
nə́əshín
pisha
shama
sshìpɨ̃̀r shon
û
Tsuvaɗi
noshin
pusa
shama
vishipiru
mə̀píshɛ̃̀
Table 14: ʃ~s Kambari/Cicipu correspondences
4
Vowels
4.1 Phonemic inventory
Closed
Mid-Closed
Mid-Open
Open
Front
i
e / ei /eu
Central
Back
u
o
ɔ
a / ai / au
Table 15: Cicipu vowel-inventory
This is a fairly rare type of vowel system cross-linguistically according to the figures given in
Schwartz et al. (1997). Although 6-vowel systems are common in the world's languages (60 out of
317 languages), they are usually symmetrical (44 out of 60). Of the 16 asymmetrical types, only 4
are weighted towards the back of the mouth. Interestingly Casali (2003) states that in cases of
asymmetry in African languages, there tends to be a higher number of contrasts in the front of the
mouth than in the back. He offers a physiological explanation for this: the mouth is smaller at the
front than at the back, and so has less 'room' for vowel contrasts. This seems unlikely to be relevant
cross-linguistically given the figures just quoted, and also Crothers' earlier universal that “the
number of height distinctions in front vowels is equal to or greater than the number in back vowels”
(1978: 137). It may be true that such systems are more common in West Africa, and it is not clear
where Casali's figures come from. While it might be an unusual vowel system, there is independent
evidence for this analysis. Israel Wade (p.c.) adduced the same six vowels from his own research,
and the wordlists produced by Lovelace (n.d.) for the nearby related language Tsuvaɗi also
distinguish these six vowels.
The Cicipu vowels are articulated more openly than the corresponding cardinal vowels, and this
difference is clearly audible. The vowels of Hausa loanwords are often raised in the target form,
presumably because to the Cipu ear a Hausa a is more like a Cicipu /e/ than a Cicipu /a/. Examples
are shown below:
(48) dègè
from daga
'from'
ɔ́'ɔ̀
from a'a
'no'
kɔ̀-ccɔ̀kɔ́
from jaka
'bag'
wɔ-ɔ́tɔ̀
from wata
'moon'
In cases where the Hausa vowels are incompatible with Cicipu vowel harmony, it is much more
common for the problem to be solved by one of the vowels rising, rather than by one of them falling
(see §6.4 for details).
4.2 Allophones and general phonetic rules
Given that most West Kainji languages have a phonemic contrast between e and ɛ, one might
expect that Cicipu would at least have the phones [e] and [ɛ] as allophones of /e/. However this
does not appear to be the case, and I have only transcribed /e/ as [e] or [ə].
The lack of a schwa phoneme in Cicipu makes it unusual within West Kainji, where most other
languages have two or even three (e.g. Central Kambari) central vowels. Cicipu's closest neighbour
(geographically and genetically) Tsuvaɗi, however, appears to also lack schwa, that is if Lovelace's
(n.d.) orthography is an accurate representation of the language's phonemic contrasts.
In contrast to [ɛ], a vowel with the phonetic value [ə] does occur in Cicipu, but only as allophones
of /a/, /o/, /ɔ/, or /e/ in the environment _CV[+high]: in other words, when the next vowel in the
word is /i/ or /u/. Example (49) shows /o/ realised as [ə] in this environment.
(49) [kòjo ̃̀ŋɡʷ ə́lì
]
kò-yòngólì
NC1-ant
ant, k.o. [large]
[dòːsə̀nu ̃̂]
dòosònûǃ
swim\IMP
swimǃ
[eamd022.1123, eamd006.049]
Vowels can be influenced in this way even across morpheme boundaries, as in the following
examples:
(50) [kə́si ̃̄'i ̃̀]
ká-si ̃̀'i ̃̀
NC1-bark
bark
[eamd002.112]
(51) [dːádːə̀ vì]
d-dáddò
vì
NC8-aerial_yam
AG8-COP
aerial yams
[eamd002.112]
Sometimes, but not always. the ə-colour may spread further to the left. In (52) both vowels to the
left are affected, whereas in (53) only the adjacent vowel alters. The very existence of the [o] vowel
in the prefix in (53) is in fact evidence that the [ə] vowel is underlyingly /o/ – see §6.2 on vowel
harmony).
(52) [mə́bːə̀ɾíːsè]
mé-bbèríisè
NC4-swift
swift [i.e. bird]
[eamd021.B7]
(53) [kʷ ɔ̀kːʷ ɔ́ɗì
kɔ̀-k-kɔ́ɗì
kʷònə ̃́s
ì]
kò-nósì
NC1-NC8-slice\NMLZ AG1-four
four slices
[eamy034.014]
Although the four allophones of /a/, /e/, /o/, and /ɔ/ could all be transcribed as a schwa [ə], they are
not all identical, and it is possible to detect a flavour of the underlying vowel. Therefore it might
better to use the 'centralised' IPA diacritic ̈ when transcribing these vowels, as in [ä], [ë], etc...
When the words are pronounced carefully the underlying vowel quality is always clear, and it is
never a schwa.
It was mentioned above that Central Kambari does have a phonemic schwa, and there is a sound
correspondence between Central Kambari words with /ə/, and Cicipu (and quite possibly Tsuvaɗi)
words with /o/. Cicipu has a correspondingly higher number of words with /o/, which is rare in
Central Kambari. A number of examples are given in the table below:
Gloss
belly
turn around/ die
oscillate
Tirisino
kò-túmó zito
C. Kambari ə́tsɨ̃́mə́
jitsə
Tsuvaɗi
hotsimo
Gloss
fever
Tirisino
kò-vínò yuwo
spirit
shea tree mother
blindman/
blindness
koo
k-kíisóo
ù-ríyò
cìyìmmɓóo
kuwə
k-kwíisə́
ə̀ə-llíyə̀ ə̀nô
íi-rɨ̃́mbə́
u-liyo
i-rumbo
huwo
fall
saliva
obtain
ono
mouth
porridge
back
mò-tôon tiyo
ù-nóo
kù-nó'ò
kù-cínó
ùu-nə̃̂
ùu-nə̀'ə̃̂
úu-cínə́
C. Kambari ìivɨ̃̀nə̃̂
riyə
mə̀tsə̃̂n
ts̠ɨrə
Tsuvaɗi
rihyo
mo-tsso tsuro
u-no
u-cino
Table 16: ə~o Kambari/Cicipu correspondences
Plusː sit down, swim, ant, we, belch, burn, illness, boil, cook/stir, fall, fart, six, monitor, black, hole
There is one environment in which I have found it difficult to either characterise the vowel sound
phonetically, or decide on the underlying phoneme. The environment is immediately after [mb]
sequences, as in [kʌ̀lʌ ̃́mːbɔ ̃́ː] 'horn' or [kɔ ̃́mbɔ ̃̀] 'some'. The final vowel sounds 'back' and
contrasts in nasality with [óɡːòmbò] 'bat' and [kːámbà] 'rib'. Currently I am transcribing these words
kɔlɔmbɔ and kɔmbɔ, but these should be checked thoroughly with native speakers before any
orthographic decisions are made.
The distribution of the vowels /i/ and /u/ is problematic, just as in Hausa (Newman 2000ː399-400).
In some cases a neighbouring rounded vowel seems to be responsible for conditioning an /i/ to a
[u], as in (54).
(54) [múː
múmpà]
m-úu
mí-mpà
NC5-
AG5-this
child
these children
[eabg001.057]
On other occasions different vowels are found in apparently identical environments:
(55) h-ǎyà
3Pcome\RLS
è-'ésù
gútù
níyù-nò
3P-again\RLS go_back\RLS send\RLS-
é-'èsù
gìtù
3P-again\IRR go_back\IRR
DIR
they again sent for them to come back again
[eaim009.054]
Finally, in some words either /ɔ/ or /a/ is acceptable, as in kù-lácí/kù-lɔ́cí 'young girl' and
sa'ũ/sɔ'ũ 'touch'.
4.3 Nasal vowels
For each of the six vowels there is a contrasting oral and nasal pair, exemplified in Table 17. The
oral vowels are considerably more common, with a ratio of about 5ː1.
a
k-ká
woman
ã
ù-ta ̃̂a
bow (hunting)
e
re'e
persuade
ẽ
se 'e
carve
i
mà-jjîi
bird, k.o.
ĩ
ù-ji ̃́i
value
o
ù-kôo
death
õ
mò-to ̃̂o
saliva
ɔ
ù-lɔ́ɔ
locust bean tree
ɔ
kɔ̀-kɔ ̃́ɔ
egg
u
kuu
be older than
ũ
tũu
pour
Table 17: Oral and nasal vowel contrasts
Nasal vowels differ from their oral counterparts phonetically and the former seem to be formed
lower in the mouth. This is especially true for /ũ/, which is often hard to distinguish from /õ/ for the
untrained ear. Certain words are often pronounced weakly-nasalised which raises the question of
how many emic degrees of nasalisation there are. According to Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996:
298) nasalisation is universally a binary feature, although in some languages (e.g. French) there is a
three-way phonetic contrast between underlyingly oral vowels, underlyingly nasal vowels, and
nasalised oral vowels. The roots which have been identified as strongly nasal are both verbs
a ̃̀ta ̃̂a 'shoot' and kã'ã 'scoop', in contrast to the nouns kàa'a ̃̂ 'rat' and kà-ta ̃́a 'shoe'. It
may be if there are two nasal vowels in a word they somehow reinforce each other, at least
perceptually (see also the observations in §7 about spread onto noun and verb prefixes). It must be
admitted though that the reasons for different linguist and native speaker judgements about nasality
are not clear, and this is a definite area for future research.
For some words there is variation with respect to nasal vowels, both amongst different speakers of
Tirisino and across the Cicipu dialects. For example ká-kkàci ̃́i 'middle' is pronounced with a
nasal final vowel by some Tirisino speakers, while others omit it. In the Tidipo dialect, in particular,
many vowels have lost their nasality.
4.4 Long vowels and diphthongs
Each of the oral and nasal vowels has a long counterpart as shown in Table 18. Short vowels are
more common, with a ratio of 7ː1. Given the rarity of long, nasal vowels it has been difficult to find
good contrasts for some vowels (i.e. same number of syllables, same position in the root) – these
are marked with an asterisk in the table. From the rough measurements taken so far, long vowels in
citations form in elicited speech are approximately half as long again as their short counterparts.
a
dapa
burn
aa
gaata
cut
ã
kã'ã
scoop out
ãa* tãa
shoot
e
kè-ré'è
tongue
ee
cì-réenè
fireplace
e
ùpépí
wind
e e ù-pe ̃̂e
*
bigness
i
cita
sting
ii
ciita
squash
ĩ
kà-yi ̃́vá
vein
ĩi
kà-hi ̃́ivì
navel
o
tomo
die out
oo
toono
come home
õ
kò'úso ̃̀
haze
õo* mò-to ̃̂o
saliva
ɔ
yɔnɔ
pull
ɔɔ
tɔɔmɔ
chew
ɔ
rù-kɔ ̃́'ɔ ̃̀
pool
ɔ ɔ kɔ̀-kɔ ̃́ɔ
*
egg
u
kurɔ
grow up
uu
kuula
call
ũ
kù-yu ̃̀yu ̃̂
sand
ũu
kà-hu ̃́ucí
cloud
Table 18: Oral and nasal vowel contrasts
It was suggested in §2.4 that most long vowels are derived historically from CVCV roots, with the
loss of the intervening consonant. Unsurprisingly, then, most long vowels are found in
monosyllabic roots today, and most monosyllabic roots have a long vowel. Even those
monosyllabic roots which do have an underlying short vowel often appear with phonetically-long
vowels – the distinction is only found in certain environments. For example the pair yoo 'be' and
yoo 'go' are apparently ambiguous when they occur without suffixes:
(56) ù-yôo
3Sbe\RLS
ǹ
Ø-móotò
and/with
NC8-car
he has a car [lit. 'is with car']
[2008-04-06.001]
(57) ù-yôo
3Sgo\RLS
Màkúukù
[town]
he went to Makuku
[2008-04-06.001]
However with the addition of the perfective suffix -nA there is a length distinction:
(58) z-zá
n-nà
NC8-person AG8ART
Ø-yó-nò
Ø-móotò
AG8-be-PFV NC8-car
the one who has a car [lit. 'is with car']
[2008-04-06.001]
(59) z-zá
n-nà
NC8-person AG8ART
Ø-yôo-nò
Màkúukù
AG8-go-PFV
[town]
the one who went to Makuku
[2008-04-06.001]
As well as perceptual cues, there is also language-internal evidence for a length distinction in
vowels. This comes from the by-now familiar habitual tone pattern. Recall from §2.3 that the tone
pattern is L L H (H) if the first root syllable is light, and L L H (L) otherwise, as shown in (60). The
tone patterns when the verbs are negated are shown in (61).
(60) ù-sì-híyá
ù-sì-hɔ̃̂ɔmɔ̀
3S-HAB-grind
3S-HAB-rub
he grinds
he rubs
[2008-04-06.001]
(61) ù-sì-híyá
3S-HABgrind
ce̋
ù-sìhɔ̃̂ɔmɔ̀
3S-HAB-rub
NEG
he doesn't grind
cé
NEG
he doesn't rub
[2008-04-06.001]
As has already been mentioned in §2.4, the same two tone patterns are found on monosyllabic
verbs. Some verbs, like raa 'eat', pattern with the CVCV verbs:
(62) ù-sì-ráa
ù-sì-ràa
3S-HAB-eat
3S-HAB-eat
he eats
he doesn't eat
cé
NEG
[2008-04-06.001]
For other monosyllabic verbs, such as caa 'give', the CVVCV pattern is found:
(63) ù-sì-câa
ù-sì-câa
3S-HAB-give
3S-HAB-give
he gives
he doesn't give
cé
NEG
[2008-04-06.001]
Table 19 shows the how the monosyllabic verbs divide according to this pattern.
CVCV pattern (L L H)
CVVCV pattern (L L HL)
raa
eat
caa*
give
sɔɔ
drink
yũu
cause
koo
die
yoo
go
nɔɔ
give
zaa*
find
sõo
cry
yaa
arrive
tãa
shoot
ɗaa
surpass
'waa
pass
'ɔɔ
tire
yãa
do
dãa*
stretch
hyãa
say
Table 19: Habitual tone patterns for monosyllabic verbs
Other than this distinction, and the exceptional verbs mentioned in footnote 12, there is no evidence
that verbs in Cicipu have lexical tone. Instead their tone is determined by their aspect and mood
together with their phonological properties (in particular, the weight of the first root syllable).
Consequently we might consider the distinction shown in Table 19 to indicate a difference in
underlying vowel length. Nevertheless the phonetic difference in vowel length is not clear, if it
exists at all. One native speaker was, with difficulty, able to make a distinction between 'short' and
'long' vowels in monosyllabic verbs, but the way in which he divided up the verbs was quite
different to the split according to habitual tone pattern. Most verbs he judged to be short, but he
marked three as long – these are marked with asterisks in Table 19. The difference between yo 'be'
and yoo 'go' discussed above does not seem to be general, and most, if not all, of the verbs in the
first column of Table 19 occur with a long vowel, regardless of whether any suffix follows. Given
that most monosyllabic verbs occur frequently, it is recommended that special attention is given to
this area in the testing of any orthography.
Other than in monosyllabic roots long vowels are very rarely found root-finally in native Cicipu
roots, although there are a few exceptions such as cì-níyáa 'farm' which seems to have a
consistently long vowel, even when the word occurs utterance-medially. This is in contrast to
Hausa, where many roots end in long vowel, especially nouns. When such nouns are borrowed into
Cicipu the final vowel is shortened, as in róobà 'plastic' and kèeké 'bicycle'. The distinction
between short and long vowels is blurred utterance-finally, just as in Hausa (Newman 2000ː401).
Cicipu has four diphthongs with at least three tokens in the corpus, all of which are falling (i.e. from
an open to a close vowel quality)ː /ai/, /au/, /ei/, and /eu/. Diphthongs can be distinguished from
the [VwV] or [VjV] sequences found in words such as yuwo 'fall'. Diphthongs are usually shorter in
duration than three-segment sequences, and there is often a dip in amplitude between the two
vowels in sequences, especially in careful pronunciations. Examples of each of the four diphthongs
are given below:
/ai/ mà-ga ̃́i
májù'wa ̃̀i
sword
sexual intercourse
copaiba balsam tree
/au/ ùya ̃́nda ̃́u
kà-sa ̃̂u
/ei/ ù-se ̃́i
mà-de ̃́i
grave
pain
calf (body part)
/eu/ kè-rèze ̃̂u cotton
ɗéne ̃̂u
small
Table 20: Diphthongs
The examples in Table 20 suggest a strong relationship between diphthongs and nasalisation, and
this indeed the case, and out of the twenty-five instances of these diphthongs only the three
examples given in (64) are oral.
(64) kà-cácáu
bracelet (NC1)
kà-kkwái
kà-rákátáu
corpse (NC1)
heel (NC1)
Long nasal vowels are rare in Cicipu, especially [e ː], only two tokens of which have been found
so far. Both of these words, ù-pe ̃̂e 'bigness'and ù-rée 'town' have alternate pronunciations with
the /ei/ diphthong, ù-pe ̃̂i and ù-re ̃́i. We might then consider /ei/ as a variant of /ee/
conditioned by nasalisation. Nevertheless, the /ei/ and /eu/ examples in Table 20 are consistently
pronounced with a specific diphthong, not with an [eː], and other words such as cì-réenè
'fireplace' have consistently pure vowels. Therefore we need to keep the distinction between the
pure vowel and the diphthongs. The close association between nasalisation and diphthongisation
remains mysterious.
Discounting loanwords as usual, diphthongs are only found as the last vowel of the root, and they
may be the result of historical consonant loss from root-final syllables. Certain Central Kambari
cognates may provide evidence of this process: compare Cicipu tì-ga ̃́i with Central Kambari
ùu-gàɗî and úu-ga ̃́'a ̃́, all of which mean 'length', and also Cicipu ta ̃̂u and Central Kambari
ta ̃́ːwu ̃́, both meaning 'five' .
Three further diphthongs are found in a single word each. These are [oi], [iu] and [ɔu]. [õi] occurs
only in the ideophone [hʷo ̃̂i], and as we have already seen in §2.7 and §3.1, ideophones are
phonologically deviant in Cicipu. For this reason, and since there is only one token, this has not
been included in the list of phonemes. [iu] occurs only in kò-sìmbîu 'tree, k.o.'. It is consistently
shorter than the [iju] sequences in words such as ciyu 'collect'. The word is non-standard in
another way too, since it has an irregular plural àsìmbîi. Irregular plurals are very rare in Cicipu,
being limited to a handful of words. Finally [ɔu] occurs in the vowel-initial verb root ɔulɔ 'vomit'.
4.5 Distribution
All of the short oral and nasal vowels are found in both V1 and V2 root positions. Long vowels are
limited to V1, and diphthongs are only found in the final syllable of the root, although loanwords
provide exceptions to both these statements.
Vowel harmony (see §6) strongly constrains the vowels which are able to occur together in native
Cicipu roots – in summary, members of the vowel set {a, e, o, ɔ} are mutually exclusive.
Furthermore in disyllabic roots there is a strong tendency for both roots have the same quality, as
was mentioned in §2.8. From a sample of 759 disyllabic native noun and verb roots, V1 and V2 have
the same vowel quality in 396 of them.
5
Tone
Tone is lexically-contrastive in noun roots, but not in verbs. Adjectives also vary in their tone
patterns, although there are relatively few words in this class.
5.1 Tone inventory
There are three basic tones in Cicipuː H, L, and HL (falling). These contrasts can be seen in the
pitch track of the words concerned, and are also reflected when native speakers are asked to whistle
the tone patterns. The different tones are illustrated by the following examples involving both
minimal pairs and contrast in analogous environment.
(65)
H
L
vs. kù-sáa
ká-ssà
NC9-mountain
NC1-leaf
mountain
leaf
(66)
H
HL
vs. kà-ta ̃́a
ù-ta ̃̂a
t-tíin
tîin
NC1-show
NC7-bow
NC8-
NC6ːshit
container
shoe
container
shit
cù-kúlú
kà-kúlú
NC1ːroom NC1ːbean
NC6-tortoise
NC1-hailstone
room
bean
tortoise
hailstone
ká-kkàci ̃̂i
mà-kùdâa
mɔ́-kɔ̀ɗɔ̀
NC1-middle
NC4-squirrel
NC4-gossip
middle
squirrel
gossip
kù-yu ̃̀yu ̃̂
ì-cíyò
kó-ccìyûu
NC7-cold NC9-sand
NC3-beard
NC1-heap
cold
beard
heap
(67) H H vs. H L káayá
(68) L L vs. L káHL
kkùtì
NC1-
bow (hunting)
káayà
shell
shell
(69) H L vs. L ù-yéyù
HL
sand
Statements, commands, and questions all have their own intonational contours which are imposed
on top of the lexical tones of the sentence. Statements can be analysed as having an utterance-final
L tone, which means that H tones are realised as HL at the end of utterances. Verbs in the
imperative form usually end in H (see §5.7 for details), unless the final vowel of the verb is /u/ or
/ũ/, in which case they end in HL.
As well as the boundary tone just mentioned, there is further evidence that HL tones are often (as is
common in Benue-Congo) sequences of H and L. For example, the realis tone pattern on disyllabic
roots (again, see §5.7 for details) is H L if the first syllable is light, but HL L if the first syllable is
heavy.
In certain limited scenarios an extra-high tone seems possible. For example, in the Tikula dialect if
the negator cé occurs after a high tone then it may surface as extra-high, as in (70). My Tirisino
consultant, however, was reluctant to accept this example.
(70) ì-ɗáná
NC3-mark
ce̋
NEG
not marks
[Tikula, sagb001.026]
Other candidates for extra-high tone are the plural morpheme a̋ 'associates of', and the topic
marker gő. Because of the limited distribution of these sounds, it is preferable to analyse Cicipu as a
basic two-tone system plus extra-high, rather than as a three-tone H/M/L system.
5.2 Downdrift, downstep, and upstep
Like many African languages, tones in Cicipu utterances undergo downdrift, whereby the pitch of
each H is lower than that of the one before. L tones do not change, and consequently the distinction
between H and L is very much less towards the end of an intonation group than at the beginning. At
the beginning of a new intonation group the pitch levels are rest – this can be seen in the pitch track
for (71), shown in Figure 10, where the pitch is reset after the first ví. Consequently the pitch of
the second ví is higher than that of the first, even though they are both high tone.
(71) n-náa
NC8-
cow
n-nà
ù-yónò
v-í,
v-í
ví-llè
ù-wíinà-nà
AG8ART
3S-be\RLS-
AG8PRO
AG8PRO
AG8-that
3S-sell\RLS-PFV
PFV
the cow that he had, that one he had already sold
[eaim009.058]
350
nnaa nna
uyono
vi
vi
ville
0
0
uwiinana
2.41742
Time (s)
Figure 10: Pitch track demonstrating pitch reset after downdrift
Downstep also occurs in Cicipu between verbs and their complements. This seems to be a rather
extreme form of downstep compared to many other languages – if the NP in complement position
begins with a H tone, then this H is the same level as the last L of the verb. This is true both for the
pitch of the words and for the pitch of any accompanying whistle tracks provided by language
consultants. More will be said about downstep in the discussion on grammatical tone in §5.7.
In addition to downdrift and downstep, there is some evidence for the rarer phenomenon of upstep.
The relevant data is again provided by the habitual tone pattern. Recall from §2.3 that the usual tone
pattern for verbs with light syllables is L L H H. Normally the negator cé occurs with high-tone, but
in (-) it is extra-high.
(72) à-sì-pándá
3P-HAB-forget
ce̋
NEG
they continued not to forget
[eamy033.069]
(73) à-sì-tá'á
3P-HAB-want
ce̋
NEG
they didn't want
[eamy033.033]
This effect is not limited to examples involving the negator, but also occurs with reduplicated verbs.
If we assume that upstep occurs after the habitual marker si-, then examples (74-75) can be
accounted for without needing to postulate three underlying tones. The underlying tone pattern in
these examples would then be L L↑ L L H L. The pattern on the reduplicated verb would then
match that found in other contexts, such as the future, shown in (76).
(74) ká-nà
kà-sì-nīmānímā
AG1-ART
AG1-HAB-bite-
bite
some [camels] bite
[eate004.001.018]
(75) ǹ-sì-pāndāpándà
1S-HAB-forget-forget
I forget
[eate005.002.007]
(76) h-úu
làpà-lápà
3P-FUT know-know
they will know
[saat001.007.040]
5.3 Depressor consonants
Certain voiced consonants are 'depressor' consonants, in that they cause the pitch of the surrounding
vowels to lower, creating a 'pit' in the pitch track as shown in Figure 11. It is common crosslinguistically for voiced plosives and fricatives to have this effect (Lieber 1987: 162).
As well as /v/, other consonants which have this effect include the voiced plosives /b/, /d/ and /g/. It
is not known whether the perturbation has any obvious long-distance effect, such as blocking the
spread of high tones. This remains a matter for further investigation
5.4 Spreading
Tone spreading is very common in Benue-Congo languages, particularly of H tones (called
H-spread here). Cicipu noun and verb prefixes must often be regarded as underlyingly atonal, and
they are liable to receive high tone from preceding H's. Tone spreading in Cicipu is therefore to the
right. One of the most common environments is immediately after the negator cé, in the
complement position of the VP. In (77) the citation form of the noun is follow by an example
showing rightward spread of the H tone from cé to the noun prefix.
(77) kà-líipì,
ù-kábà
cé
ká-líipì
130
w
oo
v
oo
60
0
0.544125
Time (s)
Figure 11: Depressor consonant
NC1-wrong
3Stook\RLS
a wrong
he didn't take the blame
NEG
NC1-wrong
[eaim009.044]
The next two examples show the high-tone spreading further through the word until another H is
reached, at which point the spreading stops. This seems to be a general restriction on tone spreading
in Cicipu (i.e. the tone spreads as far as H, and no further).
(78) tìzàarúmà
t-índà
cé
tí-záarúmà
NC6-flea
1P-see\RLS
NEG
NC6-flea
flea
we didn't see a flea
[eamy037.163]
(79) kà-kàanâa
t-índà
cé
ká-káanâ
NC1-crab
1P-see\RLS
NEG
NC1-crab
crab
we didn't see a crab
[eamy037.058]
If the citation form of the noun already has a high-tone prefix then this blocks any spreading from
the negator – in other words there is no difference between the citation form and the post-negator
form, as (80) shows:
(80) ká-ssà,
t-índà
cé
ká-ssà
NC1-leaf
1P-see\RLS
NEG
NC1-leaf
leaf
we didn't see a leaf
[eamy037.003]
The examples so far have all shown spread onto prefixes, but even if there is no prefix the tone still
spreads onto the first root vowel if it is low-tone:
t-índà
cé
káakáa
NC8-grandfather
1P-see\RLS
NEG
NC8-grandfather
leaf
we didn't see the grandfather
(81) Ø-kàakáa,
[eamy037.128]
Many other words which end in a H tone can cause spread to the right, perhaps all of them.
Examples below include the question words hán 'where' and -èné 'which', the presentative òkóo.
The first example shows that the effect is not purely phonological, and that the lexical class of the
following word also plays a role – the H spreads onto the noun with a low-tone prefix (mà-nnû is
the citation form), but not to the low-tone pronoun. Example (84) demonstrates that the H tone at
the end of -èné does not spread past an underlying H, like that of the negator cé in (79-80).
(82) (a) hán
where
má-nnû
NC4-bird
where is the bird?
(b) hán
where
m-è
ká'à
AG4PRO
now
where is it now?
[2008-03-31.003]
(83) ù-nú,
t-èné
ú-nú
NC7-work
AG6-how
NC7-work
leaf
how's work
[eamd003.005]
(84) kè-ré'è,
k-èné
ké-ré'è
NC1-tongue
AG1-which NC1-tongue
language
which language
[eaim001.004]
(85) à-dámá,
òkóo
á-dámá
NC2-words
there_is
NC2-words
words
there are words
[eaim001.019]
In the realis and irrealis verb moods the verbal word always ends in a L tone, and so there is no
opportunity for H-spread. However in the imperative the verb usually ends in H and this always
spreads onto L tones to the right in the usual manner (86). Verbs in the habitual sometimes end in a
H tone (if the root is CV.CV – see §2.3) and in this case the tone again spreads if the next tone is L
(87).
(86) 'ìzè'
e ̃́
wash/IMP
má-ttílúǃ
NC4-pot
wash the potǃ [citation form mà-ttílú]
[eamd006.034]
(87) à-sì-bɔ́lɔ́
3P-HABlook_for
í-rí
NC3-thing
they were looking for something [citation form ì-rí]
[eamy033.077]
As well as noun prefixes, gender agreement verb prefixes are also affected by H-spread in the realis
mood18.
18 In the irrealis mood the prefix tone is always high regardless of what precedes it.
(88) mò-ní
NC4-
mɔ́-kɔ́ɗ<ìl>ɔ̀-nù,
mò-ní
AG4-cut\RLS<ITER>-RES
NC4-water AG4-
water
m-áyà
come\RLS
mɔ̀-kɔ́ɗ<ìl>ɔ̀-nù
AG4-cut\RLS<ITER>RES
the water parted, then the water parted
[eahs001.003.011, eahs001.003.015]
Person agreement prefixes are seemingly unaffected.
In some environments the spreading effect is ubiquitous. For example after the negator cé or
after a verb in the imperative mood, whenever the environment which makes H-spread
possible is present, then it will occur. However for other words such as òkóo and kúmá the spread is
optional, as (89-90) show for the former:
(89) n-òkóo
if-there_is
má-wáa
NC4-dog
if there is a dog [citation form mà-wáa]
[eate001.001.007]
(90) òkóo
there_is
kà-mìyáatà
NC1-hardship
there are troubles
[oamy001.173]
Certain tonal patterns such as the habitual aspect seem to be constant and unaffected by H-spread:
(91) mà-wáa
nc4-dog
mà-sì-cíndà
AG4-HAB-wait\RLS
the dog guards
[eate001.001.022]
Similarly certain words seem to have consistently L tones which do not raise even when following a
H, such as the borrowed word dòorí 'formerly'.
In autosegmental terms, the H-spreading just discussed involves the de-linking of tone-bearing units
from L tones and associating them with a previous H outside the word. Spreading also takes place
inside words – in which case instead of H spreading indefinitely to the right, only one vowel is
affected, with the pitch M rather than H19. This suggests that rather than de-linking the affected
tone-bearing unit, the process results in it being multiply-linked. The effect can be seen wherever a
H tone is followed by two L tones within the same phonological word. Example (92) shows this in
the citation form of kó-ggòmbò 'bat' and (93) is an example of the standard genitive (associative)
tone pattern H L L. The next two examples both involve the irrealis mood, which superimposes an
19 There is never a three-way pitch contrast in Cicipu, and M tones only occur in predictable environments. Hence the
two-level tonemic analysis proposed here.
H L L tone pattern on top of the verbal word. Example (95) additionally involves the future prefix
u-.
(92) [kóɡːōmbò]
kó-ggòmbò
NC1-bat
bat
[eamd020.1019]
(93) [mɔ́ː
mókōːsì]
m-ɔ́ɔ
mó-ko-òsì
NC4-child
AG4-NC1-eye
pupil (eye)
[eamd007.010]
(94) [útānɡù]
u-tangu-HLL
3S-carry̠_on_head-IRR
let him carry on the head
[saat001.006.182]
(95) [túːjāntà]
tu-u-yanta-HLL
1P-FUT-squeeze-IRR
we will squeeze
[saat001.006.025]
The fact that this H M L sequence occurs in the future tense of verbs is evidence that the future
morpheme u and the verb are actually part of the same word. One educated native speaker has
expressed a preference for writing the future form of the verb as a single word – naturally more
consultation is required, but this initial judgement together with the phonological evidence should
be borne in mind in any orthographic decisions.
5.5 Polar tone
The tone on the copula is usually polar with respect to the previous syllable. In other words, if the
previous syllable is L, the copula is H (96), otherwise it is L (97). Naturally it is important to be
careful to avoid the effect of utterance-final L tones when investigating this area.
(96)
(97)
ìcíntò
y-í
kó-ggòmbò
k-é
NC3-doorway AG3COP
NC1-bat
AG1COP
it's a doorway
it's a bat
p-píyá
v-ì
kò-rúdú
k-è
NC8-
AG8COP
NC1-shelter
AG1COP
guineafowl
it's a doorway
it's a shelter
There do seem to be a lot of exceptions, however, and this area is not well understood yet. In
particular after a falling tone the copula is usually L, which is unexpected if a falling tone is to be
analysed as the sequence HL. Hausa also has a copula with polar tone and it may be that the Cicipu
construction has been borrowed. A comparison with the better-studied language would be
worthwhile here.
5.6 Lexical tone in nouns
Verbs in Cicipu are inherently toneless, their tonal melody being determined entirely by the
grammatical mood (see §5.7). Nouns, on the other hand, have lexically-specified tone. The citation
tone pattern is also the one found in the majority of syntactic environments, and is therefore
considered to be the basic one. In certain positions (e.g. VP complement) and after certain
modifiers, the tone on nouns is perturbed – this is discussed in §5.7. The following table shows the
distribution of native Cicipu roots20 according to their basic tone pattern.
20 It should be noted that the tone pattern in the plural is almost always identical to that in the singular. Therefore it
makes sense to talk about the 'root' tone.
Tone pattern
Tokens
Examples
H
72
kò-jóo 'lizard', ù-láa 'fire'
HL
25
d-dɔ̃̂ 'horse', ù-kwa ̃̂a 'skin'
L
4
ká-ssà 'leaf', wú-ntò 'guest hut'
HH
232
kà-dábá 'bush', ì-ɗáná 'line'
HL
197
kù-cíɡà 'cock', kù-jénè 'river'
LH
35
ì-bèyé 'rice', mà-ccìjíi 'calabash'
L HL
19
kɔ̀-kɔ̀yɔ̃̂ɔ 'snail', kɔ̀-ppɔ̀ɗɔ̃̂ɔ 'frog'
LL
18
kó-ggòmbò 'bat', ká-kkùtì 'shell'
HHH
36
ì-cícípú 'prayers', kà-ppítítú 'bubble'
HHL
3
lɔ́wɔ́lì 'spider', ko-órórì 'owl'
HLH
8
kò-mísòoní 'story', kà-sákkàllá 'tree, k.o.'
H L HL
13
HLL
6
kà-cáacùwà 'fine loincloth', ké-kkérùkè 'hornbill'
LHH
1
kà-cìtúwá 'exchange'
LHL
25
tì-zàarúmà 'flea', kà-nàbáyì 'news'
LLH
4
mɔ̀-rìgìdɔ́ 'navel', kà-gàatàɓɔ ̃́ɔ 'praying mantis'
Table 21: Monosyllabic, disyllabic, and trisyllabic tone patterns in nouns according to number of entries in the lexicon
5.7 Grammatical tone
Grammatical tone refers to a tonal change which signals not a lexical difference of the kind shown
in (98), but a grammatical difference as in (99).
(98)
(a) káayá
(b) káayà
room
bean
HH
HL
(99)
(a) ǹ-dúkwà
(b) ń-dùkwà
I went
I should go
LHL
HLL
The tone patterns on the nouns in (98) make no isolatable contribution to the meaning of the word,
no more than the phoneme /k/ can be said to have a meaning. Consequently the tones on the
lexemes káayá and káayà are included in the lexicon along with the segmental phonemes, and the
corresponding word-forms are therefore treated as single morphemes. In contrast, the examples in
(99) share a common component of meaning, namely a GOING event involving the speaker as agent.
This time the tone patterns on the words do contribute a separable component of meaning, either
REALIS in (99a) or IRREALIS in (99b).
While they are conceptually distinct, lexical and grammatical tone can interact with each other
when a tone pattern associated with a grammatical category is superimposed on a noun or verb with
inherent lexical tone. Cicipu nouns provide a good example. In isolation or when functioning as
subject, each noun is pronounced with a particular tone pattern, and these have to be learned
individually. However they are also affected by grammatical tone, in that they may take on different
tone patterns depending on the syntactic context. Verbs on the other hand are inherently toneless,
and the tones with which they surface are determined entirely by grammatical properties such as
mood or aspect. The following example sets should clarify the distinction:
(100)
(101)
(a)
ùhyâan
ùdúkwà
u-hyaan-LHL u-dukwa-LHL
3SG-say-RLS
3SG-go-RLS
he said he went
(b)
ùhyâan
údùkwà
u-hyaan-LHL u-dukwa-HLL
3SG-say-RLS
3SG-go-IRR
he said he should go
(c)
ùhyâan
dúkwà
u-hyaan-LHL d-dukwa-HL
3S-say-RLS
2SG-go-RLS
he said you went
(d)
ù-hyâan
u-hyaan-LHL
3S-say-RLS
he said “goǃ”
(a)
àcâa
a-caa-LHL
3P-give-
cìkùlù
cì-kúlú-LL
NC6-tortoise-
RLS
CMPL
dùkwá
dukwa-LH
go-IMP
tìwɔ́mɔ́
tì-wɔ́mɔ́
NC6-chief
they gave the chieftancy to the tortoise
(b)
àcâa
a-caa-LHL
3P-give-
cìkúlú
cì-kúlú
NC6-tortoise
tí-wɔ̀mɔ̀
tí-wɔ́mɔ́-LL
AG6-chief-GEN
RLS
they gave the tortoise of the chief [e.g. response to 'What did they
give?]
These examples illustrate three different grammatical alternations involving just tonal changes. In
each case, the segmental material remains the same, but the different tone patterns superimposed on
(or interacting with) the words give rise to different grammatical categories, and hence different
meanings. In (100) the verb can be found in three different moods, depending on the tone pattern. In
(100a) the verb in the subordinate clause dukwa has a H L pattern with a low-tone third-person
prefix, which together indicate realis mood, while in (100b) dukwa has a L L pattern with a hightone prefix, this time indicating irrealis mood. Examples (100c) and (100d) illustrate a similar
contrast, this time between realis and imperative moods, and involving the second person. Example
(101) demonstrates two further tonal processes. First, note that the tone on ci-kulu 'tortoise' is
different in (101a) and (101b). In (101b) the citation form H H 21 appears, but in (101a) the tone is
L L, a pattern which occurs with certain nouns in the complement position of the verb phrase.
Secondly, the root wɔmɔ 'chief' also varies in tone. This time (101a) shows the citation pattern of the
NC6 noun tì-wɔ́mɔ́ 'chieftancy' (H H), while (101b) shows a perturbed form (L L) in the genitive.
21 The tone on prefixes is almost always predictable. H H here refers to the tones on the noun root.
The fundamental distinction in Cicipu verbs is mood. There are a number of tense and aspect
morphemes but none of them are obligatory, and very often the verbal word consists simply of a
subject agreement prefix together with the verb root. Mood, however, must always be specified, and
this of course is tied into the way in which this category is encoded – through the tonal melody of
the verbal word. No speaker can produce a pitchless utterance, and so every clause has a specific
value for moodː realis, irrealis, or imperative.
In the realis mood the basic realis tone pattern is LHL, although in certain circumstances it is HL.
Specifically, if the verb has a subject agreement prefix capable of bearing tone (i.e. V or CV before
a consonant-initial root, or a sonorant consonant before a vowel-initial root), then the tone is LHL.
If the verb has a null prefix, or if the prefix consonant before a vowel-initial root is non-sonorant,
then the pattern is HL. The four possibilities are illustrated below:
(102) [kàdúkʷà
ẁáːjà
káːjà
dúkʷà]
ka-dukwa-LHL
w-aya-LHL
k-aya-HL
Ø-dukwa-HL
AG1-go-RLS
3S-come-RLS
AG1-come-RLS
AG8-go-RLS
it went
he came
it came
it went
Since there is not usually a clear boundary between approximants and vowels, the sequence of a
L-tone approximant followed by a H-tone vowel is, in practice, realised as a rising contour across
both segments. In monosyllabic verbs, which always have a long root vowel (at least on the
surface), the L H L is realised as L HL, with a falling tone on the verb root:
(103) ùcâa
u-caa-LHL
3S-give-RLS
he gave
In the irrealis mood the basic tone pattern is HLL, with H being realised on the subject agreement
prefix. For vowel-initial verbs such as aya 'come' the sequence of H (linked to the prefix) and L
(linked to the first root syllable) is realise as a falling tone HL across the first syllable. The
difference between the realis and irrealis forms of vowel-initial verbs can be difficult to hear for the
outsider not used to tone languages, but native speakers are very clear about the distinction. The
difference is clear when the pitch track of the sounds is analysed using a program such as Praat, as
can be seen in figures 12 and 13.
500
h
e:
w
e
0
0
0.492042
Time (s)
Figure 13: Pitch track for hêewè 'they should refuse' (irrealis)
500
h
e:
w
0
0
e
0.500417
Time (s)
Figure 12: Pitch track for héewè 'they refused' (realis)
In the imperative mood there is no subject agreement prefix. The basic melody is (L)* H – in other
words, the final tone is H, and all previous tones are L. Monosyllabic imperatives are simply H
tones, as shown in (105). As was mentioned in §5.4, if there is an object with an initial L tone in the
complement position to the right of the verb, then the final H of the verb spreads rightward.
(104) dùkwáǃ
dukwa-LH
go-IMP
goǃ
(105) sɔ́ɔǃ
sɔɔ-H
drink-IMP
drinkǃ
If there are suffixes after the verb root, then the H tone is realised on the last suffix, as in (106). The
imperative tone pattern can therefore be thought of as 'lining up' at the right-hand side of the verbal
word, in contrast to the realis and irrealis patterns, which line up at the left. The complement
personal pronouns do not count as part of the word for this calculation, as shown in (107) - in fact
this is one of the motivations for analysing them as pronouns rather than as affixes or clitics.
(106) yàanáǃ
yaa-na-LH
arrive-DIR-IMP
arriveǃ [towards deictic centre]
[eaim003.1402]
(107) dàmùwá
vìǃ
dama-wa-LLH
vì
speak-APPL-
3S.PR
IMP
O
tell himǃ
[eaim003.1411]
Finally, there is an interesting interaction between vowel quality and tone in imperatives, in that if
the final vowel of the verb is /u/ then the tone is realised as falling rather than as H, as in (108). It is
not known whether this is phonologically significant – for example, whether these imperatives still
result in the spread of H-tone into the complement position. According to Yip (2001ː 32-33) this
kind of phonologically-significant interaction is very rare or non-existent cross-linguistically.
(108) tu ̃̂uǃ
cìɗònûǃ
tũu-HL
bury-L L HL
pour-IMP
bury-IMP
pourǃ
buryǃ
[eamd006.004, eamd006.009]
Turning now to nouns, it seems to be that one particular complex perturbation operates on nouns
within a great many syntactic constructions. The affected positions include the possessor NP in the
genitive22 construction, the complement position of the verb, the complement position of the
preposition/locative proclitic Á-, after the presentative ìndúu, and in the NP complement of
{pronoun copula NP} equational clauses.
The topic will not be dealt with fully here – in particular, with respect to verbs, care must be taken
to distinguish between complement position and linear order. Marten (2005) discusses a similar
phenomenon in the Bantu language Herero, where complement case is also found after prepositions
and in presentational constructions. For the moment, I will list the data that must be accounted for
by an analysis, and suggest a preliminary and unfortunately rather clumsy derivation of the various
tone patterns that are found.
The discussion will precede as follows: starting with the locative proclitic A- I will gradually build
up a unified derivation of tone patterns that works for all nouns in this construction. In fact the same
tone perturbations are found in the genitive, presentative, and equational clauses, as well as the
complement position of the VP, and hence a single derivation will suffice for all of these
environments.
Consider the examples in (109-111). The citation forms of the nouns is H, but the perturbed form
after the high-tone locative is L.
(109) c-ci ̃́i
á=
c-ci ̃̀i
NC8-python
LOC=
NC8-python
python
by the python
[eamy040.001.020]
(110) ka-ádándá
á=ka-àdàndà
NC1-thorn
LOC=NC1-thorn
thorn
by the thorn
[eamy040.001.014]
(111) ku-úlílú
á=ku-ùlìlù
NC9-shade
LOC=NC9-shade
shade
in the shade
[eamy040.001.003]
Examples (112-113) differs from those above in that the first syllable of the citation form is L and
the rest are H – it looks like this L-tone will have to spread right the way through the word.
(112) mò-ríngínó
ó=mò-rìngìnò
NC4-spine
LOC=NC4-spine
spine
on the spine
[eamy040.001.012]
22 The genitive (or associative) construction can be schematised as {NP1 AG1-NP2}, where the first NP is the
possessed and the second the possessor. The possessor NP, as well as its normal noun prefix, has an agreement
prefix indexing the possessed noun. There is no sign of any 'associative morpheme' other than a perturbation in tone.
(113) k-kèeké
á=k-kèekè
NC8-bicycle
LOC=NC8-bicycle
bicycle
on the bicycle
[eamy040.001.005]
The next few examples show three levels of pitch phonetically. Since there is a never a three-way
phonological contrast in pitch level in Cicipu, one of the three levels must be accounted for by a
phonetic rule – and as saw in the latter part of §5.4 a H L L sequence within a word often becomes
H M L. This rule (which we will refer to as M-spread) obviously does not always apply – see (110113) above – so it must be considered optional23. This rule together with the L-spreading rule that
we invoked for (109-113) accounts for these derivations.
(114) rù-pɔ ̃́ɔ
á=rū-pɔ ̃̀ɔ
NC3-granary
LOC=NC3-granary
granary
in the granary
[eamy040.001.001]
(115) kò-dóndó
á=kō-dòndò
NC1-garden
LOC=NC1-garden
garden
in the garden
[eamy040.001.002]
(116) ká-áyá
á=ka-āyà
NC1-hut
LOC=NC1-hut
hut
in the hut
[eamy040.001.004]
So far so good, although we might be concerned by the fact that the spread of L tones is not
otherwise attested in Cicipu, and neither is it obvious why a H tone should cause all subsequent
tones in the word to become low. More serious problems for this account arise, however, when we
look at the following set of examples.
(117) wú-ntò
á=wū-ntò
NC7-shelter
LOC=NC7-shelter
shelter
in the shelter
[eamy040.001.022]
23 It is not always easy to judge whether a particular sequence of tones should be transcribed H M L or H L L, since
depending on the consonant involved the tones run into each other to a greater or lesser extent. Interestingly the
effects of the various consonants can still be seen detected when the tone pattern is whistled, so the technique does
not help much in this respect.
(118) kó-ggōmbò
á=kō-ggòmbȍ
NC1-bat
LOC=NC1-bat
bat
by the bat
[eamy040.001.015]
(119) d-dɔ̃̂ɔ
á=d-dɔ᷆ɔ
NC8-horse
LOC=NC8-horse
horse
on the horse
[eamy040.001.011]
(120) t-ta ̃̂a
á=t-tã᷆a
NC8-horse
LOC=NC8-bow
bows
by the bows
[eamy040.001.021]
(121) g-gwéedíbè
á=g-gwēedībè
NC8-main_road
LOC=NC8-main_road
main road
on the main road
[eamy040.001.009]
(122) ká-kkàcíi
á=kā-kkàcīi
NC1-middle
LOC=NC1-middle
middle
in the middle
[eamy040.001.007]
In each of these examples the citation tone pattern is exactly preserved after the locative, so clearly
it cannot be the case that all the tones have become L. Instead these particular examples can be
accounted for if we assume that downstep has occurred immediately after the locative morpheme,
resulting in a downward resetting of the pitch register from that point onward. This explanation also
accounts for (109-111), although it cannot on its own handle examples (112-116), even when we
also take the M-spread rule into account. To solve this problem we need one more rule, the
motivation for which comes from examples such as the following:
(123) kà-'íngàwà
á=kā-'īngàwà
NC1-village
LOC=NC1-village
village
in the village
[eamy040.001.006]
(124) mè-rédèndêe
á=mē-rēdènde᷆e
NC4-swing
LOC=NC4-swing
swing
on the swing
[eamy040.001.010]
(125) kù-cígà
á=kū-cīgà
NC9-cock
LOC=NC9-cock
cock
by the cock
[eamy040.001.017]
(126) mà-nnû
á=mā-nnu᷆
NC4-bird
LOC=NC4-bird
bird
by the bird
[eamy040.001.019]
(127) kò-yòngólì
á=kōyōngōlì
NC1-ant_k.o.
LOC=NC1-ant_k.o.
ant
by the ant
[eamy040.001.016]
Note that the tone patterns in the perturbed nouns of all these examples is identical to that of the
citation form, other than the fact that some of the tones at the beginning of the word are higher than
they should be. In (123-126) the prefix tone is at the same level as the first root tone, rather than
lower. In the perturbed form of (127) the prefix tone and the first root tone are now at the same
level as the third root tone. What this suggests is that H-spreading is applying, from the á across
following L tones in the usual way. The reason why this was not immediately obvious is that it is
operating in conjunction with a downstep rule. The three rules mentioned so far (downdrift, Hspreading, and M-spread) account for all the data that has been investigated so far. Sample
derivations for (112) and (114) are given in (128) and (129):
(128) Underlying formː á mòríngínó
H-spreadː
á móríngínó
Downstepː
á mòrìngìnò
(129) Underlying formː á rùpɔ ̃́ɔ
H-spreadː
á rúpɔ ̃́ɔ
Downstepː
á rùpɔ ̃̀ɔ
M-spreadː
á rūpɔ ̃̀ɔ
Since the same perturbations occur in all the other environments mentioned above, the same set of
rules can be applied. In some of these environments the tone immediately before the perturbed noun
is H, as with the locative proclitic dealt with above. In other constructions, particularly in the
complement of the VP in realis mood, the preceding tone is L – it is difficult to see what the trigger
for H-spread might be in this case. More generally, the fact that this complex sequence of rules has
had to be invoked in all sorts of apparently unrelated syntactic environments suggests very strongly
that a much simpler analysis exists than the one offered here. This subsection should therefore be
viewed as a 'straw man' to stimulate a better solution.
6
Vowel harmony
There is widespread vowel harmony in Cicipu. Vowels from the set {o, ɔ, e, a} are mutually
exclusive in roots, regardless of word class. So if a root contains /a/, its other vowels must come
only from the set {a, i, u}, /e/ only occurs with {e, i ,u}, and so on. The vowel harmony system
operates throughout the lexicon, without exception apart from some compounds (§6.2) and
loanwords (§6.3).
6.1 Distribution of vowels in CVCV noun roots
Table 22 below shows the distribution of vowels in CVCV noun roots. For simplicity the table only
include roots where both vowels are short and oral, but the same restrictions hold for long and nasal
vowels, for both nouns and verbs – vowel harmony is absolute in native roots. The empty cells are
shaded to highlight the pattern.
i
e
a
ɔ
o
u
i 10
1
16
2
13
14
e 5
9
a 9
4
28
ɔ 3
13
o 4
u 3
12
1
4
6
8
1
8
13
Table 22: Vowel co-occurrence restrictions in CVCV noun roots where V1 and V2 are both short oral vowels (V1 down
the left, V2 along the top)
6.2 Affixes
Many nominal and verbal affixes harmonise according to the same pattern that has just been
outlined above. Nouns from three of the nine Cicipu noun classes, classes 1, 2, and 4, are formed by
adding to the root the harmonising prefixes kA-, A-, and mA- respectively. Unlike the north-western
West Kainji languages (c.f. Hoffman 1967 for C'Lela), where prefixes often just consist of a
consonant followed by a short transitional schwa, Cicipu prefixes follow the Kambari/Kamuku
pattern whereby the prefixes always have phonetically full (but still short) vowels. The quality of
the vowel in these classes is determined by the root vowels as follows:

If the root contains /e/, then the prefix vowel will be [e]

If the root contains /o/, then the prefix vowel will be [o]

If the root contains /ɔ/, then the prefix vowel will be [ɔ]

Otherwise the prefix vowel will be [a]
These rules do not need to be ordered, since the strong vowel harmony operative in the language
(§6.1) ensures that the four vowels involved are mutually exclusive. When speakers pronounce a
word carefully, they often pronounce the prefix [ka] (or [a], or [ma]), regardless of the root vowels
which are to follow. There may also be dialectal variation since it appears that Tidipo speakers are
more likely to pronounce the prefix vowel as [a] than Tirisino speakers. With that in mind, I have
analysed the underlying vowel in these harmonising prefixes as /a/, and in this paper such vowels
are written A as in kA-.
While the above rules predict the vowel quality of the prefix in the majority of cases, there is an
additional factor involved when it comes to roots which only have close vowels. Roots with only
[i] or [u] sometimes occur with prefixes containing the mid vowels [e] and [o] respectively, rather
than the [a] which we would normally expect. This can be viewed as an assimilatory process, with
the underlying prefix vowel /a/ raising in the environment of a high-vowel root, but there does not
seem to be any way to predict whether or not this process will in fact occur. This is true even at the
level of individual roots, as shown by mè-gísì and kà-gísì in (130).
(130) kè-bìmbîi
buzzing insect, k.o.
mè-gísì
walking stick
kè-bíkí
celebration (from Hausa biki)
kà-yíví
cold tuwo
ká-ɗìsíi
spot
kà-gísì
stick
(131) kó-cìyû
heap
kò-ɗûu
heart
kò-lúu
knee
kà-búngú
snake
kà-gúutù
buttock
kà-núu
head of corn
There remain some nouns whose prefixes cannot be accounted for either by harmonisation or by
assimilation. The words in (132) should have the prefixes ma-/ka- according to the first set of
rules, and me-/ke- according to the second. The roots in all such examples so far have contained
only /i/ vowels, and the prefix vowel has always been /o/.
(132) mòhi ̃́'i ̃̀
blood
mò-si ̃́i
shame
mò-ní
water
kò-zíní
ghost
The word mà-de ̃́i 'calf (body part)' may be an exception to the otherwise universal application of
vowel harmony, since it seems to have a consistent [a] vowel in the prefix. It may be that the usual
rules do not apply to diphthongs – this is the only example of a monosyllabic root involving /ei/ or
/ eu/. Words containing the diphthongs /ai/ and /au/ also take prefixes with [a] vowels, but as
discussed above this may just be the default value of the prefix.
In addition to noun prefixes and the corresponding gender agreement prefixes, several inflectional
and derivational verbal affixes contain harmonising vowels, as shown below.
Affix
Gloss
Examples
A-
3P person agreement
(-)
-wA
applicative
(-)
-wA
passive
(-)
-wA
negative
(-)
-nA
perfective
(-)
-nA
directional
(-)
-nA
plural imperative
(-)
-kwA
suffix for borrowed verbs
(-)
(133) á-dùkwà
ɔ́-dɔ̀nɔ̀
3P-go\IRR
3P-follow\IRR
they should go
they should follow
[saat001.006.011, saat001.006.044]
(134) tì-ya ̃́a-wà
mí-dòonù-wò
1P-do\RLS-APPL
AG5-sit\IRR-APPL
we did to [him]
may they stay with [you]
[saat001.006.114, saat001.002.026]
(135) mà-síɗù-wà
AG4-heat\RLS-PASS
gòlù-wò
cut-PASS
it [water] spoiled [lit. got hot] [he] gets cut
[eate005.002.083, eate004.003.005]
(136) ù-hálù-wà
ù-'úmbù-wò
3S-coil\RLS-NEG
3S-close\RLS-NEG
it uncoiled
it opened
[eaim010.114, saat001.008.097]
(137) à-dúkwà-nà
kù-'íngò-nò
3P-go\RLS-PFV
AG9-go_home\RLS-PFV
they had gone
it had gone home
[saat001.006.008, saat001.006.088]
(138) sékè-nè
ù-yúwò-nò
release\RLS-DIR
3S-fall\RLS-DIR
[he] released down
he fell down
[saat002.005.046, saat002.005.076]
(139) ya ̃́a-nàǃ
sèkèlù-wé-nè ǃ
do-PL.IMP
move-PASS-PL.IMP
[you(pl.)] doǃ
[you(pl.)] move over thereǃ
[saat001.002.107, saat002.002.172]
(140) ù-gwáanù-kwà
ù-tɔ́ɔrù-kwɔ̀
3S-understand\RLS-LW
3S-push\RLS-LW
he understands
he pushes
[eaim010.106, eabg001.124]
Finally the locative proclitic A- also harmonises with the following word:
(141) é-k-kèekè
ó-ko-òcì
LOC-NC8-bicycle
LOC-NC9-hole
on a bicycle
into a hole
[sapf001.005.011, svtmg001.177]
In all the other affixes the vowel is either /i/ or /u/, which are neutral with respect to these affixes.
Harmonisation often 'passes through' these non-harmonic prefixes. In (142) below the agreement
prefix ko- harmonises with the root hóomòwò, despite the intervening non-harmonising NC9
prefix ku-. The same process can be seen with the habitual prefix si- in (143). All affixes with
neutral vowels in Cicipu appear to be 'transparent' rather than 'opaque' with respect to vowel
harmony.
(142) kà-mángá
NC1-rope
kó-kù-hóomòwò
AG1-NC9-tree(k.o.)
rope of the kuhoomowo tree
[eaim006.1454A]
(143) è-sì-zè'e ̃̀zé'e ̃̀
3P-HAB-dance-dance
they dance
[eahs001.002.011]
6.3 Compounds and larger domains
Compound words are sometimes but not always subject to harmonisation. The example in (144)
shows harmonisation at work, but not the one in (145).
(144) méngétàarì
mé-ngé-t-a-árì
NC4-child-?-NC2-
man
boy
(145) kwákúllè
ku-a ̃́'a ̃́-kú-llè
NC9-day-AG9-that
then
Vowel harmony is not always limited to morphological compounds, and the phenomenon
sometimes crosses over lexical boundaries, especially in quick speech, which is subject to severe
vowel elision. Despite the occurrence of examples such as (146), on most occasions vowel harmony
is a good indicator of word boundaries.
(146) [ʔɛ̃́sīː
vè]
'ɔ́sù
ha-ívè
place
AG2-3P.POSS
their place
[eaim009.023]
6.4 Loanwords
Borrowed noun and verb roots vary with respect to harmonisation, and the outcome depends at least
in the length of time since the word was borrowed (or perhaps better, on how deeply entrenched the
word is in the speech community). Demonstrably modern borrowings such as róobà 'plastic' may
occur with conflicting vowels, but in general harmonisation does take place, as illustrated in (147)
and (148). Normally it is the first vowel that changes, although not exclusively as the example of
kwáanù in (147) shows. The examples in (148) show that true harmonisation is involved, rather than
simply the vowel-raising which typically occurs when words are borrowed from Hausa to Cicipu
(see §4.1). There is no difference in vowel height between gwede and gode, or between rootoo and
reto. Instead the vowels have harmonised 'sideways'.
(147) rùuká
from roka
'chatting'
mè-ttégù from taggo
'shirt'
kollo
from kallo
'look'
kwáanù
from kwano 'metal container'
(148) gwede
róotòo
from gode
'thank'
from reto
'hanging'
6.5 Cross-linguistic comparisons
The Cicipu vowel harmony system is essentially identical to that of Central Kambari, and very
likely the other Kambari languages as well. The system is distinct from those usually reported in the
literature that the harmonisation rules cannot be stated using distinctive features. Vowels do not
harmonise according to height, or roundness, or backness – complete assimilation is involved if the
root contains one of the four harmonising vowels. The most concise way to state the rule is as
follows (assuming that all harmonising prefixes have an underlying /a/ vowel):
(149)
If there are two [-high] vowels in a phonological word then they must be identical
I am not aware of any other vowel harmony systems of this nature outside of West Kainji.
7
Nasalisation
We have already seen that Cicipu has a full complement of nasal vowels, both short and long, as
well as two nasal consonant phonemes /n/ and /m/. Nasalisation is not usually confined to single
segments, however, and it may spread a considerable distance. This section is concerned with the
phonemes affected by the process, the direction of spread, and the domain of nasalisation.
7.1 Phonemes affected
In addition to the six short and long nasal vowels, the approximants /w/ and /y/ have nasal
allomorphs [w ] and [y ]:
(150) [ma ̃̀ɡʷa ̃́ːw a ̃́
i ̃̀ju ̃̀j
u ̃̂]
ma-gwa ̃́awa ̃́
ì-yu ̃̀yu ̃̂
NC4-bruise
NC3-fly
bruise
flies (insects)
Vowels which have become nasalised due to the influence of other nasal segments do not have the
same properties as underlyingly nasal vowels – for example, only the latter trigger prenasalisation
(§2.5).
7.2 Direction
The spread of nasalisation from the nasals /n/ and /m/ is predominantly to the right, although spread
to the left does occur. Every vowel immediately following a nasal consonant is nasalised, whereas
nasalisation to the left is more variable; when it can be detected, it often seems to be weaker than
nasalisation to the right. Examples include ù-rùmo ̃́ 'dark' and kò-gíno ̃́ 'groundnut'.
If the first vowel in a root is nasal, then the second usually is too, as in kà-hi ̃́'i ̃̀ 'night' and yyu ̃̀yu ̃̂ [j ːu ̃̀j u ̃̂] 'fly'. Interestingly, a very high proportion of such roots have a glottal
consonant as C2. The liquids /r/ and /l/ never appear adjacent to a nasal vowel in noun or verb roots.
Root-internally no contrast has been found between oral and nasal vowels before a nasal consonant.
However this contrast definitely exists across morpheme boundaries – and since there are four
verbal suffixes beginning the /n/ it is relatively common. Compare the verbs yãa 'do' and yaa
'arrive', shown before the directional suffix -na in (151):
(151) [ùja ̃́ːna ̃̀
ùjáːna ̃̀]
ù-ya ̃́a-nà
ù-yáa-nà
3S-do\RLS-DIR
3S-arrive\RLSDIR
he did
he arrived
The existence of such a contrast is relevant orthographically, since if nasal vowels are represented
by writing an n after the vowel then there will be ambiguity in such cases. Unfortunately the two
verbs concerned also have grammatical meanings and are very frequent. The pairs sɔɔ 'drink' and
sõo 'cry', yu 'continuous aspect' and yũu 'cause', ta'a 'want' and tãa 'shoot' are also potential
sources of confusion, as well as being common words.
Although in general nasality spreads to the right, it can spread to the left from verb roots onto verb
prefixes. This leads to contrasts such as the following:
(152) (a) kà-ta ̃́a
(b kà-bárá ka ̃̀-ta ̃̂a
)
NC1-shoe
NC1-
AG1-shoot
elder
shoe
the old man shot
[2008-02-05.001]
(153) (a) à-ta ̃́a
(b a ̃̀) ta ̃̂a
NC2-shoe
3P-shoot
shoes
they shot
[2008-02-05.001]
7.3 Domain
Nasal spread seems to be confined to the word. Within the word, spread to the right can be blocked
by NC clusters (see §2.5 for details), as in ù-lénjí 'sun' and kà-búngú 'snake'. This fact goes some
way to explaining the apparent predominance of glottal stops between two nasal vowels – other
kinds of plosives may not occur directly after a nasal vowel without prenasalisation, and this then
blocks the spread of nasalisation. Moreover, the almost complete absence of ṼNCṼ within roots
suggests that most of time, in words such as kà-hi ̃́'i ̃̀ 'night' and kà-si ̃́'ya ̃́ 'breast' only
the first root is underlying nasal. There is in fact one root with a ṼNCṼ sequence, ù-ya ̃́nda ̃́u
'copaiba balsam tree' – this should be analysed as having two underlying nasal vowels.
8
Morphophonemic processes
8.1 Coalescence and elision
The coalescence of adjacent vowels and the elision of certain consonants at word boundaries is very
common in Cicipu, just as it is in many other African languages. When vowels are juxtaposed due
to the concatenation of two morphemes, the vowels coalesce, resulting in a long vowel, usually
bearing the quality of the second. And in addition, certain 'weak' consonants elide inter-vocalically
in prefixes, namely the approximants /w/ and /y/ and the glottal fricative /h/. The opportunity for
coalescence elision occurs in a number of different morphosyntactic environments.
First, and word-internally, vowel-initial noun and verb roots are always preceded by a prefix with
an apparent long vowel. This was discussed in §2.1 in some detail – in summary, the prefix and the
first vowel of the root coalesce to form a long vowel. The prefix vowel quality is lost and the
quality of the first root vowel is dominant. There is no-sign of the L tone usually found on noun
prefixes – instead nouns formed from vowel-initial roots almost always begin with a H tone.
A second type of word-internal elision occurs when two prefixes are adjacent to each other, and the
second prefix begins with a vowel. This occurs in the genitive or associative construction, as in
(154). In all such cases the quality of the second vowel is dominant.
(154) [tʃìm
táːhùlà
e ̃́'i ̃̀
háːvù]
cìme ̃́'
i ̃̀
tí-a-hùlà
ha-ávù
NC6-in
AG6-NC2-
AG2-2S.POSS
name
in your (sg. ) name
[saat001.001.011]
Sometimes, albeit rarely, coalescence fails to happen, and a glottal stop appears before the noun
prefix as in (155), just as if it were utterance-initial. It is not known what, if anything, governs the
occurrence or non-occurrence of coalescence in genitives.
(155) [mo ̃̀n
i ̃́
mò-ní
ma ̃́ʔàsːà]
má-a-ssà
NC4-water AG4-NC2-
leaf
the colour green [lit. 'water of leaves']
[eamy001.005]
Another environment where two noun prefixes come together is pre-prefixes – when a noun prefix
is attached to a noun stem consisting of a prefix and noun root. In this case, the vowels never
coalesce – like (156), a glottal stop is inserted before the inner prefix.
(156) [mèʔìɾí]
c.f. [ʔìɾí]
mè-ì-rí
ì-rí
NC4-NC3-thing
NC3-
thing
a small thing
a thing [utterance-initial]
[samoh001.122]
The conjunction ǹ 'and/with' and the locative á also coalesce with vowel-initial stems, and again the
second vowel in the sequence is dominant:
(157) [nàːka ̃́ntʃíɾí]
nì-à-káncírí
and-NC2-fingernail
with fingernails
[eaim006.1450]
(158) [úːɾè]
á-ù-ré
LOC-NC7-town
in the town
[eamd003.011]
Coalescence also occurs across word-boundaries, in which case the quality of either vowel may
dominate, although there is a clear preference for the second. The rules seem to be complex and are
by no means well understood. Examples (159-162) show coalescence in a variety of syntactic
environments.
(159) [ìtúmo ̃́ːʔúɡ
ò]
ì-túmó
yì'úgò
NC3-pregnancy AG3-throw
there was a miscarriage
[subject + subject prefix - eamd014.242]
(160) [àna ̃́hìːɗà]
à-náhà
ì-ɗà
3P-leave\RLS
NC3-ground
they left the land
[verb + complement - samoh001.027]
(161) [àbáɾáːvʷôː]
à-bárá
hó-vôo
NC2-old_man
AG2-1S.POSS
my old men
[noun + modifier - eamy005.038]
(162) [súːɗāng
à]
sée
ù-ɗángà
until
NC7-tree
just a tree
[conj + noun - samoh001.068]
In some cases (but by no means all), neither vowel predominates and the two vowels appear to have
'met in the middle'. So far, this has only been observed for the vowels /a/ and /i/ resulting in [e] as
in (163-164), but the same process may occur with back vowels as well.
(163) [háɾèːhʷáːɾà
]
hárì
à-hwáarà
until
3P-start\RLS
then they started
[samoh001.026]
(164) [béːta ̃́
ŋɡì]
báa
ì-tángì
NEG
NC3-item
no items
[samoh001.110]
In addition to vowel coalescence, the approximants /w/ and /y/ and the glottal fricative /h/ may elide
inter-vocalically in prefixes:
(165) [ʔásūːnà
]
'ásù
wú-nà
place(NC7)
AG7-ART
the place
[samoh001.029]
(166) [ìnáméllêːn
à]
ì-námà
yí-llè yí-nà
NC3-meat
AG3-
AG3-ART
that
that meat
[saat002.003.021]
(167) [àzíːkèː
ké]
à-zá
há-ì-kèeké
NC2-
AG2-NC3-bicycle
person
the cyclists [lit 'people of bicycles']
[sapf002.001.020]
In normal speech the elided and coalesced forms are more usual, especially for common and/or
grammatical constructions. Nevertheless they seem to be readily understood by native speakers as
contractions of the long forms, which may be preferable in writing since they preserve word-shape.
Particularly common constructions involving elision and coalescence include 'ásù wúnà
[ʔásūːna ̃̀] 'where' (lit. 'the place'), ìrí yínà [ìɾíːna ̃̀] 'what' (lit. 'the thing'), and àzá hánà
[àzáːna ̃̀] 'the ones'.
8.2 Homorganic nasals
All NC clusters in Cicipu are homorganic. This is a very common pattern cross-linguistically,
although it is not universal (including C'Lela in West Kainji – Steve Dettweiler p.c.). Four
grammatical morphemes in Cicipu are comprised solely of a syllabic nasal, homorganic with the
following consonant. These are the 1S subject agreement prefix, the NC5 noun and agreement
prefixes, and a conjunction meaning 'and/with'. As the examples below show, it is possible to
postulate an underlying nasal according to the form of these morphemes when they occur before
vowels. It can be assumed that the person, noun class, and gender agreement prefixes are all
underlyingly /m/, while the conjunction is underlyingly /n/. This should be borne in mind for
orthographic decisions.
(168) ǹ-dúkwà
mu-úwà
1Sgo\RLS
1S-feel\RLS
I went
I felt
[saat001.005.021, eate004.001.027]
(169) ǹ-tɔ́ɔ
mí-llú
NC5-hen
NC5-neck
hens
necks
[eamd004.028, eamd020.977]
(170) ǹtɔ́ɔ
NC5-
ń-kù-sa ̃̀a
mì-nnû
mí-kà-bàrà
AG5-NC9-mountain
NC5-bird AG5-NC1-elder
hen
stone partridge
the birds of the old man
[eamd021.B1, eamd032.209]
(171) ù-yôo
3Sgo\RLS
ǹ
mo-ólò
Lágòs
yôo
and
NC4-guitar
Lagos
be/RL and-NC7-distance
he had a guitar
nu-ù'wîi
S
Lagos is far away [lit. has distance]
[saat001.007.019, eati001.1522]
8.3 u-anticipation
Cicipu has a number of homophonous prefixes -wA (applicative, passive, negative – see
§6.2 for examples). On the application of any of these prefixes the final vowel of the stem to
which it is attached changes to [u] regardless of its underlying quality.
root
applicative
passive
negative
gloss
dama
damuwa
tell
bɔlɔ
bɔlɔwɔ
look for
'ɔpɔ
'ɔpuwɔ
hold
golo
goluwo
cut
hala
haluwa (uncoil) coil
'umbo
'umbuwo (open)
close
The same process occurs with the prefix kwA- found on borrowed verbs (172).
(172) gwaanukwa from gane
'understand'
daamukwa
from dama
worry
koyuko
from koya
'teach'
dennukwe
from danna
'compress'
This change of vowel is the result of a morphophonological rule rather than a phonological one,
since it only happens on the application of a prefix beginning with a labialised or labiovelar
consonant. Within lexical roots most vowels are found before labial consonants, as illustrated
below:
(173) lawa
escape
weewe
refuse
siiwa
untie
bɔwɔ
steal
8.4 i-anticipation
One of the more unusual features of Cicipu grammar is the split in verb and pronminal agreement
between paradigms that index purely person, and those that index both gender and person. Of
interest here is the distinction between two pronouns found in the complement position of the verbː
the NC8 gender-marked pronoun /vì/ and the 3s personal pronoun /vì/. In and of themselves, the
pronouns are homophonous. However consider the following examples:
(174)
(a)
Aː hán
(b) Aː hán
Aúdù?
where
Audu
where
Ø-vóotò
NC8-
goat
where's Audu?
Bː [míndì
vì
m-índà
vì
where's the goat?
Bː míndà
vì]
m-índà
v-ì
1S-see\RLS 3S.PRO
1ssee\RLS
AG8-PRO
I saw him
I saw it
[MY, 2007-02-05 - Gender and person subject agreement.odt]
The person-marked pronoun in (174a) triggers a morphophonemic spreading process which the
gender-marked one in (174b) does not. The /i/ from the person-marker vì spreads leftward,
changing the last vowel of the preceding verb complex. This happens without fail for every verb,
even monosyllabic verbs, and can therefore give rise to ambiguity as seen in (175).
(175)
ìntîin
vì
ìntîin
vì
ìn-tâan
vì
ìn-tûun
vì
1Sshoot\RLS
3S.PRO
1S-pour\RLS 3S.PRO
I shot him
I shot him [lit. I poured him]
[MY, 2007-03]
When combined with the ubiquitous vowel elision found in Cicipu (§8.1) there can be considerable
displacement of vowel qualities, as in (176):
(176)
[tʃíːvùː
ɾè]
cáa
vì
ù-rè
give\IMP
3S.PR
NC7-town
O
give him a townǃ
[saat001.005.059]
8.5 Vowel/approximant interaction
The final process to be covered in this section involves the approximants /y/ and /w/ and [+high]
vowels /i/ and /u/. Although it operates across morpheme-boundaries it also occurs within words,
and so is more properly classified as phonological than morphophonological. The effect is as
follows: if a high vowel occurs (either lexically or across a morpheme boundary) before one
beginning in an approximant with the opposite value for [front], then very often the vowel reduces
to an approximant and the approximant becomes a vowel so that /u + y/ → [wi]. It might be helpful
to think of the process metaphorically in terms of the /y/ as expanding and squashing the /u/ to the
left. When such words are pronounced very slowly then the anticipation usually does not occur, and
so the underlying vowel quality can be heard plainly. In the examples in (177) and (178) the rootinitial consonant /y/ changes to a [w] because of the u- prefix.
(177)
[kʷìúpù
àjúpù]
kù-yúpù
à-yúpù
NC9-crocodile
NC2-crocodile
crocodile
crocodiles
[eamd004.007]
(178)
[wí:ndà
jːíndà]
ù-yíndà
ỳ-yíndà
NC7-ebony_tree
NC8-ebony_tree
ebony tree
ebony trees
[eamd022.1159]
Examples of this effect inside roots include guya [ɡʷ ija] 'be able to' and kà-kúyá [kàkʷíjá]
'termite'.
Precisely the same effect is found in Hausa (Newman 2000:399), although it is not known whether
language contact is relevant here. Native speakers of Cicipu have shown a clear preference for
writing such sequences as uy rather than wiy and this should be borne in mind for orthography
design, especially given that native speaker preference matches with the underlying representations.
References
Casali, Rod. 2003. An introduction to ATR vowel harmony in African languages. LinguaLinks
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