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Penultimate lengthening and stress in Kinande

Journal: International Journal of Language Studies (Vol.8, No. 1)

Publication Date:

Authors : ;

Page : 109-124

Keywords : Penultimate Lengthening; Stress; Phantom Consonant; Intonational Phrase; Boundary Tone; Mora;

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Abstract

Words in isolation in Kinande, a narrow Bantu language of eastern DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), usually surface with a long vowel at the penultimate position. Verbal forms that do not exhibit this penultimate length can be shown to contain a phantom consonant which is part of the formative ?aC- that derives from the pre-final formative ?ag- in Proto-Bantu. It is argued in this paper that penultimate lengthening in Kinande is a manifestation of a metrical representation of stress and that its phonetic realization is due to a rule that turns a penultimate light syllable into a heavy one at the end of an intonation phrasal domain.

Last modified: 2014-01-27 16:23:01