Songs in African Tonal Languages: Contrasting the Tonal System and the Melody
Over the past fifty years there has been a dramatic increase in studies investigating the rules of tone-tune correspondence in vocal music performed in tonal languages. In this paper we argue that considering structural properties of tonal systems is important for studying the interaction between tone and melody. Using songs in Guinean Kpelle and Guro as test cases, we prove that contour tones are less preserved in melody than level tones, and surface tones are reflected in melody rather than underlying tones. We also show that syllable structure as well as style, genre and structure of songs affect tone-tune correspondence.
The Syntax of Tone in Guinean Kpelle
A major question challenging linguists who study the interaction between phonology and syntax is whether prosodic structure is organized as a syntax independent module of grammar with its own structure or whether there is one-to-one correspondence between prosody and syntax2. In recent years linguists have devised many theories addressing the issue, such as The Prosodic Hierarchy Theory (Selkirk 1980; Nespor and Vogel 1986 etc.), the Minimal Indirect Reference Model (Seidl 2001), Multiple Spell-Out Theory proposed by Dobashy (2003) and Ishihara (2003), Feature-chain Mapping Analysis presented by Elordieta (1997), the Match Theory of prosody-syntax interface (Selkirk 2009) – cf. Elordieta (2007) and Selkirk (2011) for up-to-date references. Unfortunately, most current studies of the phonology-syntax interface are based on rather limited typological sample. Concerning African languages, it is mostly Bantu languages that are discussed in literature – cf. (Downing 2013) for an overview. In this paper I study the interaction between prosodic and syntactic structure in Guinean Kpelle (GK), an underdescribed Southwestern Mande tonal language spoken in West Africa, Republic of Guinea. My syntactic approach to GK is largely based on Nikitina’s (2009, 2011) analysis of the Wan language. In this paper I focus on surface changes of tone in GK (the hɔ̰́ɔ̰́kwɛ̀lɛ̌ dialect). I argue that tone rules in GK are strongly sensitive to morphosyntactic structure, and in most cases prosodic structure can be derived from syntactic structure in this language. In other words, GK gives evidence of a strong syntax-phonology correspondence supporting the “Match” model of phonology-syntax interface as argued in Selkirk (2009, 2011). To my knowledge, Mande languages have never been discussed with respect to the phonology-syntax interface before. In this article I am going to introduce some new empirical data which might contribute to our understanding of the interaction between phonology and syntax.
Early Missionaries and the Ethnolinguistic Factor During the ‘Invention of Tribalism’ in Zimbabwe
There is evidence from across the disciplines that at least some of the contemporary regional names of African tribes, dialects and languages are fairly recent inventions in historical terms. This article offers some evidence from Zimbabwe to show that missionary linguistic politics were an important factor in this process. The South African linguist Clement Doke was brought in to resolve conflicts about the orthography of Shona. His Report on the Unification of the Shona Dialects (1931) shows how the language politics of the Christian denominations, which were also the factions within the umbrella organization the Southern Rhodesia Missionary Conference, contributed quite significantly to the creation and promotion of Zezuru, Karanga and Manyika as the main groupings of dialects in the central area which Doke later accommodated in a unified orthography of a unified language that was given the name Shona. While vocabulary from Ndau was to be incorporated, words from the Korekore group in the north were to be discouraged, and Kalanga in the West was allowed to be subsumed under Ndebele. Writing about sixty years later, Ranger focusses more closely on the Manyika and takes his discussion to the 1940s, but he also mentions that the Rhodesian Front government of the 1960s and 1970s deliberately incited tribalism between the Shona and the Ndebele, while at the same time magnifying the differences between the regional divisions of the Shona, which were, in turn, played against one another as constituent clans. It would appear then that, for the indigenous Africans, the price of Christianity, Western education and a new perception of language unity was the creation of regional ethnic identities that were at least potentially antagonistic and open to political manipulation. Through many decades of rather unnecessary intellectual justification, and as a result of the collective colonial experience through the churches, the schools and the workplaces, these imposed identities, and the myths and sentiments that are associated with them, have become fixed in the collective mind of Africa, and the modern nation states of the continent now seem to be stuck with them. Missionaries played a very significant role in creating this scenario because they were mainly responsible for fixing the ethnolinguistic maps of the African colonies during the early phase of European occupation. To a significant degree, these maps have remained intact and have continued to influence African research scholarship.