Blackwell Reference Online

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Hausa, Chadic language spoken in Nigeria and Niger, has long attracted the attentioln of phonologists because of the richness of its inflectional and derivational morphology and because of interesting problems concerning gemination and vowel length. On the other hand, compared with languages of coastal West Africa or Southeast Asia, the tonal system of Hausa appears quite simple. It has just two basic level tones: H(igh), indicated by a acute accent á(a), e.g., jáa“pull” , and L(ow), indicated by a grve accent á(a), e.g., wáa “who?”, plus a F(alling) tone, indicated by a circumflex â(a) e.g., sâ(a) “bull”. (With long vowels, indicated by double letters, tone is marked on the first bowel only.) And yet, Hausa turns out to be an excellent language to illustrate essential concepts and problematic areas in the analysis of tone. This is partly because the tone system is relatively simple and easy to comprehend and partly because the surface simplicity masks a range of interesting complexities. In this chapter, I shall focus on four general tonological issues, drawing examples mostly from Hausa, but occasionally from related Chadic languages. Although the issues to be treated are all of importance to current phonological theory, my approach will be nonformalistic and, in some sense, atheoretical. That is, the attempt will be to provide analyses that fit properly with our overallknowledge ... log in or subscribe to read full text