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Research Interests: Philosophy and SIL
Research Interests: Computer Science and Noun
The Mbam languages of Cameroon have a unique position in Bantu linguistics. Being in between “narrow” Bantu and “wide” Bantu, they sometimes pattern with the one and sometimes with the other, and as such are a rich motherlode for... more
The Mbam languages of Cameroon have a unique position in Bantu linguistics. Being in between “narrow” Bantu and “wide” Bantu, they sometimes pattern with the one and sometimes with the other, and as such are a rich motherlode for comparative and historical research. The Mbam languages have another point of interest as well. They have been previously analysed as standard 7 vowel languages (/i,e,ɛ,a,ɔ,o,u/) with Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) harmony. While vowel harmony in African languages has received a lot of attention and study, and the vowel-harmony systems of not a few of the Mbam languages have been studied, most of the previous studies have been on individual languages. This study seeks to analyse and compare the vowel systems of ten Mbam languages as a group: both their vowel inventories and their vowel-harmony systems. Various issues in vowel harmony, such as neutral vowels, directionality in and domains of vowel harmony are discussed. This study also proposes a phonological ex...
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Whether tone should be represented in writing, and if so how much, is one of the most formidable challenges facing those developing orthographies for tone languages. Various researchers have attempted to quantify the level of written... more
Whether tone should be represented in writing, and if so how much, is one of the most formidable challenges facing those developing orthographies for tone languages. Various researchers have attempted to quantify the level of written ambiguity in a language if tone is not marked, but these contributions are not easily comparable because they use different measurement criteria. This article presents a first attempt to develop a standardized instrument and evaluate its potential. The method is exemplified using four narrative texts translated into Elip, Mbelime, and Eastern Dan. It lists all distinct written word forms that are homographs if tone is not marked, discarding repeated words, homophony, and polysemy, as well as pairs that never share the same syntactic slot. It treats lexical and grammatical tone separately, while acknowledging that these two functions often coincide. The results show that the level of written ambiguity in Elip is weighted towards the grammar, while in Mbe...
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... What may be the marked form in one context, may be the unmarked form in another context [Givan 1990:946]. ... Givan [1983:18] notes that when there is discontinuity, "more coding material" is required than would... more
... What may be the marked form in one context, may be the unmarked form in another context [Givan 1990:946]. ... Givan [1983:18] notes that when there is discontinuity, "more coding material" is required than would otherwise be necessary if there were no dis-continuity. ...
Whether tone should be represented in writing, and if so how much, is one of the most formidable challenges facing those developing orthographies for tone languages. Various researchers have attempted to quantify the level of written... more
Whether tone should be represented in writing, and if so how much, is one of the most formidable challenges facing those developing orthographies for tone languages. Various researchers have attempted to quantify the level of written ambiguity in a language if tone is not marked, but these contributions are not easily comparable because they use different measurement criteria. This article presents a first attempt to develop a standardized instrument and evaluate its potential. The method is exemplified using four narrative texts translated into Elip, Mbelime, and Eastern Dan. It lists all distinct written word forms that are homographs if tone is not marked, discarding repeated words, homophony, and polysemy, as well as pairs that never share the same syntactic slot. It treats lexical and grammatical tone separately, while acknowledging that these two functions often coincide. The results show that the level of written ambiguity in Elip is weighted towards the grammar, while in Mbelime many ambiguities occur at the point where lexical and grammatical tone coincide. As for Eastern Dan, with its profusion of nominal and verbal minimal pairs, not to mention pronouns, case markers, predicative markers, and other parts of speech, the level of written ambiguity if tone is not marked is by far the highest of the three languages. The article ends with some suggestions of how the methodology might be refined, by reporting some experimental data that provide only limited proof of the need to mark tone fully, and by describing how full tone marking has survived recent spelling reforms in all three languages.