High tone spreading to the right

High Tone Spreading (HTS) targets the toneless morphemes of CV noun class prefixes and the verbal plural marker ŋɡa. hts onto CV noun class prefixes is restricted to specific grammatical environments including (i) H tone attributive markers and (ii) a floating H tone that marks objecthood. H tones from preceding lexical items do not spread.

In the first case, an H tone spreads from an attributive marker of a noun + noun attributive construction to the noun class prefix of the second noun, as in (69a). In contrast, the attributive marker in (69b) has an L tone. Thus, the follow-ing underlyfollow-ingly toneless noun class prefix of the second nominal constituent surfaces with L as well since it is underlyingly toneless and there is no H that could attach to it.

(69) a. bà-sɔ́

ba-sɔ́

ba2-friend bá bá 2:att

bá-tí ba-tí ba2-in.law

‘the friends of the in-laws’

b. sɔ́

sɔ́

∅1.friend wà wà 1:att

bà-tí ba-tí ba2-in.law

‘the friend of the in-laws’

(70) gives an autosegmental representation of (69a). It shows how the H from the attributive marker spreads to the right onto the toneless noun class prefix which then surfaces as H as well.

(70) ba ba-ti → ba ba-ti

H H H H

As discussed in §2.4.1.3, the noun class prefix is underlyingly toneless and only surfaces phonetically as L in isolation. If it was marked L, one would have to assume a more complicated rule of featural change or L deletion. Or, one would

expect an underlying L to affect an H stem by lowering the L in downstep. This is, however, not the case, as shown in Figure 2.9. Just as in (69a),mà-fwálá má bé-túmbɔ́‘borders (lit. ends of the countries)’ surfaces with an H on the prefix be-which has spread from the preceding attributive markermá. The pitch track in Figure 2.9, represented by the lower line, shows that there is neither downstep nor downdrift, but the pitch stays at the same level throughout the utterance.

Figure 2.9: Pitch in hts within the nominal domain

H tone lowering may occur towards stem-final positions if an H is preceded by an L, as shown by the lower pitch line in Figure 2.10. The final H in the noun + noun constructionbà-bwálɛ̀ bá bá-ntɛ̀mbɔ́‘the parents of the younger siblings’

is lower than the H tones on all other H syllables. This, however, seems to be a phonetic realization phenomenon rather than a phonological rule. The final H is affected both by the preceding L and its utterance-final position, lacking the energy to be produced with the same pitch as the preceding H tones.

The second grammatical environment where hts onto CV noun class prefixes occurs is with the floating object-linking H tone, which will be discussed in detail in §4.1.1.4 and §7.2.1.2. The fact that the object-linking H tone is indeed only realized on toneless TBUs is shown in (71). The nominal objectntúà‘mango’ in (71a) lacks an overt noun class prefix and thus the object-linking H tone does not attach. Also, phonetically, there is no change in the tonal pattern of the noun stem that could indicate the presence of the H tone.

Figure 2.10: Phonetic pitch lowering of final H after L

‘I want to eat a/the mango.’

b. mɛ́

‘I want to eat (the) mangoes.’

In contrast, the nominal objectmantúà‘mangoes’ in (71b) has a CV noun class prefix which takes the object-linking H tone.

Not every H tone preceding a toneless CV noun class prefix licences HTS. H tones that are part of a preceding lexical stem, like the H verb in (72), do not spread onto the toneless TBU, which surfaces as L. There is no object-linking H tone in this example because the noun phrase following the verb is not an argument, but an adjunct.

‘I fell two days ago.’

b. *mɛ̀

‘I fell two days ago.’

The same is true for a second object whose toneless CV noun class prefix fol-lows an H nominal stem, as in (73). The object-linking H tone only occurs after the (lexical) verb and only attaches to the object that directly follows it. A sec-ond object surfaces with an L CV noun class prefix, even if the preceding nominal stem ends in an H tone.

‘S/he feeds the squirrels kola nuts.’

b. *á

‘S/he feeds the squirrels kola nuts.’

The object-linking H tone can also attach to a verbal plural markerŋga, as it constitutes another morpheme that is underlyingly toneless and thus capable of hosting the H tone. hts onto the verbal plural marker is generally restricted to specific grammatical environments since this marker only occurs in a few positions. Testing grounds for hts are limited to a preceding HL pattern with imperative verbs and the preceding H tone of the negative auxiliarytí. These are described with examples in §3.9.2.2. To summarize the overall findings,ŋga fol-lows an imperative verb form that characteristically carries a final HL pattern. If ŋgais intonation phrase-final, it surfaces with L, as in (74a). Ifŋgais not phrase-final, the verbal marker hosts a potential object-linking H tone which it “steals”

from a nominal object, as in (74b). This example also shows that the H tone can-not spread further onto other toneless TBUs. The underlyingly toneless CV noun class prefix ofmantúà‘mangoes’ has to surface L.

(74) a. gyàgâ

b. gyàgâ gyàgâ buy.imp

ŋgá H-ŋga obj.link-pl

màntúà ma-ntúà ma6-mango

‘Buy (pl.) mangoes!’

The verbal marker also follows the negative auxiliarytí, which is then followed by a lexical non-finite verb. In this case,ŋgaalways takes the H tone from the preceding auxiliary, as illustrated in (75).

(75) tí tí neg.r

ŋgá ŋga pl

gyàgà gyàga buy

mántúà H-ma-ntúà

obj.link-ma6-mango

‘Don’t (pl.) buy mangoes!’

Given these positional restrictions, investigating the tonal behavior ofŋga fol-lowing, for instance, a lexical H tone, is therefore impossible.