Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa 9783111562520, 9783111191485

Table of contents :
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
CONTENTS
MASTER LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1945
THE PRESENT STATE OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS
WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY OF THE LANGUAGES, THEIR NOUN CLASS SYSTEMS AND CONSONANT ALTERNATION
NIGER-CONGO, MANDE
NIGER-CONGO, GUR
NIGER-CONGO, KWA
ADAMAWA-EASTERN
THE BENUE-CONGO LANGUAGES AND ỊJỌ
NIGER-CONGO, EASTERN BANTU
THE WESTERN BANTU LANGUAGES
THE CLICK LANGUAGES OF SOUTHERN AND EASTERN AFRICA
NILO-SAHARAN AND MEROITIC
CHADIC
DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE LINGUISTICS OF AFRIKAANS: A SURVEY OF MAJOR WORKS AND AUTHORS
ARABIC
PIDGINS AND CREOLES IN AFRICA
COLONIAL LANGUAGE POLICIES AND THEIR LEGACIES
LANGUAGE POLICIES OF INDEPENDENT AFRICAN STATES
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND LANGUAGE POLICIES
LANGUAGE TEACHING
PROBLEMS OF LITERACY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
ORTHOGRAPHIC SYSTEMS AND CONVENTIONS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
MULTILINGUALISM
LANGUAGES IN CONTACT
LANGUAGE STANDARDISATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
SURROGATE LANGUAGES OF AFRICA
THE LINGUISTIC ASPECT OF STYLE IN AFRICAN LANGUAGES
Appendix: CHECKLIST OF AFRICAN LANGUAGE AND DIALECT NAMES
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
INDEX OF NAMES

Citation preview

CURRENT TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS VOLUME 7

CURRENT TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS Edited by THOMAS

A.

SEBEOK

VOLUME

7

Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa Associate Editors: JACK BERRY - JOSEPH H . GREENBERG

Assistant Editors: DAVID W . CRABB - PAUL SCHACHTER

Assistant to the Editor: ALEXANDRA RAMSAY

1971

MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS

© Copyright 1971 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers. The research reported herein was performed pursuant to a contract with the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, under the authority of Section 602, Title VI, NDEA.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 64-3663

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.

EDITOR'S I N T R O D U C T I O N

Ever since 1964, Charles A. Ferguson has been pointing out that 'there has been general agreement that surveys and state-of-the-art papers are both urgently needed and presently feasible in linguistics' (cf., e.g., Information in the language sciences: Proceedings of the conference held at Airlie House, Warrenton, Virginia, March 4-6, 1966, under the sponsorship of the Center for Applied Linguistics, p. 29 [New York: American Elsevier, 1968]). The Weinberg Report, drafted for President Kennedy, had emphasized the challenge and intellectual stimulation presented by the preparation of high-quality contributions of this kind, and nicely compared the relationship of the reviewer to his widely scattered bits of knowledge with that of the theorist to available pieces of experimental data (Science, government, and information: A report of the President's Science Advisory Committee, p. 27 [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963]). In my Introduction to Vol. 6,1 cited the 1969 SATCOM Report to the effect that the forming of consolidations of information, as exemplified by many of the chapters of the Current Trends series, 'often requires great intellectual creativity' — as should also be self-evident from the eminence of the authorship involved throughout these volumes. A question that I am frequently asked, however, is whether the contents of articles in Current Trends are not soon superseded, or, more precisely, what the rate is at which a given item decays. The authors of the SATCOM report have something to say about this in general: a 'most important characteristic of review literature is that it retains its usefulness over a relatively long period of time. There are many qualitative indications of its slowness of obsolescence, and data from citation studies seem to support this fact' (p. 185). The citation studies referred to are a sample of physics papers; it was found that the probability for a typical research paper to cite a given review item decays at a very slow rate, 'falling by only a factor or two each decade'. While no comparable study has ever been undertaken in linguistics, it seems reasonable to conjecture that the decay rate in our discipline cannot be faster than that in physics, and is probably much slower. I am confident, therefore, that when Vol. 12 of this series, Linguistics and adjacent arts and sciences, shall have appeared — just about one decade after Vol. 1, Soviet and East European linguistics (1963) — the latter will hardly have obsolesced at all. One can only speculate whether Vol. 3, Theoretical foundations (1966) — which, by all accounts, seems to be the volume most frequently

VIII

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

cited in the linguistic literature among the six published so far — will endure as long as or longer than those organized around more data-oriented thematic foci. A related topic of perennial, if possibly a trifle morbid, fascination for some of my colleagues — foreign and domestic — has to do with the financial aspects of the series. The three questions I am most often asked are: where does the money come from, are the contributors paid, and is the publisher subsidized? As to the source of the funds, these have been scrupulously identified and acknowledged in my successive Introductions; but, to repeat: the preparation of Vols. 1-12 has been supported wholly by the United States government, with ancillary aid from The Canada Council. The U.S. funds have been funneled from four different federal agencies to two private organizations. Of the former, the Office of Education, which is a major division of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, has assumed responsibility for fully half of the project, as follows: VOLUME

4 5 6 7 11 12

TITLE

Ibero-American and Caribbean Linguistics Linguistics in South Asia Linguistics in South West Asia and North Africa Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa Diachronic, areal, and typological linguistics Linguistics and adjacent arts and sciences

RECIPIENT

AMOUNT

Indiana University Foundation

$ 28,674

Indiana University Foundation Center for Applied Linguistics

$ 35,466 $ 35,174

Center for Applied Linguistics

$ 41,000

Indiana University Foundation

$ 33,834

Indiana University Foundation

$ 91,038

Total USOE

$ 265,186

(The contract that made it possible to ready the present volume for press bore the identification USOE-OEC-3-7-062820-2076, and is hereby particularly, and most gratefully, acknowledged.) The financing of the remaining six volumes was shared by three other U.S. agencies, with the cost of Vol. 10 partially defrayed from Canada. The supportive role of our National Science Foundation will be detailed in my next Introduction, and of the rest in the appropriate volumes to follow. A decision was reached at the outset to offer each contributor a 'token' honorarium —a small payment intended merely to recognize the existence of an obligation incurred in distracting a scholar from his research activities or other normal pursuits. I confess that I have always found it embarrassing to intrude upon a busy colleague's life to impose some irksome labor, and my discomfiture would be intolerable had I been unable to tender at least a modicum of compensation, whether in cash or in kind. That this is not a true measure of my debt to the nearly two hundred language

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

IX

scientists who have so far responded affirmatively to a letter of invitation to contribute to this series should go without saying. The publishers of the series, Mouton & Co., undertake the composition, printing, and distribution of each volume entirely at their own risk, without any subsidy on the one hand, but without the liability for royalty payments on the other. The prices of the books are set by Mouton. They are regarded, by most linguists — especially by those innocent of the publishing business — as outrageously high. These colleagues should keep in mind that, in the early 1960's, I couldn't locate a single American commercial publishing house, or even a university press, willing to venture to take the series on without a huge government subsidy. At the same time, I have been trying to find solutions to two acute problems: how to get the books into the hands of students who most need them; and how to make copies available, cheaply and in sufficient quantities, in the regions of the world where most pertinent and wanted — e.g., Vol. 5 in Ceylon, India, and Pakistan; Vol. 7 throughout Sub-Saharan Africa; and so on. One approach toward helping needy students has been to issue selected chapters in separate, inexpensive booklets, as was done with articles by Chomsky, Greenberg, Haas, and Hockett, and will be done with past and future articles by Malkiel, Haugen and Markey, and hopefully many others. Permission to reprint, for inclusion in textbook-type readers, for instance, is routinely granted (provided the author concurs), as is also permission to translate an occasional selection for a regional publication, say, from Vol. 4, into Spanish, for a publication destined to be circulated mainly in Latin America. The average American or West European graduate student in linguistics is the one I had designated 'needy', a relative attribution. He, at least, may have access to a library with a more or less adequate collection of basic reference works. But what about his confrere in Afghanistan, Burma, Ecuador, or Senegal? How can a copy of Current Trends, Vol. 6, or 2, or 4, or 7 be gotten to him? I receive many letters, from every continent, asking for a complimentary copy of this or that volume, pleading personal poverty or national currency restrictions, often cogently. My means are too limited to meet these individual demands, no matter how persuasive, for they are simply too numerous. Whether mass distribution to at least the university libraries of developing countries is feasible with institutional support of some sort is being looked into at the present time. The state of the series as of six weeks ago was outlined in my Introduction to Vol. 6. To recapitulate briefly: Vol. 8, Linguistics in Oceania, will appear very shortly. Vol. 9, Linguistics in Western Europe, is in press. Vol. 10, Linguistics in North America, will be sent to press in the summer of 1970, with Vol. 11, Diachronic, areal, and typological linguistics, to follow in the fall. The three successive tomes of Vol. 12, Linguistics and adjacent arts and sciences, will then begin flowing to the printer beginning next winter. No decision has as yet been made as to Vol. 13, Index to Current Trends in Linguistics, Vols. 1-12, the complexities of which were partially delineated in the previous Introduction.

X

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

I have remarked before that the initial conception of an Editorial Board is seldom wholly realized in the final product. This volume is a conspicuous exception, for practically all the chapters envisaged in the original design are here, this despite the untimely death of Hans Wolff (1920-1967), the lengthy hospitalization of another Africanist invited to contribute, and the incredible difficulties of communication with certain colleagues in the field (particularly in what was formerly Biafra). In this connection, I want to thank especially J. H. Kwabena Nketia (University of Ghana), William J. Samarin (University of Toronto), Robert Terry (Indiana University), and E. O. J. Westphal (University of Cape Town), for completing their respective assignments under extraordinary pressure. The article of Emmi Kahler-Meyer was translated from the German by John F. Davis (University of California, Los Angeles). Members of this Editorial Board agreed to divide prime responsibility, in general, as follows: Joseph H. Greenberg (Stanford University), with David W. Crabb (Princeton University), for the first thirteen articles in the book, and Jack Berry (Northwestern University), with Paul Schachter (University of California, Los Angeles), for the remaining fourteen. The Master List of Abbreviations, Index of Languages, and Index of Names were compiled by Alexandra Ramsay (Center for Applied Linguistics); she also prepared all the articles for press and coordinated the processing of both galley and page proofs with the authors, editors, and production department. To the five friends already named in this paragraph, the twenty-two other contributors to this book — including three of the editors, Nketia with two articles, and Welmers with two plus the 'checklist' in the Appendix — and the publisher's staff, my hearty thanks for their cooperation. San Francisco, December 31, 1969

THOMAS A . SEBEOK

CONTENTS

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION MASTER LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

The History of African Linguistics to 1945, by Desmond T. Cole The Present State of African Linguistics, by Paul Schachter West Atlantic: An Inventory of the Languages, their Noun Class Systems, and Consonant Alternation, by J. David Sapir Niger-Congo, Mande, by Wm. E. Welmers Niger-Congo, Gur, by John T. Bendor-Samuel Niger-Congo, Kwa, by John M. Stewart Adamawa-Eastern, by William J. Samarin The Benue-Congo Languages and Jjg, by Kay Williamson Niger-Congo, Eastern Bantu, by Emmi Kahler-Meyer The Western Bantu Languages, by Malcolm Guthrie The Click Languages of Southern and Eastern Africa, by E. O. J. Westphal . . Nilo-Saharan and Meroitic, by Joseph H. Greenberg Chadic, by Robert R. Terry Descriptive Bibliography of the Linguistics of Afrikaans: A Survey of Major Works and Authors, by Marius F. Valkhoff Arabic, by Haim Blanc Pidgins and Creoles in Africa, by Jack Berry Colonial Language Policies and their Legacies, by John Spencer Language Policies of Independent African States, by W. H. Whiteley . . . Christian Missions and Language Policies, by Wm. E. Welmers Language Teaching, by Elizabeth Dunstan Problems of Literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa, by Philip J. Foster Orthographic Systems and Conventions in Sub-Saharan Africa, by A. N. Tucker Multilingualism, by Pierre Alexandre Languages in Contact, by Morris Goodman Language Standardisation in Sub-Saharan Africa, by Gilbert Ansre Surrogate Languages of Africa, by J. H. Kwabena Nketia The Linguistic Aspect of Style in African Languages, by J. H. Kwabena Nketia

v xi

1 30 45 113 141 179 213 245 307 357 367 421 443 455 501 510 537 548 559 570 587 618 654 664 680 699 733

XII

CONTENTS

Appendix: Checklist of African Language and Dialect Names, by Wm. E. Welmers . . .

759

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

901

INDEX OF NAMES

958

INDEX OF LANGUAGES

909

MASTER LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

JOURNALS AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Abbia ADAW Aequatoria Africa African Affairs Afrique et l'Asie AfrLR AfrLS AfrS AfrSB AmA AnL AnnMafrC AnnMRCB-L Anthropos AO Arabica ArchV ASCILNA AuÜ BAfr. BCCW BEASC BIFAN BS BSEC BSL BSOAS BT CAnthr. CEAfr. CNLNA

Abbia; Revue Culturelle Camerounaise/Cameroon Cultural Review. Yaoundé. Abhandlungen der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst. Berlin. Aequatoria. Revue des Sciences Congolaises/Tijdschrift voor Kongolese Wetenschappen. Coquilhatville (Congo Belge). Africa. Journal of the International African Institute. London. African Affairs, Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press. Afrique et l'Asie. Revue politique, social et économique. Paris. African Language Review. The African language journal of Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. Freetown. (Formerly SLLR.). African Language Studies. London. African Studies. Johannesburg. African Studies Bulletin. Brookline, Mass. American Anthropologist. Menasha, Wisconsin. Anthropological Linguistics. Bloomington, Indiana. Annales, Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale. Série in 8°, Sciences humaines. Tervuren, Belgium. Annales du Musée Royal du Congo Belge. Série in 8°, Science de l'homme, Linguistique. Tervuren, Belgium. Anthropos. Revue internationale d'ethnologie et de linguistique/ Internationale Zeitschrift für Völker- und Sprachenkunde. Fribourg (Switzerland). Archiv Orientâlni. Prague. Arabica. Revue d'études arabes. Leiden. Archiv für Völkerkunde. Vienna. Actes du Second Colloque International de Linguistique Négro Africaine, ed. by M. Houis and others. Dakar, West African Languages Survey. 1963. Afrika und Übersee. Sprachen, Kulturen. Folge der ZES. Berlin. Bibliotheca Africana. Innsbruck. Benue-Congo Comparative Wordlist, ed. by Kay Williamson and Shimizu Kiyoshi. Ibadan, West African Linguistic Society, 1968. Bulletin of the East African Swahili Committee. Kampala. Bulletin d'Institute Français de l'Afrique Noir. Série B. Dakar. Bantu Studies. Johannesburg. (Now AfrS.) Bulletin de la Société d'Études Camerounaises. Douala. (Now Études camerounaises.) Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris. Paris. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. London. The Bible Translator. Periodical for the assistance of Bible translators. London. Current Anthropology. A world journal for the sciences of man. Chicago. Cahiers d'Études Africaines. Paris. La classification nominale dans les langues négro africaines, ed. by G. Manessy. Paris, Colloques internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. 1967.

XIV

CSSH Études camerounaises Études dahoméennes FAE Genève-Afrique GL GLECS Globus GRM Hesp. Homme IJAL JAF JAfrH JAfrL JAOS JanL JAS JBRAS JEthS JL JMAS JRAI JRAS JSAfr. JSS JWAfrL Kongo-Overzee Kush Lg. Lingua Linguistics Man MDS MIFAN MIO MPhon. MSL MSLL MSOS NAfr. Nph. Orbis PA

MASTER LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Comparative Studies in Society and History. An international quarterly. The Hague. Études camerounaises. Douala. (Continuation of BSEC). Études dahoméennes. Porto-Novo (Dahomey). Fundamental and Adult Education. United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (UNESCO). Paris. Genève-Afrique/Acta Africana. Institut Africain de Genève. Geneva. General Linguistics. Lexington, Ky. Comptes Rendus du Groupe Linguistique d'Études Chamito-Sémitiques. Paris. Globus. Hildburghausen. Brunswick. ( = Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen). Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift. Neue Folge. Heideiburg. Hespéris. Archives berbères. Paris. L'Homme. Revue français d'anthropologie. Paris and The Hague. International Journal of American Linguistics. Baltimore. Journal of American Folklore. Philadelphia. The Journal of African History. London. Journal of African Languages. London. Journal of the American Oriental Society. New Haven, Conn. Janua Linguarum. Series maior, minor, and practica. The Hague, Mouton. Journal of the [Royal] African Society. London. (Now African Affairs). Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Bombay. Journal of Ethiopian Studies. Addis Ababa. Journal of Linguistics. London. Journal of Modern African Studies. A quarterly survey of politics, economics and related topics in contemporary Africa. London and New York. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. London. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. London. Journal de la Société des Africanistes. Paris. Journal of Semitic Studies. Manchester. The Journal of West African Languages. London. Kongo-Overzee. Ghent/Antwerp. Kush. Journal of the Sudan Antiquities Service. Khartoum. Language. Journal of the Linguistic Society of America. Baltimore. Lingua. International review of general linguistics/Revue internationale de linguistique générale. Amsterdam. Linguistics. An international review. The Hague. Man. A record of anthropological science. London. Mitteilungen aus den Deutschen Schutzgebieten. Berlin. Mémoires de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire. Dakar. Mitteilungen des Instituts für Orientforschung, Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Berlin. Le Maître phonétique. Organe de l'Association Phonétique Internationale. London. Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris. Paris. Monograph Series on Languages and Linguistics, Georgetown Univeisity. Washington, D.C. Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen. Berlin. Notes Africaines. Bulletin d'information et de correspondance de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire. Dakar. Neophilogus. Groningen. Orbis. Bulletin international de documentation linguistique. Louvain. Oversea Education, Great Britain Colonial Office. Présence Africaine. Revue culturelle du monde noir. Paris.

MASTER LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Philologica Phonetica PM RA REIsl RENLO RLR Romania RomPh. RP RSoc RSEt. RSO SA Sierra Leone SIL SKAW SLLR SJA Sociologus SR Standpunte Sudan Notes & Records Swahili Taalfasette TG THSG TIL TPhS TSLL TVV TWK West African Language Monographs Word World Politics WZKM Zaire ZAS ZAOS ZDMG ZES

XV

Philologica. London. Phonetica. Internationale Zeitschrift für Phonetik/International journal of phonetics. Basel and New York. [Dr. A.] Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen. Gotha. (See Globus). Revue Africaine. Journal des traveaux de la Société Historique Algérienne. Algiers. Revue des Études Islamiques. Paris. Revue de l'École Nationale des Langues Orientales. Structure des langues et civilisations du monde contemporain. Paris. Revue de Linguistique Romane. Lyon and Paris. Romania. Paris. Romance Philology. Berkeley and Los Angeles. Revista de Portugal. Série A: Lingua portuguesa. Lisbon. Rural Sociology. Devoted to scientific study of rural life. Madison, Wise. Rassegna di Studi Ethiopici. Rome. Revista degli Studi Orientali. Rome. Scientific American. New York. Studies Sierra Leone Society, Institute of African Studies, Fourah Bay College. Freetown. Studies in Linguistics. Buffalo, New York. Sitzungberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien : Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Vienna. Sierra Leone Language Review. Freetown. (Now AfrLR.). Southwestern Journal of Anthropology. Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sociologus. Zeitschrift für empirische Soziologie, Sozialpsychologische und Ethnologische Forschung. Berlin. School Review. A journal of philosophical and theoretical policies and practices in education. Chicago. Standpunte. Cape Town. Sudan Notes & Records. Khartoum. Swahili. Journal of the Institute of Swahili Research, University College. Dar es Salaam. Taalfasette. Pretoria. Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe. Pretoria. Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana. Legon. Traveaux de l'Institut de Linguistique. Faculté des Lettres de l'Université de Paris. Paris. Transactions of the Philological Society. Oxford. Texas Studies in Literature and Language. Austin, Texas. Tydskrif vir Volkskunde en Volkstaal. Johannesburg. Tydskrif vir Wetenskap en Kuns. Bloemfontein. Edited by Joseph H. Greenberg and John Spencer. Cambridge University Press in assocation with the West African Languages Survey and Institute of African Studies, Ibadan. London and New York. Word. Journal of the Linguistic Circle of New York. New York. World Politics. A quarterly journal of international relations. Princeton University Center for International Studies. Princeton, N.J. Weiner Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes. Vienna. Zaire. Revue congolaise/Congoleesch tijdschrift. Brussels. Zeitschrift für Afrikanische Sprachen. Berlin. Zeitschrift für Afrikanische und Ozeanische Sprachen. Berlin. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. Wiesbaden. Zeitschrift für Eingeborenen-Sprachen. Berlin.

XVI

ZEthn. ZFSL ZK ZPhon. ZRPh.

MASTER LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Zeitschrift für Ethnologie. Berlin. Zeitschrift für Französische Sprache und Literatur. Wiesbaden. Zeitschrift für Kolonialsprachen. Berlin. Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung. Berlin. Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie. Tübingen. OTHER ABBREVIATIONS

BFBS CAL C.A.R. CCTA/CSA CLAD CMS E.A.I.S.C.A. H.M.S.O. I AI IFAN IPA OUP S.I.L. S.P.C.K.

British and Foreign Bible Society/Société Biblique Britannique et Étrangère. London. Center for Applied Linguistics. Washington, D.C. Central African Republic. Commission for Technical Cooperation in Africa/Scientific Council for Africa. London. Centre de Linguistique Appliquée, Dakar. Church Missionary Society, London. East African Institute of Social and Cultural Affairs. Her (His) Majesty's Stationery Office. London. International African Institute. Institut Français/Fondamental d'Afrique Noire. Dakar. International Phonetic Alphabet. Oxford University Press. London, New York, and Cape Town. Summer Institute of Linguistics. Santa Ana, California. Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1945* D E S M O N D T. COLE

1. THE EARLIEST RECORDS AND ESSAYS 1.1 The earliest written records of Sub-Saharan African languages occur in Arabic documents dating back as far as the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. A few words cited in these documents have been plausibly attributed to Bantu sources, a few others to a language very much like modern Bambara. A good deal less plausible is the suggestion that the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph of Punt, referring to the 'land of the blacks' far to the south of Egypt, represents buntu 'the land of the people, the Bantu', and thus the first Bantu word ever recorded. In the light of more recent hypotheses about the date and place of origin of the Bantu languages, it is unlikely that a Bantu people inhabited any area in northeast Africa during Ancient Egyptian times. 1.2 The first Europeans to record African languages were the Portuguese, who reached the equator in 1471, and rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, in their search for a sea route to India. The earliest known Portuguese record is dated 1506 and is attributable to a southeastern Bantu language, Karanga. From then onwards, an increasing number of eastern Bantu words, phrases, and sentences appeared in * I am much indebted to Miss Marianne Walther, B. A. Hons., for assistance in the preparation of this paper, which draws heavily, in respect of the Bantu area, on thefirstfour articles by C. M. Doke in Doke and Cole, Contributions to the history of Bantu linguistics, 1961. An unpublished paper by W.E. Welmers, "African language classification prior to 1948", has also proved most useful. Other references are cited in the text or in footnotes, and detailed in the bibliography. As far as we are aware, no work similar to Doke's historical survey of Bantu linguistic studies has been produced on any other linguistic area in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the northern regions are not nearly so well represented in our libraries as the Southern African area. The lopsidedness of this paper is further attributable to the fact that its author professes Bantu linguistics, with no pretensions to knowledge of other areas, nor to being a historian. But in any event, Africa, although steatopygic, is a bottomheavy continent, heavily weighted at the narrow end, as evidenced by the way it is suspended in its oceans! Needless to say, in this brief survey of the history of African linguistic studies to 1945, scores of important publications are passed over without comment, and dozens of significant personalities and major contributors to our field of study go unmentioned. An entertaining note might have been introduced into an otherwise stodgy historical survey by presenting some of the numerous hypotheses which have been advanced at one time or another, concerning the derivation of all African languages from Ancient Egyptian or Coptic, or of individual languages or groups from the nonAfrican Sumerian, Dravidian, Chinese, Hittite, Basque, Latin, Malayo-Polynesian, etc. But Africa needs, more than any other commodity, Time (rather than Time), and this is precisely what a generous aid-granting world will not allow it!

2

DESMOND T. COLE

Portuguese records, but although some vocabulary was recorded in 1523 from a language resembling Fante or Twi of modern Ghana, western Bantu languages were not represented until 1591. In that year an Italian mathematician, Philippo Pigafetta, wrote in Italian A Report of the Kingdom of Congo, based on information provided by the Portuguese Oduardo Lopez who had sailed to Loanda in 1578, and who had recorded a considerable number of Kongo words and phrases. 1.3 In 1624, a little more than thirty years after Pigafetta's Report, there appeared in Lisbon the first book in an African language. The Doutrina Christaa is a little volume of 134 pages, prepared by three Jesuit priests, and contains a catechism composed in Portuguese by Marcos Jorge and Ignacio Martinz, with an interlinear translation into Kongo produced by or under the supervision of Mattheus Cardoso, to whom goes the main credit for this historic work. What appears to be a second edition of Cardoso's work was published in 1850 by Hyacinthus a Vetralla, better known by his Italian name Giacinto Brusciotto; in this the catechism is presented in four languages, Kongo, Portuguese, Latin and Italian, in separate columns. 1.4 The second known Bantu book, Gentio de Angola, was produced by the Portuguese Jesuit Fathers Francisco Pacconio and Antonio do Couto, and published in Lisbon in 1642 or 1643. Some uncertainty attaches to the date, the last digit of which is illegible in the copy in the British Museum. The Gentio de Angola is a 90-page book of Christian doctrine in Ndongo (kiMbundu), with the Portuguese version on the facing page, and contains a few introductory hints, in Portuguese, on pronunciation and grammar. These brief notes apparently represent the earliest published attempt at linguistic description of a Bantu language. A second edition, containing a Latin version in a third column and other additions and corrections by the Capuchin Fr. Antonio Maria de Monteprandone Amici, was published in Rome in 1661. It has additional notes on grammar and pronunciation, including an emphatic paragraph on the importance of correctly pronouncing the 'accent' which frequently distinguishes words having different meanings. The differences in 'accent' are illustrated by minimal pairs which clearly indicate that by 1661 Fr. Antonio Maria had recognized the semantic function of tone without realizing the true nature of the phenomenon! 1.5 There is evidence that during the years 1643-60 several other pioneering linguistic studies were produced in Sub-Saharan Africa, but most of these were not published and can no longer be traced. Among these were a quadrilingual Kongo dictionary produced by Brusciotto in 1650, and three manuscripts attributed to Fr. Antoine de Tervelli, comprising a Kongo-Spanish dictionary, c. 1652; a grammar of Kongo in Spanish, c. 1652; and a quadrilingual dictionary, Italian, Latin, Spanish and Kongo, c. 1657. A Latin-Spanish-Kongo dictionary was produced about 1652 by Fr. Georges de Gheel or Joris van Gheel, a Belgian Capuchin, but this was probably a copy of earlier work done by a Spaniard, Roboredo. The Kongo material was abstracted from de Gheel's manuscript by J. van Wing and C. Penders, and published in 1928, with French and Dutch glosses, under the title Le plus ancien dictionnaire Bantu — Het oudste Bantu-woordenboek.

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1 9 4 5

3

1.6 The year 1659 saw publication in Rome of the first known grammar of an African language, a 98-page study of Kongo by Giacinto Brusciotto, an Italian Capuchin, known also by the Latin and Portuguese renderings of his name as Hyacinthus Brusciottus a Vetralla and Jacinto Brusciato de Vetralha. Its title is Regulae quaedam pro difficillimi Congensium idiomatis faciliori captu ad grammaticae normam redactae. An English translation of this epochal work was published by H. Grattan Guinness in 1882, and a Portuguese translation by T. da Silva Leitao e Castro in 1886. Brusciotto recognized and described the system of noun classes, which he termed 'principiations', and of concordial agreements. It is significant that his division into 'principiations' was determined by the concordial agreements and not by the form of the noun prefix, thus revealing deeper linguistic insight than some of his successors up to the present day! Other structural features described by Brusciotto include the verb perfect stem, applied and reflexive verbs, conjugation of verbs, and derivation of nouns from verbs. 1.7 Several other publications followed Brusciotto's grammar during the latter half of the seventeenth century. In 1673 W. Muller published in German a vocabulary of the Fetu dialect of Ashanti,1 apparently the first work of its type to emerge from West Africa. In 1697 a 48-page grammatical sketch of Ndongo, Arte da lingua de Angola, was published in Lisbon by Fr. Pedro Dias, S.J. Across the continent, in Ethiopia, Amharic was described for the first time in Hiob Ludolf's Grammatica linguae amharicae, published in 1698 in Frankfurt. Ludolf was also the author of an earlier grammar and dictionary of Ethiopic (Ge'ez), Grammatica aethiopica and Lexicon aethiopico-latinum, both first published in 1661.2 The pioneer work in this area was that of Wemmers, whose Ethiopic-Latin lexicon with prefaced grammatical notes had been published in Rome in 1638,3 and probably represents the earliest linguistic publication outside of the Bantu area, and the earliest in Sub-Saharan Africa. 1.8 Other works produced during the latter half of the seventeenth century, but not published until much later, include Arcanglio Carradori di Pistoia's ItalianNubian dictionary of 1650 which remained in manuscript until 1877,4 and a 42-page grammatical sketch of Sena, Arte da lingua de Cafre, which was discovered among documents of the year 1680, but itself bears neither date nor name of author. This was not published until 1919-20. No doubt there were a number of other such manuscripts which have been lost or destroyed, or lie unrecorded in archives. Shorter wordlists, vocabularies and remarks on various African languages continued to appear in the writings of missionaries, travellers, and others, but it is a remarkable fact that after the substantial pioneer work of the seventeenth century, as summarized above, relatively little was produced in the African linguisticfield-during the next hundred 1

Cust 1883, pp. 24 (where the date of publication is given as 1675), 197, 482; Werner 1915, p. 11. » Cust 1883, pp. 24, 88, 468; Jones 1959, pp. 32, 34. » Cust 1883, pp. 25, 88, 468. « Cust 1883, pp. 25, 146, 474; Werner 1915, p. 11.

4

DESMOND T. COLE

years. Only during the last thirty years of the eighteenth century did a few more items appear, most of them from the Congolese and Angolan areas. 1.9 Two manuscript works, Essay d'une grammaire Congo (48 pages) and a substantial Dictionnaire Congo-français, are reported to be in the Museum of the Congregation de la Propagande in Rome. These were probably written about 1770, by one or other or both of the missionaries Descourvières and Joli. In the British Museum is the manuscript of a large and very creditable Kongo-French dictionary which was written in 1772 by an unknown author. Four years later, in 1776, the Abbé Proyart published in Paris his Histoire de Loango, Kakongo et autres royaumes d'Afrique, which includes a very perceptive chapter on the Kongo language, the more remarkable for the fact that, as far as is known, Proyart never visited Africa but obtained his information from two missionary colleagues. In the same year, 1776, Andrew Sparrman published in the record of his travels in South Africa a "Specimen of the language of the Caffres", including a vocabulary of 63 Xhosa words, the first record of this type from the southern Bantu area. Charles Mylius is credited with the production in 1790 of a Vocabulaire français et Maquoua ( Makua) of some 600 words. In 1804 Fr. Bernardo Maria de Cannecatim, an Italian Capuchin, published in Lisbon his Diccionario da lingua Bunda, and in 1805 his Observaçôes grammaticaes sobre a lingua Bunda, both of which are considered to be linguistically inferior to the works produced by his seventeenth century predecessors. And with this we come to the end of the relatively meagre contributions of the eighteenth century, and also to the end of an era in Bantu linguistic studies which C. M. Doke has named 'The age of Brusciotto'. 2.

FOCUS ON SOUTHERN AFRICA

2.1 Most of the African linguistic work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was done by Roman Catholic missionaries, particularly of the Jesuit and Capuchin Orders, and was characterized by what has been termed a 'mediaeval Latin approach' to the analysis and description of the languages. While the Roman Catholic missionaries have continued their activities in this field, and have made many more invaluable contributions, the nineteenth century saw the advent of less procrustean linguistic methods, and of the new Protestant missionary era which stimulated production of most of the work done since 1830. Except for a sharp increase in the number of reports from and vocabularies collected by travellers, virtually no linguistic studies were produced during the first three decades of the nineteenth century. But then commenced a period of intensive study and production which continued for a hundred years, and during which nearly two thousand items were added to the inventory of African linguistic publications. Up to this stage in our survey we have been able to list almost all of the known contributions, and this seemed desirable in order to give an adequate picture of the nature and distribution of the earliest explorations in this vast field. Henceforth however, it will be necessary to restrict our discussion to the more significant publications, developments and trends in various areas.

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1945

5

2.2 The languages of South Africa, which had remained unrecorded until Sparrman listed some Xhosa vocabulary in 1776, suddenly came into prominence as a succession of explorers and missionaries focussed attention on this part of the continent during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century. Vocabularies of Xhosa, Tswana, and Hottentot dialects, and remarks concerning these languages, appeared in the writings of John Barrow (1801), John Theodore Vanderkemp (1803), Hinrich Lichtenstein® (1811-12), John Campbell (1815), William John Burchell (1822-24), George Thompson (1827), Nathaniel Morgan (1833) and Stephen Kay (1833). In the Congolese and Angolan areas further vocabularies were recorded by L. Degrandpré (1801), J.K. Tuckey (1818) and J.B. Douville (1832), while on the east coast William White (1800) and Thomas Boteler (1835) published vocabularies of Ronga. In 182122 William Elliot produced the manuscript of a Grammar and vocabulary of the Hinzuan language, representing Nzwani of the Comoro Islands, but this was not published until 1926, more than a hundred years later. 2.3 John Bennie, of the Glasgow Missionary Society, published in 1826 A systematic vocabulary of the Kaffrarian language in two parts; to which is prefixed an introduction to Kaffrarian grammar, which represented a considerable advance on earlier vocabularies of Xhosa. He was the author also of an unpublished grammar of Xhosa, dated 1832, and of manuscript portions of much larger lexicographical works. Two years later, in 1834, William A. Boyce of the Wesleyan Mission published his Grammar of the Kafir language, the first published grammar of a South African language. Boyce was the first to comprehend and describe the system of concordial agreements in Bantu, which he termed 'the euphonic or alliteral concord'. A second edition of Boyce's Grammar, much augmented and improved by his colleague, William J. Davis, appeared in 1844, a third in 1863, and a fourth in 1872, by which time the original work had been completely recast. Davis was the author also of a Dictionary of the Kaffir language (1872) and an English and Kaffir dictionary (1877). Meanwhile, John Ayliff's Vocabulary of the Kafir language (1846) had constituted a major advance over all its predecessors. 2.4 The Tswana language was first described by the Wesleyan missionary James Archbell, in A grammar of the Bechuana language (1838), and three years later Eugène Casalis of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society produced his Etudes sur la langue Séchuana (1841), while David Livingstone contributed an Analysis of the language of the Bechuanas in 1858. Two of the earliest workers on Zulu were the American Board missionaries James C. Bryant and Lewis Grout, whose papers "The Zulu language" and "The Zulu and other dialects of Southern Africa", respectively, were published in the Journal of the Oriental Society, 1,1849. Grout's paper was the forerunner to The Isizulu: A grammar of the Zulu language, a large and learned work which appeared in 1859. Other early grammatical studies of Zulu were the Norwegian Bishop Hans P.S. Schreuder's Grammatik for Zulusproget (1850), and Bishop John W. Colenso's 5

In the original German edition (1811-12) of his Travels, Lichtenstein's first name appears as Hinrich, in the later English editions as Heinrich — and also as Henry!

6

DESMOND T. COLE

Elementary grammar of the Zulu-Kafir language (1855), which in later editions was entitled First steps in Zulu. In the lexicographical area, Zulu was provided for by James Perrin in A Kafir-English dictionary of the Zulu-Kafir language (1855) and An English-Kafir dictionary of the Zulu-Kafir language (1855), which were followed by Colenso's Zulu-English dictionary in 1861, but none of these was as detailed and advanced in method as Jacob Ludwig Dohne's Zulu-Kafir dictionary (1857). In the South West African area, C. Hugo Hahn's Grundziige einer Grammatik des Hererd (1857) included a substantial Herero-German vocabulary. 2.5 By far the most significant work in this area was produced by the Wesleyan missionary, John W. Appleyard. In 1847, six years after his arrival in the country, he published a very perceptive and comprehensive series of articles on the South African languages in the South African Christian Watchman and Missionary Magazine. Three years later, in 1850, Appleyard published The Kafir language. This included a 300page grammatical study of Xhosa, a very comprehensive and accurate analysis which was superior in method and presentation to all of its predecessors and contemporaries, and also to a very large number of its successors, in the Bantu field. His comparative study and classification of the Southern African languages will be referred to later. 2.6 The sudden and rapid development of linguistic studies in South Africa was not equalled further north in the Bantu area. In 1827 Hannah Kilham produced Specimens of African languages spoken in the Colony of Sierra Leone, containing vocabularies of thirty languages, three of them Bantu, collected from freed slaves. These vocabularies, with additions, were republished by Edwin Norris in an Outline of a vocabulary of a few of the principal languages of Western and Central Africa, compiledfor the use of the Niger Expedition (1841). John Leighton Wilson published two booklets on the 'Gaboon language' in 1843, and the anonymous Grammar of the Mpongwe language with vocabularies (1847) is attributed to him. In 1854 he edited the Grammar of the Bakele language with vocabularies, which had been compiled by J. M. Preston and J. Best. John Clarke's Specimens of dialects: Short vocabularies of languages: And notes of countries and customs in Africa (1848) included material on several Bantu languages. Earlier Clarke had produced The Adeeyah vocabulary (1841), Sentences in the Fernandian tongue (1846) and Introduction to the Fernandian tongue (1848), all dealing with Bube of Fernando Po. Two incomplete works by Joseph Merrick, who died in 1849, Grammatical elements of the Isubu language and A dictionary of the Isubu tongue, were edited and published in 1854 by Alfred Saker. In 1855 there appeared a Grammar of the Benga language by James L. Mackey, and in the same year Alfred Saker of the Baptist Mission produced the Grammatical elements of the Dualla language, with a vocabulary compiledfor the use of missionaries and teachers. Saker's work is considered to be the most meritorious of its time in the northwestern Bantu area. 2.7 In the northeast, H.C. von der Gabelentz published in 1847 a paper "Ober die Sprache der Suaheli", which was soon succeeded by Johann Ludwig Krapf's Outline of the elements of the Kisudheli language (1850). In the same year Krapf

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1 9 4 5

7

published also his Vocabulary of six East-African languages, incorporating material from Galla and five Bantu languages. His major linguistic contribution was A dictionary of the Swahili language, published posthumously in 1882, and he collaborated with J. Rebmann in the production of the Nika-English dictionary which was not published until 1887. Finally, Dr. W.H.I. Bleek was responsible for the publication in 1856 of The languages of Mosambique, containing the vocabularies collected by the biologist, Dr. W. Peters, during the years 1842-48.

3. PERCEPTIONS OF GENETIC RELATIONSHIPS

3.1 The first half of the nineteenth century saw the commencement of a trickle of linguistic studies in Southern Africa, and this soon became a steady stream of increasing proportions. By the middle of the century a substantial amount of data was available, and it became possible to draw conclusions about linguistic relationships and to discuss languages comparatively and contrastively. In the second half of the century the stream grew even more rapidly and it is impossible for us, in this brief review, to comprehend even a selection from the flood of monographic studies of languages which developed as more and ever more contributions came in from all parts of a subcontinent being opened up to, and by, exploration, trade, missionary enterprise, and colonial expansion and development. Henceforth therefore, we must concentrate on the developments in classificatory, comparative, and methodological studies which are of pervasive significance for the whole area. 3.2 As early as 1515, Andrea Corsali, one of the first to make the long voyage from Lisbon to India, wrote that along '... the whole coast from the streights of the Red Sea as far as the Cape of Good Hope, ... they are all of the same language; and from the Cape of Good Hope as far as the Cape de Verde Islands, they speak a different language'. This appears to be the earliest statement concerning linguistic relationships in Africa, and suggests that Corsali perceived a connection between the languages of the east coast, but not between these and the languages of the Guinea coast, since he does not appear to have visited the Congolese and Angolan coasts. In subsequent Portuguese writings there are several references to similarities between the languages of Angola and of Mozambique, but no conclusions were derived from this fact. In 1808 however, H. Lichtenstein divided the inhabitants of Southern Africa into 'two principal races, the Hottentots and the Kaffirs', his main criterion for this division being 'the most complete lack of affinity of the two languages to one another'. Lichtenstein considered that the inhabitants of the east coast up to 10° or 12° S. were all of the same nation, and suggested the possible inclusion with them of the inhabitants of the southwest coast. He conceived of 'the language of the Beetjuans' (Tswana) as being 'a dialect of the Koossa language' (Xhosa). 3.3 William Marsden probably reached a similar conclusion before Lichtenstein did, but this was not published until much later, in 1818, and after he had had the

8

DESMOND T. COLE

further opportunity of studying the vocabularies collected by J.K.Tuckey. Marsden found a radical affinity between all the languages of the west coast of southern Africa, and that these were related also to the languages of the east coast, but differed 'very materially from all the known languages of the negroes of northern Africa'. Similar conclusions were reached by the explorers John Campbell in 1812 and George Thompson in 1824, and Dr. John Philip of the London Missionary Society expressed the view in 1824, on the evidence then available to him, that 'the different tongues spoken from the borders of our Colony to the confines of Abyssinia and from the mouth of the Zembeza on the eastern coast of Africa to the mouth of the Congo on the western coast, will be found different dialects only of the same language'. In 1826 Adrien Balbi divided the languages of Africa into five geographical divisions: I. Nile Region, II. Atlas Region, III. Maritime Negro of Guinea and Senegambia, IV. South African Region, and V. Sudan and Interior Negro. The South African Region was divided into five 'Families', Congo, Caffre, Monomotapa, Hottentot and Galla, all but the last two being classified today as Bantu. 3.4 John C. Prichard recognized in 1826 a 'Kaffrarian Family' of languages, whose speakers he divided into three major groups, (a) Kaffers proper, (b) Mosambique Nations, and (c) Kongo Race, with further subdivisions into individual tribes or nations. In 1837 he declared that 'the idioms of the whole African continent to the southward of the equator, except the Hottentot dialects ... show undoubted proof of connexion ...'. Referring to the comparative vocabularies, etc., which he had listed, he remarked, 'When we consider the nature of these words, common to the idioms of so many distant nations, the supposition that they may have been borrowed by one people from another seems altogether untenable ... no other hypothesis can explain indications of affinity ... except the obvious one that the tribes themselves were originally subdivisions of the same stock.' 3.5 In his introduction to Archbell's Grammar of the Bechuana language, written in 1837, William Boyce distinguished clearly between the languages of the Hottentots and Bushmen, and those of'the Kafir and Bechuana tribes', of which the latter was 'a branch of an extensive language spoken through all Africa, ... as far as the equator'. John W. Appleyard proceeded in his series of articles in the South African Christian Watchman and Missionary Magazine (1847) and in The Kafir language (1850) to distinguish the 'Click Class' and the 'Alliteral Class' among the Southern African languages. The former included two 'families', Hottentot and Bushman, while the 'Alliteral Class' included five divisions: the Congo, Damara,® Sechuana and Kafir Families, and Unclassified Dialects (of the east coast). In Appendix C to The Kafir language (pp. 378ff.),Appleyard takes note of J. L. Wilson's West African communications published in the Annual report of the American Board of Missions for 1847, and concludes that 'not only ... Mpongwe, but also all the dialects [of the Gaboon and neighbouring countries] therein referred to, belong to the Alliteral Class of South African languages'. Appleyard provided extensive comparisons, especially of 'Kafir' * I.e. Herero, but not 'Hill Damara' (Bergdama), which Appleyard classified with Hottentot.

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1 9 4 5

9

and 'Sechuana', and tables of vowel, consonantal and other 'changes' to account for differences between these languages: 'From the preceding tables, it will be seen that roots which appear totally different the one from the other, are in fact the very same, or rather, of the same origin. Thus no one, at first sight, would imagine that the Sechuana reka and the Kafir tenga ... were mere variations of the same root' (Appleyard 1850:54). Here was the first study of phonological correspondences in African languages, and recognition thereof as proof of genetic relationship. 3.6 Another West African missionary, John Clarke, affirmed in his Specimens of dialects (1848) that the languages of his part of West Africa, 'Isubu, Fernandian, Diwalla, 'Mpongwe, Banda, Kongo' were related to the 'Bechuana and Kaffir' tongues, and that 'the same class of language prevails [east to west] from ... behind the Galla country, to...the mountains of Romby, in Biafra'. On the east coast J. L. Krapf confirmed in his Vocabulary of six East-African languages (1850) that in his opinion 'one common language lies at the bottom of all the idioms which are spoken from the Equator to the Cape of Good Hope'.

4.

BANTU: NAMED, COMPARED, RECONSTRUCTED

4.1 It was against this background of monographic and classificatory studies that Dr. Wilhelm H. I. Bleek arrived in South Africa in 1855 and carried out the researches which culminated in the production of the first two volumes of A comparative grammar of South African languages. Part I, "Phonology", appeared in 1862, and Part II, "The Concord", Section I "The Noun", in 1869, but his death in 1875, at the age of 48, occurred before he had written more than some unfinished notes towards Section 2 "The Verb", and his magnum opus was never completed. Bleek's contribution to Bantu linguistic studies, especially in his Comparative grammar, the first work of its type in the field of African languages, had a profound and enduring impact. It was he who adopted the term Bantu 'for that family of languages, of which the Kafir is known to be one of the most original and therefore, for the purposes of philology, most important members' (Bleek 1857(1952):31). His first publication of this term appears to have been in 1858, in the first volume of his bibliographical work, The library of Sir George Grey, but it is known that he had adopted the term at least a year earlier, for he used it in his Zulu legends, a manuscript dated 1857, though published only in 1952. Previously the Bantu languages had been variously referred to as the South African Languages, the Kaffrarian Family, the Alliteral Class, the Nilotic Family, etc., none of which terms had, however, gained general acceptance. 4.2 Building on the foundations established by Appleyard, Bleek provided detailed phonological analyses of the various Bantu languages, and extensive tables of phonological correspondences, using 'Kafir' as the basic language. Thirty years were to elapse before Meinhof presented his Ur-Bantu, a hypothetical 'parent language', as a better basis for such comparative studies than any extant language. As early as

10

DESMOND T. COLE

1851, before he came to South Africa, Bleek had numbered the Bantu noun prefixes then known to him, for purposes of reference and identification, and this system was augmented and entrenched in his Comparative grammar. It was subsequently adopted by Meinhof and others, and, with minor modifications, continues up to the present day to be accepted and used internationally in comparative Bantu linguistic studies and also in many Bantu language monographs. As regards classification of the Bantu languages, Bleek recognized three branches, South-eastern, Middle and Northwestern, each with subdivisions, especially in the case of the very large Middle Branch. In all, he identified seven divisions, and although largely geographical, this classification had a good linguistic foundation. R. N. Cust's explicitly geographical classification of 1883, into three branches comprising eight subbranches (p. 296), manifests a considerable degree of correlation with Bleek's seven divisions, and the latter provided the basis, as recently as 1945, for C. M. Doke's classification of the Bantu languages into seven zones with four subzones. 4.3 The next work of major significance in the Bantu area is the Comparative grammar of the South-African Bantu languages, published by Fr. J. Torrend, S.J., in 1891. This is a large and comprehensive study, embracing a good deal more of Bantu morphological structures than Bleek had covered in his unfinished Comparative grammar, but in several respects inferior and less reliable. His classification of the Bantu languages (p. xixff.) was into three groups, Kua, Fernandian, and Main Group, the last comprising all languages (34 'clusters') not included in the first two groups; but Fernandian embraced only the one cluster of dialects of Fernando P6, and the Kua Group comprised only nine very widely separated 'clusters', which he associated on the basis of quite fortuitous phonological similarities. Like Bleek, Torrend recognized eighteen noun prefixes or 'classifiers', but grouped them into singular-plural pairs which very much complicated comparative description since some of the correlations vary considerably from language to language. However, it is in respect of his fanciful etymologies and statements of the significances of the noun classes that Torrend's work is most suspect. 4.4 In the year 1899 a new era in Bantu linguistic studies was ushered in by the publication of Grundriss einer Lautlehre der Bantusprachen by Carl Meinhof. Whereas Appleyard and Bleek had used Xhosa, and Torrend had used Tonga (of Zambia) as the bases for their studies of phonological correspondences, Meinhof sought to work back to the original parent language for this purpose, and so postulated an extensive series of reconstruct forms with a phonological system of seven vowels and fifteen consonants, which he named Ur-Bantu. In addition to the thesis concerning UrBantu, the Lautlehre contains a chapter on orthography, detailed comparative phonological studies of six languages (Pedi, Swahili, Herero, Duala, Konde, Sango), and a list of Ur-Bantu forms with representative reflexes. A second edition was published in 1910, and an English edition, Introduction to the phonology of the Bantu languages, translated by N.J. van Warmelo, in 1932. In the latter edition the languages selected for detailed study were Pedi, Swahili, Konde, Zulu, and Kongo. Meinhof's list of

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1 9 4 5

11

Ur-Bantu forms was augmented by O. Dempwolflf and W. Planert, and particularly by W. Bourquin in his Neue Ur-Bantu-Wortstamme (1923) which included several hundreds of new reconstructions. Professor Carl Meinhof (1857-1944) developed his interest in African languages while serving as a pastor in Pommern, and it was during this period that he wrote the Lautlehre. In 1903 he was appointed to the staff of the Seminar fur Orientalische Sprachen in Berlin, whence he moved in 1909 to the University of Hamburg. 4.5 Meinhof's second major publication was Grundziige einer vergleichenden Grammatik der Bantu-sprachen in 1906. In this comparative and historical study he discussed and tabulated in fair detail the nominal, pronominal and concordial system, to which he devoted some 85 pages of the text, including the appendix, but skipped through the verbal structures in 17 pages, the remaining 13 pages being devoted to numerals, particles and syntax. A much augmented second edition of this work was published in 1948, four years after Meinhof's death, but the curious imbalance still remains and the verbal structures are not given anything like the attention they deserve. For the rest, Meinhof's Grammatik is cast in the traditional mould, and neither in the first nor in the second edition, nor in any of his studies of individual languages, was any attempt made to develop a grammatical model more suited to Bantu structure. Meinhof was a prodigious worker, and, besides the Lautlehre and the Grammatik, he produced, in the Bantu area alone, handbooks of Herero, Swahili and Duala, and dozens of articles in journals, some of the more important of which were included in his series of "Linguistische Studien in Ostafrika".7 In addition, he founded and edited the Zeitschrift fur Kolonialsprachen, which later became the Zeitschrift flir Eingeborenen-Sprachen, and wrote prolifically, including several books, on other areas in African linguistics. 4.6 Carl Meinhof's total contribution in the field of Bantu linguistics was enormous. The large number of careful and accurate studies of individual languages, whatever their methodological defects by today's standards, would in themselves have placed him in the front rank of Bantuists. His Grammatik represented, in several respects, a major advance on the earlier comparative grammars of Bleek and Torrend, and a logical sequel to his Lautlehre. But his most significant contribution to Bantu linguistics, indeed to African linguistics as a whole, is his Lautlehre and his reconstruction of Ur-Bantu.8 More recently available, more complete, and more accurate data reveal that Meinhof's reconstructions do not reflect the highly significant features of tone and vowel length, but for the rest, they are remarkably accurate, and the only cogent criticism of his Ur-Bantu forms is that many of them are valid only for limited regions in the Bantu area. At the time of Meinhof's death in 1944, almost half a century after publication of the Lautlehre, his Ur-Bantu was still generally and uncritically accepted, without even a suggestion that it might need revision or be supplanted. 7 8

Published in the MSOS, 1904-08. For more detailed appreciations see Cole 1957, pp. 5f., and Doke et al., 1946.

12

DESMOND T. COLE

4.7 The two volumes of Sir Harry H. Johnston's monumental work, A comparative study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages, totalling almost 1400 pages in print, appeared in 1919 and 1922. The bulk of this work is devoted to 'Illustrative vocabularies of 276 Bantu and 24 Semi-Bantu languages and dialects' (Vol. I, p. 39), culled from published sources, from his own recordings, and from replies received to questionnaires sent to people with access to various languages on which he desired information. The second volume comprises an English index to the vocabularies, while Vol. 1 contains chapters on the history of researches into the Bantu languages and their distribution and characteristics, and an extensive bibliography and list of sources. Several of his many other publications also included linguistic data and observations, e.g. The Kilimanjaro expedition (1886), The Uganda Protectorate (1902), Liberia (1906), etc. Johnston adopted the term 'Semi-Bantu' for the languages of West Africa, from Dakar to the Cameroun, which manifest Bantoid noun class systems, but he conceived of these as mixed languages resulting from the impact of Bantu class languages on Sudanic nonclass languages, and not as evidencing genetic relationship. He deduced the 'approximate date at which the Bantu left their primal home in the very heart of Africa at not much more than 2000 years ago', and posited the probable focus of Bantu origin and development to be in West Africa, to the south of Lake Chad, and with a secondary focus near Lake Victoria, in this respect explicitly rejecting Meinhof's hypothesis of an eastern origin, in the region of the Great Lakes, for the Bantu peoples and languages. 4.8 Alice Werner had already published a number of books and articles on Bantu languages, particularly Swahili, when she produced her Introductory sketch of the Bantu languages in 1919. This is a popularly written comparative account of Bantu language structures, which proved of great value to beginning students and laymen. Subsequently she published several more works on Swahili, and Myths and legends of the Bantu (1933), but her most significant contribution was The language families of Africa (1915), to be considered later in this paper. After many years as teacher, researcher and writer in the field of African studies, Alice Werner was appointed as a lecturer in the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and from 1921 to 1930 as Professor of Swahili and Bantu.

5. BANTU GRAMMAR FOR BANTU LANGUAGES

5.1 In The phonetics of the Zulu language, presented as a doctoral thesis in 1924 and published in 1926, Clement M. Doke gave a preview of a new model for Bantu linguistic analysis and description which was to have a major impact on future work in this field. In the following year the first edition of Doke's Textbook of Zulu grammar demonstrated the application in detail of his new model. We have no information to suggest that Doke had any contact with or was influenced by the writings of Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, Leonard Bloomfield or other American linguists, who, with

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1945

13

Boas in the van, were and had been grappling with the problems presented in particular by Amerindian languages, and were developing and refining new concepts, principles, terminology and techniques for analysis and description of languages in terms of their own structures. Independently and alone, it seems, Doke had sought what he termed the system of 'Bantu grammar for Bantu languages'. He had realised, unlike his predecessors in this field, that the grammatical structures of Bantu languages are quite different from those of European languages, including the classical Greek and Latin, and that the traditional European grammatical model which had been employed hitherto was quite unsuited to and inadequate for Bantu languages (whatever its validity and applicability elsewhere). In 1927 then, Doke presented a new categorization of Bantu 'parts of speech', and appropriate new terminology and analytical and descriptive procedures. Over the years, minor modifications and innovations were introduced by Doke himself and others, but in its essentials the 'Doke model' remained unchanged, and it was employed very successfully in the description of many Bantu languages other than Zulu, both in South Africa and farther afield. 5.2 Doke was a most prolific worker, and during his 31 years (1923-53) of academic service to the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, he produced a score of major works (not including revised editions), and scores of articles in various journals, but particularly in the journal Bantu Studies, later renamed African Studies, of which he was managing editor for some 20 years. He carried out field researches on Bushman languages as well as on Lamba, Zulu, Shona, Southern Sotho, Ua and other Bantu languages, and his publications include phonetic studies, grammars, dictionaries, ethnological and folkloristic studies, linguistic terminology, and bibliographical, historical and comparative linguistic studies.9 His grammatical model is exemplified in the Textbook of Zulu grammar (1927, revised editions 1931,1939,1945, 1954,1961), Textbook of Lamba grammar (1938), and Textbook of Southern Sotho grammar (in collaboration with S.M. Mofokeng, 1957), and is in various other respects explained in Bantu linguistic terminology (1935). 5.3 One other work of special importance to us here is Doke's Bantu: Modern grammatical, phonetical and lexicographical studies since 1860 (1945). This is a bibliographical work, a remarkably complete survey of all linguistic studies of Bantu languages published during the period 1860-1944, in the preface to which Doke emphasized that it was 'not our purpose to record all the dialects, or even all the languages, but to make reference only ... to those in which some grammatical or other study has been done'. However, some framework was necessary for the organization and presentation of the bibliographic survey, and to this end Doke incorporated in the book a tentative and incomplete classification of the Bantu languages.10 Nevertheless, it was vastly superior to and more detailed and comprehensive than any previous • Mote details are given in Cole 1957, pp. 7f. This was subsequently abstracted and published separately by D. T. Cole in "Doke's classification of Bantu languages", African Studies, 1959, 18.197-213, reprinted in Doke and Cole 1961. 10

14

DESMOND T. COLE

classification, and, in several respects, it remains to the present day as the best available. 5.4 Doke's grammatical model was adopted, with minor variations, in all of the South African universities, each of which has a department concerned with the study and teaching of Bantu languages, and it inspired the production of a series of Bantu language monographs such as has not been equalled elsewhere in number and in uniformity of format. With any linguistic model of this type there is a risk that it might be forced upon a structural system which it does not fit, but because the South African Bantu languages, and many of those even farther afield, are so uniform in their structures, the problem has not arisen; in any case, Doke himself was fully aware of the need for flexibility — after all, had he not sought flexibility and freedom from the constraints which had previously beset Bantu language studies? Though the Bantu linguistic area is the best documented in Africa, it remains, nevertheless, a vast untapped field for research, the need for which becomes daily more urgent. The Doke model enables the researcher to get to grips very rapidly and efficiently with the vast bulk of the morphology of a Bantu language, with little risk of overlooking significant features, and it provides a descriptive framework which will readily accommodate almost all of the data collected.

6.

THE LANGUAGES OF THE HOTTENTOTS A N D BUSHMEN

6.1 Before leaving the Southern African region, some account must be given of the linguistically very important but much neglected Hottentot and Bushman languages, and before proceeding to discuss these it is necessary to introduce and define two new terms. An enormous amount of confusion surrounds the terms Bushman and Hottentot, which have been applied as both cultural and linguistic designations when in fact there is no regular correlation between the two. Culturally, the Hottentots are (or rather, were) nomadic pastoralists with substantial herds of cattle and sheep, and a fairly well developed political system; the Bushmen are (and thousands still are) hunter-foodgatherers whose unit of social organization is the hunting band, and who practice neither agriculture nor pastoralism. The confusion arises from the fact that a number of Bushman groups speak languages very closely related to those of the Hottentots. The Bushmen do not all speak Bushman languages, some of them speak Hottentot languages! It seems preferable to use the term Khoi for the languages spoken by the Hottentots and some Bushmen, and which typically manifest a 'sexgender' system (masculine, feminine, common), three numbers (singular, dual, plural), an inclusive-exclusive contrast in first person dual and plural pronouns, a case system in nouns and pronouns, etc.; and the term San for the remainder of the Bushman languages, which typically lack most of the features mentioned above, and for the most part are typologically isolating in structure and have few affixes. 6.2 The Portuguese navigators and later the Dutch settlers came into contact with

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1945

15

Hottentot tribes at the Cape of Good Hope long before they met the Bantu peoples, and odd items of Khoi vocabulary are recorded in sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century documents. Several of the explorers of the early nineteenth century who recorded vocabularies of and remarks upon Bantu languages did the same for Khoi and San languages. Among the best of these was H. Lichtenstein's article "On the language of the wild Hottentot tribes, particularly of the Corans and Bosjesmans", published in 1812,11 prior to which J. T Vanderkemp had published in 1806 A Hottentot catechism, probably the first book in a Khoi language. This was followed in 1841 by A catechism in the Korana dialect of the Hottentot language by C. F. Wuras. In 1847 J. W. Appleyard devoted the first two articles of his series in The South African Christian Watchman and Missionary Magazine to "Hottentot dialects" and "Hottentot grammar — Bushman dialects". The outline of "Hottentot grammar in the Korana dialect" was based on a manuscript written by the Berlin Society missionary, C. F. Wuras. Within the 'Click class' of South African languages, Appleyard recognized the 'Hottentot family', comprising 'the dialects spoken by the Hottentots proper [of the Cape Colony], the Namaquas, and the Koranas', and the 'Bushman family', and he remarked that 'The dialects of the Bushmen are very numerous, though all furnish sufficient evidence of a common origin with those of the Hottentot family.' The material in these two articles of Appleyard's was reproduced in slightly elaborated form in his major work, The Kafir language (1850). 6.3 J. C Wallmann is credited with a Vokabular der Namasprache in 1854, and Die Formenlehre der Namaquasprache in 1857, the same year in which the Wesleyan missionary, Henry Tindall, published A grammar and vocabulary of the NamaquaHottentot language. In 1858 C.F. Wuras prepared a Vokabular der Korana-Sprache which was presented to Sir George Grey and not published until 1920 when W. Bourquin retrieved the manuscript and saw it through the press.12 Throughout his Comparative grammar of South African languages (1862, 1869), Dr. W.H.I. Bleek compared and contrasted Hottentot (Khoi) linguistic structures with Bantu, but excluded the 'Bushman tongue [as being] as yet too insufficiently known to allow us to assign to it its proper place in a general classification of languages; but it seems to be clear that its relationship to the Hottentot language is, at least, very remote' (Vol. 1, p. 1). The following is a list of some of the more important Khoi linguistic works published subsequent to Bleek's Comparative Grammar : 1870 Hahn, Th., Die Sprache der Nama. Leipzig. 1888 Olpp, J., Nama-Deutsches Wörterbuch. Elberfeld. 1889 Krönlein, J. G., Wortschatz der Khoi-Khoin. Berlin. 1891 Schils, G.H., Grammaire complète de la langue des Namas. Louvain. 1894 Schils, G. H., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue des Namas. Louvain. 1905 Planert, W., Handbuch der Namasprache. Berlin. 11

As an appendix in vol. 2 of his Travels. " Though the title of the published book is in GermaD, the work itself, except for the title page and a preface by Bourquin, is in English-Korana.

16

DESMOND T. COLE

1909 Meinhof, C., Lehrbuch der Namasprache. Berlin. The best available study of Nama grammar. 1923 Vedder, H., Die Bergdama. 2 Vols. Hamburg. Contains a section on language, 1.153-69. 1928 Engelbrecht, J. A., Studies oor Korannataal. Stellenbosch. 1928 Bleek,, D. F., The Naron: A Bushman tribe of the Central Kalahari. Cambridge. Contains a grammatical sketch of Naron, a Khoi language. 1929 Bleek, D. F., Comparative vocabularies of Bushman languages. Cambridge. Includes Nama, Naron and other Khoi material. 1930 Meinhof, C., Der Koranadialekt des Hottentottischen. Berlin. The best available study of Korana grammar. 1930 Schapera, I., The Khoisan peoples of South Africa. London. Contains a very useful chapter on "The Khoisan languages". 1932 Maingard, L.F., "Studies in Korana history, customs and language", Bantu Studies, 6.103-62. 1938 Beach, D.M., The phonetics of the Hottentot language. Cambridge, Heffer. 6.4 The most significant names in this list are C. Meinhof, D. F. Bleek (daughter of Dr. W. H. I. Bleek), and D. M. Beach whose Phonetics (it actually embraces a good deal more) is one of the best phonological studies yet produced on an African language. Beach, who was on the staff of the University of Cape Town when he wrote this work, classified the 'Hottentot-speaking peoples' (pp. 6-9) as consisting of the Hottentots (including the Nama, Korana and Griqua), the Bergdama (a black-skinned group, taller than the yellow-skinned Hottentots), two tribes of 'so-called Bushmen' (Heikum and Gainin), and the Rehoboth Bastards (of mixed blood). The book contains detailed studies of the phonetics of Nama and of Korana (including Griqua), comparative phonology and spelling of Hottentot, and a map showing the distribution of the Hottentot and Bergdama tribes in South West Africa. 6.5 Among the earliest linguistic studies of a San language was a manuscript grammar produced by C.F. Wuras and presented to Sir George Grey in 1858. This was edited and published in 1920 by W. Bourquin.13 From 1870 onwards Dr. W. H. I. Bleek became deeply involved in the study of the folklore and language of a party of Bushmen then in Cape Town, in which undertaking he was assisted by his sister-in-law, Miss Lucy Lloyd. After Bleek's death in 1875, Miss Lloyd continued the work, and a large volume of the material they had collected was published in 1911 (Bleek and Lloyd). Bleek's daughter, Miss Dorothea F. Bleek, continued the work of her father and aunt, and published a large number of papers on Bushman linguistics, folklore, and culture, and, as the authority in this field, was for a number of years an Honorary Lecturer on Bushman Languages in the University of Cape Town. Miss Bleek recognized three groups of Bushman languages, Southern, Northern, and Central, of which the last is very closely related to the languages of the Hottentots and 11

"An outline of the Bushman language", ZES 10.81-37.

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1945

17

therefore classified here as Khoi. The following are some of the more important publications on San languages: 1911 Vedder, H., "Grundriss einer Grammatik der Buschmann-Sprache der !KüBuschmänner", ZK, 1.5-24, 106-17. 1925 Doke, C. M., "An outline of the phonetics of the Chü: Bushmen of northwest Kalahari", Bantu Studies, 2.129-65. 1928 Bleek, D.F., The Naron. Contains a grammatical sketch of Auen. 1929 Bleek, D.F., Comparative vocabularies of Bushman languages. 1929 Bleek, D.F., "Bushman grammar", ZES, 19.81-98, 20.161-74. 1929 Meinhof, C., "Versuch einer grammatische Skizze einer Buschmannsprache", ZES, 19.161-88. 1929 Meriggi, P., "Versuch einer Grammatik des /xam-Buschmännischen", ZES, 19.188-205. 1930 Schapera, I., The Khoisan peoples of South Africa. 1937 Bleek, D. F., "Grammatical notes and texts in the /auni language", Bantu Studies, 11.253-58. 1937 Bleek, D. F., "/auni vocabulary", Bantu Studies, 11.259-78. 1940 Bleek, D. F., "A short survey of Bushman languages", ZES, 30.52-72. 6.6 In East Africa there are two small groups whose languages are related to those of the Hottentots and Bushmen, but concerning which very little is known. These are Sandawe, which appears to be of Khoi type, and Hadza, which may be more closely related to San. Very little work has yet been done on these languages, as evidenced by the following relatively complete list: 1909 Nigmann, E., "Versuch eines Wörterbuchs für Kissandaui", MSOS, 12.127-30. 1916 Dempwolff, O., Die Sandawe. Hamburg, Friederichsen. 1917 Dempwolff, O., "Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Sprachen Deutsch-Ostafrikas, 12: Wörter der Hatzasprache", ZK, 7.319-25. 1929 Drexel, A., "Das grammatische Geschlecht im Nama und Sandawe", Bibliotheca Africana, 3.51-58. Innsbruck. 1931 Bleek, D. F., "The Hadzapi or Watindega of Tanganyika Territory", Africa, 4.273-86. 6.7 Over the years the study of the Hottentots and Bushmen, and particularly of the latter, has always excited a great deal of popular interest. The Bushmen are popularly depicted as people of the utmost primitivity, eking out a precarious existence in a most inhospitable desert environment, and communicating by means of clicks and other exotic and barbarous noises. Expeditions mounted to study the Bushmen are highlighted in the news, the participants hailed as heroes indulging in the most arduous journeys into the deserts, relentlessly beset and harried by hosts of hardships and dangers, heat, thirst, hunger, dangerous animals, et al. A good deal of all this is, of course, true. But the result is that considerable numbers of publicity-seeking pseudoscientists set out on such expeditions, thus to gain fame for a day, and all their friends and relatives become authorities on the Bushmen by association. There can

18

DESMOND T. COLE

be few peoples in the world concerning whom more nonsense and grossly exaggerated or completely fictional accounts have been narrated, written, filmed, and televised. The tragic fact is that we know pathetically little about the Bushmen — and not very much more about the Hottentots and the rest of the peoples, cultures, and languages of Africa. Information on the languages of the Bushmen is particularly scanty, and several linguists who have essayed to study them have reported considerable difficulties, not only in distinguishing the large range of clicks and click-effluxes, but also other consonants and vowels which manifest large areas of phonetic variation and phonemic overlapping. With such problems to face at the phonological level, progress in morphological analysis seems to become bogged down and retarded. Whatever the reasons may be, no one seems yet to have produced more than a scant sketch of 30 pages towards a 'Bushman' grammar. Here is a challenge to linguists. It is clear that these languages manifest some unusual features in their phonologies. Are there other peculiarities still to be discovered elsewhere in their linguistic structures? Is the presence of these unusual features the reason why no adequate breakthrough into a Bushman language has yet been made?

7.

FOCUS ON WEST AND NORTHEAST AFRICA

7.1 As in Southern Africa, so in West Africa, but not to the same degree, the first half of the nineteenth century witnessed a sudden and sharp increase in the number of monographic publications on African languages. First to appear, in 1802, was E. Brunton's Grammar and vocabulary of the Susoo language, which was followed in 1814 by G. R. Nylânder's Grammar and vocabulary of the Bulom language. We have already referred to Hannah Kilham's Specimens of African languages (1828), previous to which she had published African lessons, Wolof and English in 1823. Two years later J. Dard produced a Dictionnaire français-wolof et français-bambara, suivi du dictionnaire wolof-français (1825), and this was followed in 1826 by his Grammaire wolof in two volumes. Two other works on this language were J. F. Roger's Recherches philosophiques sur la langue ouolove, suivies d'un vocabulaire abrégé français-ouolof (1829), and M. Lambert's Grammaire ouolove (1842). In 1826 H.J. Klaproth published Essai sur la langue du Bornou (Kanuri), and in 1837 A grammar of the Mandingo language with vocabularies came from Robert M. MacBriar. Hausa first received attention from Jacob F. Schôn in a "Grammatical sketch of the Haussa language"14 (1842) and a Vocabulary of the Haussa language (1843). Robert Brooking's Nucleus of a grammar of the Fanti language, with a vocabulary (1853) appears to be the first published study of this language, and Bishop Samuel Crowther produced the earliest publications on his own language, A dictionary of the Yoruba language (1843) and a Grammar and vocabulary of the Yoruba language (1852). 14

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 14.

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1 9 4 5

19

7.2 Progress was much slower in Northeast Africa, where relatively few linguistic studies were produced during the first half of the nineteenth century. Karl W. Isenberg published a two-volume Dictionary of the A mharic language in 1841, followed by a Grammar of the Amharic language in 1842. Karl Tutschek was the author of a Dictionary of the Galla language (1844-45) in three parts, the third being devoted to grammar. We have already noted that J. L. Krapf included Galla in his Vocabulary of six East-African languages (1850). In 1854 he issued a Vocabulary of Engutuk Eloikob, including a short grammatical note on this Kwafi dialect of Maasai. In 1856 Sir Richard F. Burton included a "Grammatical outline and vocabulary of the Harari language" in his First footsteps in East Africa, and in 1857 C.F.A. Dillmann and C. Bezold published their Grammatik der äthiopischen Sprache (Ge'ez). 7.3 Back in West Africa, the year 1854 was one of considerable significance. Sigismund W. Koelle published in this year three large monographs, a collection of Kanuri folklore and vocabulary,16 a Grammar of the Bornu or Kanuri language, and an Outline of a grammar of the Vai language, together with a Vai-English vocabulary and an account of the Vai mode of syllabic writing. These three works, totalling over a thousand pages in print, were in themselves contributions of outstanding merit, but this was by no means all. Sigismund Koelle's name is remembered in African linguistic studies, not so much for his monographic works, as for his Polyglotta Africana (1854), a monumental catalogue of 'nearly three hundred words and phrases in more than one hundred distinct African languages' spoken by freed slaves, mostly West African, who were being settled in Sierra Leone. 7.4 R. N. Cust reports that H. Barth was highly critical of Koelle's magnum opus, condemning it as 'in many cases far from reliable, and too scanty to be of practical value' (p. 32), and adds his own comment that 'Such collections as the Polyglotta Africana, however excellent, are aptly compared to a handful of shells tossed upon the sea-shore, and picked up at random after having been blown far into the Interior: they are of no use at all until they have passed under the hands of a skilful assorter,... and of not much use even then' (pp. 31-2). Later however, Cust relents, and remarks that 'in some instances Koelle's judgement in entering names on the Map has been marvellously confirmed by the testimony of later travellers' (p. 33). Later again, he is warm in his praise : 'I may here notice the extreme value of Koelle's three great works : his Grammar of the Kanúri language, ... his Grammar of [Vai], and his Polyglotta Africàna, full of sound and amply-confirmed information by the Geographer and the Linguist' (p. 186). This last opinion is confirmed by present-day evaluations of Koelle's work, e.g. by W. E. Weimers, who remarks that 'His ... map is remarkably accurate, ... for many languages this information remains the most extensive to date .... Of the 156 languages he worked with over a century ago, only two or three cannot be identified and located today.' 15 African native literature, or proverbs, tales, fables and historical fragments in the Kanuri or Bornu language. To which are added a translation of the above and a Kanuri-English vocabulary. London, Church Missionary Society.

20

DESMOND T. COLE

7.5 Despite having this splendid array of material available to him, Koelle did not attempt an overall classification of his languages, though he did group together in a number of clusters those which were obviously related. Owing to the transparency of their linguistic affinities, the unity of the Bantu languages had already been established and accepted by 1850(see3.5f. above). However, there were far greater morphological and lexical discrepancies between the very much more numerous languages of West and Northeast Africa, and relationships, if any, were considerably more difficult to perceive. Koelle's groupings were among the first to be proposed for West Africa, and various others were to follow, but there were also to be many disagreements during the next century, about the affinities of the languages between the equator and the Sahara, and also about the relationships between these languages and those of Southern Africa. 7.6 A number of other missionaries and explorers made significant contributions about this time, or during the following decades, in the form of monographic studies of languages, collections of vocabularies and texts, and observations about linguistic relationships. These include, in West Africa, H. Barth, J. G. Christaller, H. Goldie, G. A. Krause (who proposed 'Kwa' and 'Gur', in 1885, as names of linguistic groups), J. F. Schon, H. Steinthal (who named the Mande group in 1867), and O. E. Vidal; and in Northeast Africa, J. Halevy, J. L. Krapf, F. Praetorius and L. Reinisch. Meanwhile, despite the fact that so little was yet known about the West and Northeast African languages and their interrelationships, and despite the fact that a good deal of dispute surrounded a number of the groupings which had been suggested, various proposals had been and were being advanced for the overall classification of African languages. At this stage the two problems, the determination of lesser, 'group', affinities, and the establishment of a pan-African classification, become closely interwoven, and a shift of focus is once more desirable in order the more effectively to survey the more pervasive developments.

8.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES

8.1 We have already noted (3.3 above) that as early as 1826 Adrien Balbi had divided Africa, for purposes of ethnic and linguistic classification, into five geographical regions, within each of which he recognized various 'families' of languages. This was in his Atlas ethnographique du globe ou Classification des peuples anciens et moderns d'apres leurs langues. The next to attempt such a classification was James C. Prichard, who, according to Cust (p. 52), established four main divisions in his Natural history of Man: 1. Negro-land 2. A. Syro-Arabian ... comprehending the Libyan and Atlantic nations from Mount Atlas to the Arabian Gulf 2.B. Galla, and tribes east and south of Abyssinia

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1 9 4 5

21

3. The Great South African Race (Bantu) 4. The Lesser South African Race (Hottentot-Bushman) In 1855, after Prichard's death, Edwin Norris published a revised edition of the Natural history of Man, and presented a threefold classification (Cust, p. 53): 1. Northern division, extending from the Atlantic to the Red Sea,... [including] all Semitic and Hamitic languages, such as the Libyan, the Abyssinian non-Semitic languages, and Galla 2. Southern division: the Hottentot 3. Intermediate division: Negro and Bantu While Prichard's classification might be regarded as ethnic rather than linguistic, vide his use of the terms 'nations, tribes, race', Norris's is explicitly linguistic. However, he admitted uncertainty about his third division, and that 'some Negro languages elude all classification ... hitherto the Negroes have been deemed to be one race from physiological rather than philological evidence' (Cust, p. 53). Yet another classification reported by Cust (p. 58) is that of Logan, who set up in 1854 a fivefold division into Egyptian, Hottentot, Shemo-Hamitic or Assyrio-Berber, Zinjian,16 and midAfrican. 8.2 In his Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft (Vienna, 1877), Professor Friedrich Müller set out a sixfold classification of African languages, and this was adopted by Robert Needham Cust as the basis for his extremely comprehensive survey of all available information at that time, A sketch of the modern languages of Africa (1883). The classification, as implemented by Cust, was as follows: 1. Semitic family 2. Hamitic group 3. Nuba-Fulah group 4. Negro group 5. Bantu family 6. Hottentot-Bushman group The term 'family' was used when 'the languages are assumed to have a common origin', i.e. to indicate genetic relationship, whereas 'group' signified that the languages were geographically contiguous or had certain features in common, but there was no clear evidence of common origin. 8.3 Cust was aware of the more recent classification of R. Lepsius in his Nubische Grammatik (Berlin, 1880), but rejected it in favour of Miiller's earlier one. The name of Professor Karl Richard Lepsius was already well known as the author of the Standard alphabet for reducing unwritten languages andforeign graphic systems to a uniform orthography in European letters (1855), which had been extensively adopted as the basis for orthographies of African languages, and whose further adoption was actively encouraged by Cust and later by Meinhof. Lepsius classified the languages of Africa into three major divisions as follows: 11

Cf. Zing or Zang, an Arabic name dating back to the tenth century or earlier, for the Negro (Bantu) peoples of East Africa.

22

DESMOND T. COLE

A. Original African Negro languages 1. Bantu Negro languages 2. Mixed Negro languages B. Hamitic languages C. Semitic languages It would serve little or no purpose to give the detailed breakdown of each of these classifications, which is available in the original works. A brief discussion of some of the major points of similarity and difference is, however, desirable. 8.4 There is general agreement between Müller, as detailed and elaborated by Cust, and Lepsius in regard to the composition of the Semitic and Bantu divisions, and for the most part also in regard to the Hamitic. The significant differences here are that Lepsius includes Hottentot-Bushman and Hausa under Hamitic,17 whereas Cust has a separate group for the former and lists Hausa in his Negro group; on the other hand Cust has Barea under Hamitic, while for Lepsius it is a Mixed Negro language. For the rest, Cust's separate Nuba-Fulah group accommodates a number of languages such as Nuba, Fula, Tumale, Maasai, etc., which Lepsius has under Mixed Negro. 8.5 Carl Meinhof's Die moderne Sprachforschung in Afrika (Berlin, 1910) does not contain a classification, as such, of African languages, but a number of remarks in his survey of the languages and language-families (Chapter 2) reveal his views at this time. An English translation of this work, by Alice Werner, An introduction to the study of African languages, was published in 1915, and it is to this edition that the page references below are given. It was Meinhof who suggested the term 'Sudan languages' for the languages spoken northward of the Bantu area (p. 37), and who, having become convinced after preliminary study that 'some community of structure [sic] must sooner or later be discovered in them', handed to Diedrich Westermann the task 'of proving that one great linguistic group extends from Upper Guinea right across the continent' (p. 38). Besides the Sudan, Bantu and Semitic languages, Meinhof recognized a Hamitic group, including Ancient Egyptian, Libyan, Berber, Somali and Galla, and also Bari, Nandi and Maasai (p. 44). Hausa also was classified as Hamitic, and Ful (p. 46), and also the click languages of East Africa [Sandawe, Hadza], and Hottentot (p. 45), but 'Nubian and its cognate tongues belong to the Sudan' (p. 47), while 'the Bushman languages ... are apparently very similar in structure to the Sudan languages' (p. 42). Meinhof's classification therefore followed that of Lepsius rather than Müller and Cust's, but, unlike Lepsius, he subsumed Ful and Maasai under Hamitic, while Bushman was tentatively associated with the Sudan languages, though Hottentot remained as Hamitic. 8.6 Diedrich Westermann, a former missionary and by this time a professor in the Seminar für Orientalische Sprachen in Berlin, carried out the task assigned to him by Meinhof and published the results in Die Sudansprachen in 1911. He had set out to 17

Lepsius lists Hausa also under Mixed Negro, but in brackets and very tentatively.

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1 9 4 5

23

establish the genetic unity of the languages which Lepsius had classified as Mixed Negro — excepting a few which obviously did not belong thereto, in particular Ful. His procedure was to compare the structures and vocabularies of eight languages, five from the west (Ewe, Twi, Ga, Yoruba, Efik) and three from the east (Kunama, Nuba, Dinka) of the total region covered by the Sudan languages. (Westermann used the term 'Sudansprachen' as proposed by Meinhof, but on the accompanying map, prepared by Bernhard Struck, there appears also the term 'Sudanisch', whence presumably the 'Sudanic family' which became current in English.) The second part of the volume contains also an important series of reconstructions of Ursudan, on similar lines to Meinhof's work on Ur-Bantu. Westermann remarked rather wistfully that the results of his work and the conclusions were not so satisfactory in respect of the three eastern languages as they were for the western ones; nevertheless, he accepted these results as evidence of genetic relationship, not only of the eight languages examined, but also of all the hundreds of other languages in the vast Sudan region, which thus constituted a genetically related language family (pp. 1-3). 8.7 In 1912 Meinhof published another major work, Die Sprachen der Hamiten, in which he surveyed in considerable detail the structures of seven languages, Ful, Hausa, Shilh, Bedauye, Maasai and Nama (Hottentot), all of which he considered to be Hamitic though some of them manifest a good deal of influence by Sudanic, Bushman, etc. The peoples speaking these languages were also considered to belong to a superior Caucasoid racial type, or to be derived from such a type with a greater or less amount of Negro admixture. The volume contains a map showing the distribution of the Hamitic languages, and an appendix on 'Hamitic types' by Professor Felix von Luschan, including a series of photographs to illustrate physiognomic characteristics of Hamites and a few other African peoples. 8.8 Such was the background to The language-families of Africa by Alice Werner, first published in 1915. This little book, written in popular style, remained for decades the only work on this subject in English, and it enjoyed a considerable reputation. Werner's classification, and the arguments submitted in support thereof, were essentially those of Meinhof, but in several respects were presented more precisely and succinctly than they had been hitherto — nowhere does Meinhof appear to have provided an overall classification of African languages. Her second chapter is headed "The five families of African languages", and these are listed (p. 19) as: 1. The Sudan family 2. The Bantu family 3. The Hamitic family 4. The Bushman group 5. The Semitic family Elsewhere she refers to the first of these as the 'Sudanian family'. Following Meinhof, Werner included Fula, Maasai and Hottentot in the Hamitic family, but considered that 'It would ... be premature to make any definite statement as to the relationship, if any, between the Bushman and the Sudan languages; yet such relation-

24

DESMOND T. COLE

ship appears to me to be extremely probable' (p. 125). In a chapter entitled "The key to the Bantu languages", she restated Meinhof's hypothesis that Fula represented 'a very old type of speech from which the existing Hamitic languages have arisen' (p. 101), and discussed further Westermann's and Meinhof's recognition of remarkable correspondences between Fula and Bantu (p. 106), which led to Meinhof's conviction that the Bantu languages were derived from 'some language very similar to Fula [which] appeared as the speech of a dominant race among Nigritian ( = Sudanian) peoples and assimilated a Nigritian vocabulary'. The basis of Meinhof's, and Werner's, classification was typological, a division into linguistic types in which each family is characterized by a set of morphological and syntactic features, e.g. grammatical gender, prefix or suffix formation, monosyllabic roots, polarity, ablaut, presence or absence of noun prefixes, etc. 'All languages', wrote Werner (p. 15), 'which, when their structure [sic] is examined, show such resemblances as indicate their derivation from a common stock, are called a family and are said to be genetically related'. 8.9 For a decade or more after the publication of the two major works by Meinhof and Westermann, no significant development or change occurred in the classification of African languages. Several publications, e.g. those by Migeod (1911, 1913), Drexel (1921-25) and Delafosse (1924), referred directly or indirectly to the problem, but either contributed nothing significantly new, or achieved no recognition in the face of what was accepted and propagated by Meinhof. Apart from his commanding personality, his scholarly reputation, established in respect of his outstanding work on Ur-Bantu reconstruction, was now unquestioned in respect of any other area of African linguistics on which he cared to express himself. Between 1925 and 1928, however, Westermann published a series of five articles entitled "Westsudanische Studien",18 and a volume entitled Die westlichen Sudansprachen und ihre Beziehungen zum Bantu (Berlin, 1927), in which he focussed attention on what he termed the West Sudanic languages, to the exclusion of the languages of the central and eastern Sudan which he had previously included in his Sudanic family. He established the real genetic unity of these West Sudanic languages, identified therein a number of more closely related groups, and demonstrated also a considerable number of resemblances in stems and affixes between West Sudanic and Bantu, but in respect of these did not commit himself to any statement about genetic relationship. 8.10 It is interesting to reflect here, in passing, that as early as 1852, in his introductory remarks in S. Crowther's Grammar and vocabulary of the Yoruba language, Bishop O. E. Vidal of Sierra Leone had stated that some of the languages of that country, notably Temne and Bulom, were related to those of South Africa. This led W. H. I. Bleek to recognize 'the extension of that class of languages and nations to which the Kafir belongs [i.e. Bantu] over all parts of South Africa known to us ... and over the greater part of Western Africa as far as 13° northern latitude, extending in that region from the banks of the Senegal to those of the upper Nile' (Bleek 1862, p. viii). Edwin Norris came to much the same conclusion as Vidal and at about the "

MSOS, 28.1-85, 29.1-31, 29.32-60, 30.173-207, 31.63-86.

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1 9 4 5

25

same time, but apparently independently (Prichard's Natural history of Man, 4th ed., 1855, ed. by Norris). H. Goldie also supported this view in the preface to his Dictionary of the Efik language published in 1874 (Cust, p. 55). Yet another was J. G. Christaller who, in a letter to Cust, presumably about 1880, stated 'that in his [Christaller's] opinion many proofs may be found of the relation of the Efik, Yariba, Ashanti, and Temne, all Negro Languages, with the Bantu Family' (Cust, p. 59). Some of these languages were subsequently classified as Semi-Bantu, but it is interesting that the pioneers of the period 1850 to 1880 perceived relationships which were not significant — or not in the same way — to Johnston, Meinhof, Westermann, and others, fifty to eighty years later. 8.11 In 1937 Johannes Lukas published his Zentralsudanische Studien, in which he established and discussed nineteen clusters of languages in the vicinity of Lake Chad, whence the group name Chado-Hamitic. Three years later A. N. Tucker produced The Eastern Sudanic languages (1940), which includes, in the Introduction, chapters on "Characteristics of the African language families", with definitions of Sudanic, Hamitic and Bantu languages, and "Characteristics of the Eastern Sudanic languages". The bulk of the work is devoted to a detailed and well-documented survey of the Moru-Madi group. Tucker refers to the customary classification of African languages into five families, Sudanic, Hamitic, Semitic, Bantu, and Bushman, and remarks on the extraordinary divergence one from another of the Sudanic languages (p. 56). He uses the term 'Eastern Sudanic languages' primarily in a geographical sense, to comprehend four groups of languages, Moru-Madi, Bongo-Baka-Bagirmi, NdogoSere, and Zande. Of these four groups, the first two have much in common with each other, as do also the latter two, so the Eastern Sudanic languages are 'sharply divided into two opposing camps' (p. viiif.). 8.12 Two more articles relevant to our present study came from Westermann in 1935 (see Bibliography), but his next major contribution was Part 2, "Sprache und Erziehung", of Völkerkunde von Afrika published in 1940 by H. Baumann, R. Thurnwald, and D. Westermann. Under the heading "Die Sprachfamilien" he set out the following major divisions, though it is clear from the subsequent discussion that he did not regard all of these as genetic entities: I. Khoisan languages II. Negro languages 1. Sudan 2. Bantu 3. Nilotic III. Hamito-Semitic languages 1. Hamitic 2. Semitic Each of these divisions is discussed in detail, with indications of sub-divisions and lists of languages included therein. In this classification Westermann reunited, in one linguistic unit, Hottentot (Khoi) and Bushman (San) which Meinhof and Werner had

26

DESMOND T. COLE

kept separated, with Hottentot classified as Hamitic.19 He remarked on the fact that Hottentot, and Naron of the Central Bushman group, differ from the other Bushman languages in having a grammatical gender system, but share with them a lexical relationship. 8.13 Under Negro languages, the Sudan languages are further divided into four large groups: (a) Nigritic, including Kunama, Barea, Nuba, Mangbetu, Songhai, the Kwa languages, etc. (b) Mande or Mandingo (c) Semibantu, including class languages of Kordofan, Cameroun, Benue-Cross-Niger Delta, the Gur languages, the West Atlantic group, Ful, etc. (d) Inner Sudan, including classless languages of Kordofan and Wadai, and the Kanuri, Bongo-Baka-Sara, and Hausa-Kotoko groups, etc. These include the Chado-Hamitic group established by Lukas (1937). Of these four groups, the first three have in common a stock of vocabulary which they share also with Bantu, but lexical correspondences between these and the languages of the Inner Sudan are rare. Westermann made several such observations about lexical and other resemblances between Nigritic, Mande, Semibantu and Bantu, but drew no formal conclusions about their possible genetic relationship. He classified two groups of Nilotic languages, which he termed Niloto-Sudanic (Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, etc.) and Niloto-Hamitic (Ban, Lotuko, Maasai, Nandi, etc.), but remarked that they constitute a 'zusammenhangender Typus' (p. 398) quite distinct from Sudanic-Nigritic, Hamitic and Bantu. Genetic relationship of the Hamitic (Berber and Cushitic) and Semitic languages is implied by their inclusion under the heading Hamito-Semitic, but is not actually stated. 8.14 Between 1902 and 1956, when he died at the age of 81 years, Diedrich Westermann produced over two hundred publications (excluding book reviews), most of them on African linguistic topics, and a considerable number of them books of substantial size — grammars, dictionaries, comparative studies, etc. His contribution to African linguistic studies is unrivalled in quantity, and probably also in quality, taken as a whole. His area of specialization extended above the equator from the Senegal River to the upper reaches of the Nile, an area of enormous linguistic complexity which he, probably more than any other individual, helped to unravel. In his earlier days of classificatory studies, perhaps under the influence of Meinhof, Westermann was quite explicit in his recognition of the Sudan languages as constituting a genetic family, 19

W. H. I. Bleek appears to have been the first person to posit a North African (Coptic) kinship for Hottentot in his doctoral thesis, De Nominum generibus Unguarum Africae australis, Copticae, Semiticarum aliarumque sexualium (1851). Lepsius classified both Hottentot and Bushman as Hamitic in 1880, and Meinhof confirmed the Hamitic affiliation of Hottentot in 1912. Among the small voices of protest was that of I. Schapera in "The relationship between the Hottentots and the Bushmen", South African Journal of Science, 23, 1926, and in Chapter 15, "The Khoisan languages", in The Khoisan peoples of South Africa (1930), where he expressed the view (p. 419) that Hottentot and Bushman should be included in the same language family.

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1945

27

but thereafter he adopted an extremely cautious, tentative and noncommittal approach to such matters. Repeatedly he drew attention to extensive correspondences between groups of languages, but failed to draw any conclusions therefrom. Westermann was gracious in repudiating his own earlier conclusions when these proved to be faulty, but not until 1940, in his contribution to Völkerkunde von Afrika, did he implicitly reject some of Meinhof's earlier groupings and hypotheses, and nowhere does he appear to have done so explicitly. It was therefore Meinhof's classification of African languages, presented in its most accessible formulation by Alice Werner, which prevailed, and Westermann's regroupings and implied repudiations of earlier hypotheses and conclusions went largely unnoticed. And so, when Meinhof's death in 1944, at the age of 87 years, so nearly coincided with the end of the war to end wars, his commanding personality was still dominant in the African linguistic scene, and his authoritative shadow lived on after him.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

APPLEYARD, J.W. 1850. The Kafir language. King William's Town, Wesleyan Missionary Society. BASCOM, W. R., and HERSKOVITS, M. J., eds. 1959. Continuity and change in African cultures. Chicago, University Press. [Reviewed by D.T. Cole in Word 15. 543-46 (1959).] BAUMANN, H . ,

THURNWALD, R.,

and

WESTERMANN, D .

1940. V ö l k e r k u n d e

von

Afrika. Essen, Essener Verlags-anstalt. BEACH, D.M. 1938. The phonetics of the Hottentot language. Cambridge, Heffer. BLEEK, D.F. 1928. The Naron — A Bushman tribe of the central Kalahari. Cambridge, University Press. . 1929. Comparative vocabularies of Bushman languages. Cambridge, University Press. , 1956. Bushman dictionary. New Haven, American Oriental Society. BLEEK, W.H.I. 1857. Zulu legends. Pretoria, Van Schaik. Ed. by J. A. Engelbrecht, 1952.

. 1858. The library of Sir George Grey. 2 Vols. London, Trübner. . 1862. Part I. A comparative grammar of South African languages. Part II, Section I, 1869. Cape Town, Juta. , and LLOYD, L.C. 1911. Specimens of Bushman folklore. London, George Allen. COLE, D.T. 1957. Bantu linguistic studies in South Africa. Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press. C[OLE], D.T. 1963. Bushman languages. Encyclopaedia Britannica. London. CUST, R.N. 1883. A sketch of the modern languages of Africa. 2 Vols. London, Trübner.

28

DESMOND T. COLE

DELAFOSSE, M. 1924. Les langues du Soudan et de la Guinée. Les langues du Monde, ed. by A. Meillet and M. Cohen, pp. 463-560. Paris. DOKE, C. M. 1945. Bantu — Modem grammatical, phonetical, and lexicographical studies since 1860. London, Percy Lund. DOKE, C. M., et al. 1946. In memory of Carl Meinhof. AfrS 5.73-81. DOKE, C. M., and COLE, D.T. 1961. Contributions to the history of Bantu linguistics. Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press. DREXEL, A. 1921-25. Gliederung der Afrikanischen Sprachen. Anthropos 16-20. HAIR, P.E.H. 1967. The early study of Nigerian languages: Essays and bibliographies. Cambridge, University Press. HINTZE, U. 1957. Diedrich Westermann — Schriftenverzeichnis und einige biographische Daten. MIO 5.45-83. JEFFREYS, M.D.W. 1952. Corsali 1515 on Bantu and Sudanic languages. AfrS 11.191.

JOHNSTON, H.H. 1919-22. A comparative study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages. 2 Vols. Oxford, Clarendon. JONES, R. 1958. Africa bibliography series — West Africa. London, International African Institute. . 1959. Africa bibliography series — North-East Africa. London, International African Institute. . 1960. Africa bibliography series — East Africa. London, International African Institute. KOELLE, S. W. 1854. Polyglotta Africana. Graz, Akademische Druck (reprinted 1963). LEPSIUS, R. 1880. Nubische grammatik. Berlin, Wilhelm Hertz. LICHTENSTEIN, H . 1811-12. Reisen im südlichen Afrika in den Jahren 1803, 1804, 1805, und 1 8 0 6 . 2 Vols. Berlin. Travels in Southern Africa in the years 1803,1804, 1805, and 1806. 2 Vols. London, 1812-15. (Reprinted by the Van Riebeeck Society, 1928-30). LUKAS, J. 1937. Zentralsudanische Studien. Hamburg. MEINHOF, C. 1910. Die moderne Sprachforschung in Afrika. Berlin. . 1912. Die Sprachen der Hamiten. Hamburg, Friederichsen. ——. 1915. An introduction to the study of African languages (Translation by A. Werner of Die moderne Sprachforschung in Afrika). London, Dent. MIGEOD, F.W.H. 1911,1913. The languages of West Africa. 2 Vols. London, Kegan Paul. SCHAPERA, I. 1930. The Khoisan peoples of South Africa. London, George Routledge. . 1941. Select bibliography of South African native life and problems. London, Oxford University Press. SPOHR, O.H. 1962. Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek — A bio-bibliographical sketch. University of Cape Town.

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS TO 1 9 4 5

29

1 8 9 1 . A comparative grammar of the South-African Bantu languages. London, Kegan Paul. TUCKER, A.N. 1940. The Eastern Sudanic languages. London, Oxford University Press. TUCKER, A. N., and BRYAN, M. A. 1956. The non-Bantu languages of North-Eastern Africa. London, Oxford University Press. WELMERS, W . E. [n.d.]. African language classification prior to 1948. Unpublished. WERNER, A. 1915. The language-families of Africa. London, Kegan Paul. 2nd ed. 1925. WESTERMANN, D. 1 9 1 1 . Die Sudansprachen. Hamburg, Friederichsen. . 1935. Nominalklassen in westafrikanischen Klassensprachen und in Bantusprachen. MSOS 38.1-53. . 1935. Charakter und Einteilung der Sudansprachen. Africa 8.129-48. TORREND, J.

THE PRESENT STATE OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS PAUL SCHACHTER

In African linguistics, as in linguistics in general, the period since the end of World War II has been one of unprecedented activity. Since this paper is only one among many in the current volume that are concerned with the results of this activity, some initial delimitation of the paper's scope would seem to be in order. The aim of the paper, then, is to present an overview of recent work in two areas of African-linguistic research: classification and analysis. In each of these areas, emphasis is placed upon developments and issues which are, by their nature, unlikely to receive concentrated attention in the more specialized contributions to the volume. Thus, in the area of linguistic classification, attention is directed chiefly to questions concerning the relations that obtain among the various language groups that are dealt with in separate contributions to the volume. Questions concerning the internal composition of these groups, on the other hand, are generally left to the more specialized papers, except in certain cases where the legitimacy of the grouping itself has been challenged. In the area of linguistic analysis, this paper discusses research of two types. The first of these is research that is explicitly concerned with the analysis of a number of not-necessarily-related languages: e.g. geographically-oriented or typologicallyoriented analyses of certain structural phenomena. The second is research of a kind which, although confined to a single language or language group, and, as such, likely to be discussed elsewhere in this volume, may also profitably be viewed in a more general perspective: e.g. research that deals in a particularly interesting way with a structural phenomenon shared by other African languages, or research that reflects the application to the analysis of an African language of a current theoretical model of more than parochial interest. The most significant recent work concerned with the over-all classification of African languages, and that around which most recent controversy in this area has centered, is a group of writings by Joseph Greenberg. In the period from 1949 to 1952, Greenberg published, in the Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, a series of eight papers, which were reprinted in 1955 as a monograph entitled Studies in African linguistic classification (hereafter, SALC). In 1963 an extensively revised and expanded version of Greenberg's classification was published under the title The languages of Africa (hereafter, LA). It is this latter work which will be the primary

THE PRESENT STATE OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS

31

point of reference for the following summary of Greenberg's classification, although note will be taken of some of the more significant points of difference between it and SALC. In LA, Greenberg attempts to show that the indigenous languages of Africa, when approached from a conventional comparative-linguistic point of view (i.e. with emphasis placed upon cognate vocabulary, rather than upon the typological or non-linguistic considerations that were emphasized in certain earlier classifications), may all be assigned to one of four language families. These families he calls: NigerKordofanian, Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan. The Niger-Kordofanian family is divided into two primary branches: Niger-Congo and Kordofanian. The Niger-Congo branch, which extends over a large part of Sub-Saharan Africa, forming a rough triangle whose points are in Senegal, Kenya, and the Republic of South Africa, Greenberg divides into six further branches. These, listed in a general west-to-east order, are: West Atlantic, Mande, Gur, Kwa, Benue-Congo, and Adamawa-Eastern. The Kordofanian languages are spoken in a relatively small area of the eastern Sudan. Their genetic relationship to Niger-Congo Greenberg postulates for the first time in LA; in SALC they are classified as a distinct language family. Apart from its treatment of Kordofanian, the two points at which Greenberg's classification departs most notably from the central earlier tradition are its inclusion of Fulani in the West Atlantic branch and its inclusion of the Bantu languages in the Benue-Congo branch. Prior to Greenberg's work, Meinhof's (1912) classification of Fulani as Hamitic had, although not altogether unchallenged, been for the most part lent the consent of silence. As for the Bantu languages, their similarity to languages of West Africa had sometimes been noted, but they were nonetheless quite generally regarded as constituting a separate language family. Greenberg's Afroasiatic family is, from the point of view of the languages it includes, partly coextensive with the Hamito-Semitic family postulated by earlier writers. There are, however, some significant differences both with respect to the major divisions recognized within the family and with respect to the inclusion or exclusion of specific languages. In the first place, Greenberg, while accepting the previously-postulated genetic relationship to Semitic of the Berber languages of North Africa, the Cushitic languages of East Africa, and the extinct Ancient Egyptian language, denies that the latter three constitute any kind of separate 'Hamitic' unity over against Semitic. Secondly, of those other languages and language groups for which 'Hamitic' membership had been proposed by Meinhof (1912) — Fulani, the'Nilo-Hamitic' languages, Hottentot, and Hausa — Greenberg finds evidence of genetic relationship to Semitic, etc. only in the last case. For Greenberg, then, Hausa and the languages of the Lake Chad area to which it is more or less closely related constitute the fifth branch of an Afroasiatic language family with five coordinate branches: Semitic, Berber, Cushitic, Ancient Egyptian, and Chadic. The Nilo-Saharan language family consists of six branches whose genetic relationship to one another is postulated for the first time in LA. These branches, each of

32

PAUL SCHACHTER

which was tentatively treated as constituting a distinct family in SALC, are: Songhai, Saharan, Maban, Fur, Chari-Nile, and Koman. Songhai, the westernmost branch of the family, is centered in Mali and Niger. The other branches, which are listed above in a general west-to-east order, are found in the central or eastern part of the continent, for the most part interspersed among Afroasiatic languages or sandwiched between these and Niger-Congo languages. The Chari-Nile branch (essentially equivalent to the 'Macro-Sudanic' family of SALC) is the one to which Greenberg devotes most attention, and the one with respect to which his treatment is most innovative. In particular, he includes the so-called 'Nilo-Hamitic' languages, of which the best known is Masai, together with the Nilotic languages in a single subbranch of Chari-Nile, in disagreement with Meinhof's generally (though not universally) accepted claim that these two groups of languages are not genetically related, and that the 'Nilo-Hamitic' languages are instead genetically related to other 'Hamitic' languages. Greenberg's Khoisan family, called the 'Click' family in SALC, includes the Bushman and Hottentot languages, which together constitute the South African branch of Khoisan, and the Sandawe and Hatsa branches in Tanganyika. While Greenberg is by no means the first to suggest a genetic relationship between the languages of the Bushmen and Hottentot, his rejection of Meinhof's claims concerning the 'Hamitic' character of Hottentot is more complete than that of most other modern scholars who have dealt with these languages. Of the many innovations incorporated into Greenberg's classification, only a few have thus far become matters of significant scholarly controversy. In some cases, this lack of controversy reflects genuine acceptance of Greenberg's conclusions. For example, Westermann (1952), in reviewing some of Greenberg's work, explicitly concedes that his own earlier exclusion of Fulani from membership in West Atlantic — in Westermann (1927) — had been in error. In other cases, the lack of controversy no doubt bespeaks indifference more than it does acceptance. As Welmers (1963:413) observes in his review of LA: 'Crudely, no one cares enough about Songhai or Koman or Fur to get involved in a dispute with Greenberg as to his conclusions or the methodology that underlies them.' The three points of Greenberg's classification that have proved to be most controversial are: the claim of a genetic relationship between the Bantu languages and the West African languages included in Greenberg's Niger-Congo branch of NigerKordofanian; the claim of a genetic relationship between the'Nilo-Hamitic'and Nilotic languages within Greenberg's Chari-Nile branch of Nilo-Saharan; and the claim of a genetic relationship among the languages included in Greenberg's Khoisan family. Of these, the two latter fall within the scope of more specialized contributions to this volume, so that only the controversy concerning the first, i.e. the claimed membership of Bantu in a larger Niger-Congo family, will receive detailed consideration here. In all three of the areas around which controversy has centered, the main thrust

THE PRESENT STATE OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS

33

of the arguments of Greenberg's critics has been the same: that Greenberg, although he has presented long lists of putative cognates among the languages for which he claims genetic relationship, has not specified precise sound correspondences, and thus has failed to produce the only proof of cognation that is acceptable in standard comparative-linguistic practice. Until such proof is forthcoming, the critics maintain, Greenberg's claims are mere speculative hypotheses. Thus Westphal (1963:237), in challenging Greenberg's assertion of genetic relationship among the Khoisan languages, says: 'We cannot as yet set up any sound-shifts .... We cannot therefore state that [these languages] have anything but borrowings in common.' Similarly, Tucker and Bryan (1956 :xvi) assert of the claimed genetic relationship between the Nilotic and 'Nilo-Hamitic' languages: 'The only conclusion which can be reached at this stage is that mere vocabulary comparison, unsupported by phonology, may give rise to a variety of classifications, each as convincing as the other.' In the case of Greenberg's claim of genetic relationship between the Bantu languages and West African languages, this kind of challenge has sometimes been felt to have special force because so many of the sound correspondences among the Bantu languages themselves are, in fact, known. Thus Guthrie (1962:10) asks: 'Do the features that appear to be common to West African languages and Bantu language display the same regularity of correspondence as that found within the Bantu family itself?' Then, after answering this question in the negative, he concludes that the'Bantuisms [in West African languages] are due to the incorporation of Bantu features into languages of a quite distinct origin' (1962:19). The best-known attempt to offer an alternative to Greenberg's hypothesis concerning the relation between Bantu and West African languages is to be found in the paper of Guthrie's that has just been quoted. In this paper Guthrie suggests that a community speaking a 'Pre-Bantu' language, residing perhaps in the savannah country between the Ubangi and Chari rivers, split into a number of splinter groups, some of which migrated westward and others of which moved south into the center of the present Bantu area. The descendants of the members of the splinter groups that headed west either died out or were absorbed into other communities, their language vanishing except for some borrowed Bantuisms still found in the languages of these communities. The splinter groups that headed south, on the other hand, preserved their language, now 'Proto-Bantu'. In the course of time, some of the descendants of the members of these groups of Proto-Bantu speakers, after splitting into a western and an eastern subgroup ('Proto-Bantu A' and 'Proto-Bantu B'), migrated to the north and to the south until they had achieved dominance throughout the entire present Bantu area. In considering Guthrie's hypothesis, it may be noted, first of all, that there is no necessary incompatibility between his account of the direction of migrations and a claim of genetic relationship between the Bantu languages and the languages of West Africa. The incompatibility arises only from his further claim that the 'Pre-Bantu' speakers who moved westward lost their language while those who moved southward retained their language, as well as from his apparent assumption that 'Pre-Bantu' itself

34

PAUL SCHACHTER

was unrelated to West African languages. Guthrie's well-documented proposals concerning the internal spread of Bantu — i.e. an original division into a western and an eastern subgroup, followed by north-south expansion of each of these subgroups — are not at all relevant to the question of the relation of Bantu to West African languages, since the spread of Bantu in any case followed the 'splintering' of 'Pre-Bantu'. Indeed, Guthrie's 'Pre-Bantu' would seem to be substantially the same as Greenberg's 'Proto-Benue-Congo', except that Greenberg, on the basis of the geographic distribution of the so-called 'Semi-Bantu' languages, places the ancestor of the Bantu languages a few hundred miles farther west than does Guthrie (i.e. in the central Benue valley, cf. LA, p. 38). Greenberg's 'Proto-Niger-Congo', moreover, might, if translated into Guthrie's terms, simply be called 'Pre-Pre-Bantu'. Ultimately, then, the question is: can the resemblances between the Bantu languages and the languages of West Africa be attributed to borrowing, as Guthrie suggests? The answer to this question would, on the basis of a large and growing body of evidence supporting a hypothesis of genetic relationship, seem to be negative. For example, Stewart (1965) presents evidence of certain regular sound correspondences between the Akan languages of the Kwa branch of Greenberg's Niger-Congo and reconstructed 'Common Bantu'. The correspondences are between Common Bantu voiceless plosives and certain Akan fricatives and glides. Stewart finds, for instance, that Common Bantu *[p], *[t], and *[k] correspond regularly to [h], [s], and [w] respectively in what he calls 'Central Akan': i.e. Anyi and Twi. On the basis of these correspondences he postulates a set of 'Common Akan-Bantu' aspirated voiceless plosives, *[ph], *[th] and *[kh], underlying the Common Bantu and Akan phones in question. Certainly much more work of the kind begun by Stewart will be needed before 'the same regularity of correspondence as that found within the Bantu family'can be claimed for Greenberg's Niger-Congo as a whole — or, for that matter, for any one of its branches, none of which has to date been accorded the kind of intensive scholarly scrutiny with which the Bantu languages have been favored. In the meantime, however, it seems appropriate to ask what conclusion OTHER than genetic relationship between Bantu and West African languages can be drawn from an objective examination of the data cited by Greenberg and his supporters: e.g. Greenberg's extensive lists of strikingly similar forms with shared meanings attested over the entire proposed Niger-Congo area (SALC, pp. 18-23; LA, pp. 13-24), or the detailed morphophonemic similarities noted by Welmers (1963:414). In particular, in view of the nature and geographic spread of the cited similarities, a hypothesis like Guthrie's, which proposes borrowing, perhaps combined with accidental resemblances, as a general account of the phenomena in question, seems implausible. Much the same can probably be said concerning the possibility of borrowing or accidental resemblances as a general explanation of the data underlying the other hypotheses of Greenberg's that have aroused most controversy. As Cole (1960:223) says, in assessing SALC: 'Whatever errors Greenberg's classification may have in its present form, ... there can be no denying the fact that his is the first attempt at a

THE PRESENT STATE OF AFRICAN LINGUISTICS

35

pan-African classification on genetic principles; and that as a genetic classification it will prevail in its essentials, if not in all minute details.' Before leaving the subject of the over-all classification of African languages, mention should be made of two other recent contributions in this area: the Handbook of African languages, together with certain associated publications, and the work of Homburger. The Handbook, prepared under the auspices of the International African Institute, consists of four volumes: Basset (1952), Westermann and Bryan (1952), Tucker and Bryan (1956), and Bryan (1959). These volumes deal, respectively, with Berber, the languages of West Africa, the non-Bantu languages of North-Eastern and Southern Africa, and the Bantu languages. Associated with the Handbook, by virtue both of authorship and of IAI sponsorship, are a number of satellite monographs such as Bryan (1948) and Guthrie and Tucker (1956). The Handbook and the monographs associated with it represent an effort to summarize systematically a considerable part of what was known concerning the languages of Africa at the time they were compiled. The four volumes of the Handbook include not only a classification of the languages with which they are concerned, but also information about where the languages are spoken, the number of speakers, the dialects, etc. In some cases, structural summaries are also included. (In the case of the non-Bantu languages of North-Eastern Africa, the structural summaries are presented in a separate volume, Tucker and Bryan (1966).) The classification embodied in the Handbook series is, intentionally, a conservative one. The basic units of the classification, 'languages' and 'dialect clusters', are assigned, where the authors consider it appropriate, to 'language groups', and these, in turn, are, in some cases, assigned to 'larger units'. The latter — e.g. the Mande.languages of West Africa or the Nilotic languages of East Africa — are the most comprehensive groupings recognized, and even for these the authors do not necessarily claim genetic relationship in all cases. From the point of view of classification, then, the Handbook series is of value primarily for the information it offers about the internal composition of language groupings whose unity is fairly well established, rather than for any contribution it makes to a more comprehensive account of genetic relations. At the other extreme from the Handbook series with respect to the comprehensiveness of the groupings recognized is Homburger's The Negro-African languages (1949), a translation and revision of Homburger (1941). This work constitutes a continuation of the author's earlier efforts to argue two main hypotheses: first, that all of the indigenous languages of Africa are genetically related; and second, that these languages represent the evolution of dialectal forms of Ancient Egyptian. Neither of these hypotheses has attracted much support among other students of African languages, although it may be pointed out, with regard to the first hypothesis, that Greenberg's position by no means precludes the possibility of ultimately finding some genetic connection among some or all of the four language families he posits. It is clear, however, that before such a possibility can be seriously investigated, much work remains to be done with regard to verifying the genetic unity of each of Green-

36

PAUL SCHACHTER

berg's four families and reconstructing the proto-languages underlying them. In the second of the two areas of research to be discussed in this paper, the analysis of African languages, there has been too much recent activity of general interest to permit of anything more than a rather selective survey. In phonology, significant progress has been made both in the analysis of the phonetics of African languages and in the analysis of more abstract levels of African phonological systems. Prior to the period with which this paper is concerned, Westermann and Ward (1933) had made an excellent start in the study of some of the more striking phonetic phenomena encountered in the languages of Africa. This study has now been considerably advanced by the work of Ladefoged (1964), which represents the first application of modern instrumental techniques — e.g. sound spectrography, cine-radiology, and palatography — to the phonetic analysis of a substantial number of African languages. Ladefoged's work is based on an investigation of selected phonetic properties of sixty-one West African languages. These languages include representatives of all of the Western branches of Greenberg's Niger-Congo family as well as of the Chadic branch of Afroasiatic and the Songhai branch of Nilo-Saharan. In investigating these languages, Ladefoged has chosen to concentrate upon certain types of sounds which, although fairly exotic when viewed from the perspective of an Indo-European-based general-phonetic tradition, are both widespread and functionally significant in Africa. Of particular interest are his analyses of double-articulated and implosive consonants. In the case of the former — e.g. consonants such as [gb] and [kp], which involve simultaneous bilabial and velar closures—Ladefogedfindsthat different languages use different airstream mechanisms in their production. In particular, he finds that the use of a simple pulmonic-egressive airstream mechanism, previously assumed to be usual in the production of such consonants, is actually rather rare. In most cases, a combination of two airstream mechanisms (pulmonic-egressive and velaric-ingressive) is used, and in some, a combination of three (the two previously mentioned plus the glottalic-ingressive mechanism). With regard to the implosives, Ladefoged finds that not all of the sounds that had previously been regarded as implosives are actually characterized by implosion: i.e. by a downward movement of the larynx producing a glottalic-ingressive airstream. While genuine implosives such as [B] and [ ' r I y $ y ? II. p t c k kw b 6 d d j 'y g rj III. p t c k ngw mb m nd n nj ny ng y Bedik I. f s sy h w 6 r I y 'y y ? II. p t c k b 6 d d j 'y g y III. p t c k mb m nd n nj ny ng y

68

J. DAVID SAPIR

TABLE V (continued)

Konyagi 1. 0 r s h I y 0,w,y fi ry y ~w y. ~y ~y H. p t c k b d j g 6 d 'y m n ny y III. p t c k mp nt nc yk mb nd nj m n ny y

= nasal V+y (etc.), V = nasal flap) Biafada I. / r s h bw b d j g bw I m n ny y w y II. p t c k bw bb dd j gg gb r mm nn nny yrj ww yy III. mp nt nc yk mbw mb nd nj yg ygb nr mm nn nny yy ww yy

Pajade (reconstructed (Wilson 1965)) I. f s s 0 r e,w b d j m n ny y w y II. pp tt cc kk p t c k 66 dd 'y mm nn nny yy III. pp tt cc kk mp nt nc yk mb nd nj mm nn nny yy

Kobiana I./ h s h b I d g r II. p t c k bb dd j j gg d(d) III. mp nt nc yk mb nd nj yg (?)

m n ny y w y

5 = interdental fricative Kasanga I. /

r

s

h

b

I

j

g

II. p t c k mb nd nj yg m n ny y w y III. mp nt nc yk mb nd nj yg (All the material has been taken from Wilson (1965) except Serer which has been taken from Pichl (1963a), Basari and Bedik from Ferry (p.c.) and Kobiana and Kasanga from Wilson (MSS.).)

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

69

This model, among other things, permits one to handle numerous inconsistencies that come up in establishing cognates between languages that are (or were) subject to consonant alternation. (I come back to this below in considering Fula-Serer cognates.) Another way would be to assume one of the grades as basic and the other two as derived. For example, if Grade I is taken as basic we would get: X, -> X„/A X,„/B where the basic variant Xi becomes X n in environment A, and becomes X m in environment B. In accepting this latter method we are given the problem of determining the base grade. To do this other than arbitrarily we would have to demonstrate either from internal or comparative evidence that the base grade does not condition the stem, i.e. that stems appearing in base grade contexts maintain their unaltered 'historic' form. For most of the languages that operate consonant alternation there is insufficient information available to say anything about base grades. With Bedik, Basari, and Konyagi, where material is sufficient, the alternation system is pervasive and every affected stem is subject to some kind of predictable alternation. In such circumstances it is impossible to infer which of the different variants is basic, at least not without extensive historical comparisons. Fula, however, has a number of 'idiosyncratic' stems that have permitted postulating the 'fricative' or Grade I as basic. The irregular stems do not take the continuant variant in contexts where it is expected; they take instead Grade II voiced stops or, very rarely, the Grade II voiceless stops /k/ and /p/ (/c/ does not occur and /t/ is immutable). For example, in Adamawa Fula (Stennes 1967:65) one observes jurjgo 'hand' instead of the expected *yuygo; ddrnde 'height' for *rarnde, etc, As for the voiceless stops /p/ and /k/ Houis (1959:175) was able to spot in the lexicons of Labouret and Gaden a few forms such as kawiraade 'mother's brother' instead of *hawiraa6e, pusude 'to crush' and not *fusude, etc. The reverse situation, a continuant appearing in Grade II, does not seem to occur.18 Because of this irreversibility and because of the large number of irregular stems general to Fula most writers refer to Grade I as basic or as 'unconditioned' (Houis 1959:169; Labouret 1952:24 ('noms sans permutation') and Stennes 1967:66ff. (referring to such contexts as having 'no change' in the initial consonant)). Roots are then determined by observing the form a stem takes in the context of the 'unconditioned' grade. Although this argument for Grade I as basic works fairly well for Fula when viewed synchronically, it raises two problems when considered with respect to North West 18

Although there are exceptions: e.g. Stennes (1967:69) gives hdolooji 'noise' where one would expect *koolooji (this word appears neither in Taylor nor Labouret). The Grade I / '/ does appear in Grade II contexts in situations that are phonologically determined: before /i/ and /u/ in noun stems and at all times before /e/ and /o/ (Houis 1959:170).

70

3. DAVID SAPIR

Atlantic in general: 1. If we are to assume that stems in the context of Grade I are always unconditioned we must conclude that the same situation prevailed in protoNorth West Atlantic. To argue otherwise would be to assume the unscathed 'reemergence' of once conditioned basic stems. This seems unlikely.19 2. If Grade I was 'unconditioned' in the proto-language, then we must postulate its becoming 'conditioned' in the Eastern Sénégal-Guinea languages and, independently, in Serer. Something like this is possible. However the general trend in all the languages is towards reduction and eventual disappearance of the alternation system. Because of these problems it would be best (and more prudent) to reject altogether the notion of 'base' grade; at least until appropriate comparative material is forthcoming. The Fula idiosyncrasies can be handled in terms of consonant alternation reduction and therefore quite without recourse to an 'unconditioned' grade. The 'intrusions' of voiceless stops into Grade I contexts is surely something quite recent, and probably prefigures the disappearance of voiceless stop grading altogether. This would be by analogy with the already immutable /t/. That they are recent is shown by the examples which are always (the few that there are) either derived stems (kawiraade < kawu+iraa+6e (-iraa- = 'intimate')), loans {portoo6e 'European' < Portuguese), restricted to a particular dialect (pepde, 'displace with difficulty' from Futa Dyalon), or found simultaneously with a 'regular' variant (pusude 'crush', but also fusaade, with the root given by Labouret as -fus). The 'intrusive' voiced stops can be dealt with by arguing that they appear in two distinct series: voiced stop¡ voiced stop/nasal compound, and continuant/voiced stopI nasal compound, e.g. b/b/mb and w/b/mb. Thus any word that takes /b/ in Grade I contexts forms part of the b/b¡mb (e.g. bérgoore 'blanket'), while one that takes /w/ is part of w/b/mb (wodere 'hare'). At this juncture we can only speculate about the development of the parallel voiced stop series. One possibility is that their emergence indicates the partial breakdown of the Grade I — Grade II distinction for continuant-voiced stop series, with the voiced stops becoming the generalized variant. Another possibility, which cannot be ignored, would be: a former set of voiced stopjglottalized stop!nasal series breaks up with the glottalized stops and nasals becoming immutable and the Grade I stops partially merging with the continuant/voiced stop/nasal compound series. The reconstructed series would then be *b¡b¡m, *dld¡n, *jl'y/ny and perhaps *g/gly (cf. Bedik 6¡6¡m and // bad) also took place with bopa b- 'head': compare Fula hoore/koo'e, Serer a xax ala/a kox aka and further afield Ndut 'af, and Konyagi -nkaf and Biafada where the g is likewise lost, though only in the sin-

gular: boofajmaagafa (cf. Pajade poofa).

The fact that there is a big alternation precludes interpreting the examples as remnants of a consonant alternation system.

75

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

class markers and membership. This done we have the following classes: sg. b-, g-,j-, w-, m-, s-, 1-, k-; pi. y-, «-. Certain of the classes mark (though never exclusively) categories other than just number: s- as a general diminutive, j- and s- as collectives, g- alternating with b- to denote tree/fruit (e.g. new g-jnew b- 'Cayor apple tree'/'Cayor apple'), m- denotes, as expected, liquids, w- insects and small animals, and g- alternates with several classes to indicate 'abstractness' (e.g. mbook b-lmbaok g- 'a particular relation'/'kinship'.) The generalized non-personal singular class is b-. It has the largest membership, taking all loans and alternating as the marker for many stems assigned to other classes (WITHOUT notional change). Further, there is a tendency to mark nouns as b- when its proper class is either not known or forgotten (Stewart 1966:1-8). The singular class k- (which has a very limited membership) alternates with h- to form the plural; other singular markers alternate with y-, though a good number of personal stems assigned to different classes take plural n- (e.g. jigeen jijjigeen Hi 'the woman', goor gi/goor Hi 'the man'.

Whenever a personal regent is replaced by a pronoun substitute the class automatically shifts to k- in the singular and n- in the plural. This shift plus the frequent use of H- for the plural personal (regent present), as well as the use of b- as a generalized non-personal singular suggests an underlying fourfold class system: personal k-/n-11 non-personal b-jy-.

Concord extends to determiners, pronouns, relative constructions (including adjectives) and optionally to genitives. Determiners can be described as either definite or indefinite. Definite determiners, usually post-posed, have been summarized by Stewart (1966:111-60) as of Table VII.

TABLE V I I

Wolof

Determiners

(from Stewart 1966:111-60) Determination

Simple Emphatic Associative® 1

Proximity (time and/or space) Proximate or Unspecified1 Remote Ci Cii CooCu

Ca Cee CooCa

Sauvageot (for the Dyolof dialect) indicates Cu as the unspecified determiner. * Sauvageot calls these 'relatifs'. They have the general sense of 'that (or this) X in question'. Identical forms (with different syntactic placement) are found in Diola and Manjaku.

76

J. DAVID SAPIR

Indefinite determiners, which are pre-posed, are: Cenn 'one' (C = class consonant) (cf. benn 'numeral one') and aC 'a certain'. The unmarked regent is also 'indefinite'. The determiners in Table VII, the indefinite Cam and the interrogative Can can all act as pronouns. The simple determiner CM acts also as the relative pronoun: janq bu rafet 'a pretty girl', far wu dik 'the lover who arrives'. In certain adjectival constructions the relative clause is terminated by a determiner: goalyu bariyi 'several dugout canoes'. The relative pronoun is optionally repeated in adjective strings: gainde gu jigeen gu rey (gu) rafet (gu) soxor 'a lion (which is) female, big, beautiful, mean'. Excessive repetition of the pronoun is grammatically acceptable, though 'heavy' (Sauvageot 1966:196). The genitive is usually formed via the formula: regent + u (sg.) or i (pi.) + genitive, When the regent is singular the genitive marker may optionally suffix the appropriate class marker: ndoxu(m) sukar 'sugared water'. The dependent forms Can 'interrogative' and the relative pronoun can take consonants that do not refer to a stated or implied regent. They have instead an independent reference: thing (what): l-/y- (sg./pl.), person (who): k-jn- (sg./pl.), place (where): /-, time: kah 'when?' and bu 'when', and manner (how): n-. A similar, though formally different, system operates in Diola. Consonant alternation as a productive system is restricted to: 1. nominal derivation, 2. diminutive formation, and 3. the final consonant of certain derivatives. 1. Sauvageot (1965) observes the following alternations, all of which mark the shift verb/noun: voiced consonant/homo-organic nasal + voiced stop: b/mb, d/nd, j/nj, and g/ng and fricative/voiceless stop: f j p , sjc, oik. Thus: boom 'assassinate'/ mboom 'assassination', daw 'run'/ndaw 'messenger', ji '(to) seed'/«// 'seed', gan 'to receive (a guest)'/ngan 'reception',/? '(to) play'//» 'game', sac 'steal'/cac 'theft', aanda 'go together11kaanda 'friendship'. Other consonants do not alternate. Senghor (1943 (1963:93)) however, basing his observations on nineteenth century material, notes that at that time all consonants (with the exception of ¡If) were subject to nasalization in deverbalized nouns. At this time /f/ and /s/ alternated with /mp/ and /nc/ respectively, while /w/, /y/, and / ' / all alternated with /nk/ (compare the Fula series w, y,'/g}ng). 2. Nouns having an initial voiced stop shift to a nasal + voiced stop to form a diminutive. These, as well as non-alternating nouns, take the marker s- when diminutive. Since the plural diminutive forms retain the nasal alternate, the controlling factor is notional (diminutive) and not formal (membership in the s- class): baay 'father'/ mbaay s- 'small father', doom 'child'¡ndoom s- 'small child', jaan 'snake'lnjaan s- 'small snake, worm', garab 'tres'/ngarab s- 'bush'; but taank bi 'the foot'/taank si 'the small foot'. 3. What might reasonably be interpreted as final consonant alternation occurs more or less systematically in one type of derivation as well as in at least two isolated cases. A reversive is formed via the doubling of the final consonant plus the suffixing of -i, e.g. ub 'close'/ubbi 'open'. Sauvageot notes the following regular alternations: bjbb,

77

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

j/jj, II11, mlmm, as well as flpp,flll, and l/tt. A number of other forms involve internal vowel change as well: 3 > I , O > i, and E > ee. Taking these latter into account we can add three more consonant alternations: s/cc, I/mm, 0/kk. Two isolated forms: tur '(n.) name'/tudd '(to) name' and seed 'see'/seetu 'mirror' (where -u is an instrumental suffix) gives the further alternations: r/dd and d/t. All of these alternations are, with the exception of d/ll and //mm, consistent with other West Atlantic alternation systems: alternation of weak/strong homo-organic consonants. It is worth noting that the //mm alternation is associated with the most radical vowel shift: sol 'dress'/i/mm/ 'undress' and that // shares the same stem aspp: saf 'be tasty'/sappi 'have disagreeable taste'/ia//i 'be tasteless'. We are left with the problem of assigning grades to the various alternates. Without appropriate outside comparisons (beyond the scope of this review) little that is sure can be done. However for the sake of an hypothesis we can say that in Ci verb/noun alternation the former takes Grade I and the latter Grade III, while the final consonant of the marked reversive (etc.) takes Grade II and the unmarked forms Grade I. The final consonants of the unique alternation tur/tudd can be assigned, respectively, to Grades I and II. Using Grade I as the base (it appears in both sets of alternations), disregarding the irregular//// and //mm, and using the earlier Grade III forms recorded by Senghor we get the following table: I f

t

s

e,w,k

b

d j

g

I

r

x

m

II pp ? cc kk bb t j j ? 11, tt dd ? mm III mp nt nc nk mb nd nj ng ? nr nx ? The only embarrassements here are t and k on Grade I in the series tl?[nt and k (etc.) /kkjnk, for outside of the immutable t in Fula this happens in no other recorded system. Regardless of this, however, the Grade II variant in the latter case is relatively stronger. B. Cangin Languages

The Cangin class systems are very much reduced. Pichl (1966:4) enumerates the following classes as common to the group: sg. /-,/-, k-, m-, «-, and pi. c- (Safen), j(Non, Lehar), and y- (Ndut, Falor). As with Wolof these are post-posed. Both Lehar and Non have two other classes that are rather irregular: plural t- and plural personal b-. In Lehar a determinate alternation k-/t- requiring regent prefixing operates in contrast to the regular indeterminate alternation k-/j-: ki-jan kajti-jan ta 'the calabash(es)' vs.jan katfan ja 'calabash(es)\ The t- also operates in phrases using the numerals 2 and 3: ti-kedek ti-kanak (ti-kahay) 'two (three) trees'. The plural personal b- operates in the same numeral phrases, but without regent prefixing: Bo bakanak ' t w o m e n ' .

A similar pattern operates in Non though instead of simple prefixing the plural t- or b- alternates with the initial consonant of the stem: kuc ka/tuc ta 'needle', tedek tanak 'two trees', and Bo banak 'two men'.25 26

The Non alternation implies (quite as in Wolof) an older prefixing system, cf. kedekjtedek, which

78

J. DAVID SAPIR

Besides these numerals, concord extends to the possessive in Safen, Lehar and Non; and to the genitive in Safen: S. kum kiycfa, L. kum gagara, N. kum kurjda 'your (sg.) honey', S. inoxfirjde,L. ena fagere, N. inox fur/de 'his cow' ; and S. luf it) 6oh i (< luf i nga Boh i) 'the cleft of the baobab', mar/go coq Baif'the mangoes of Baïf'. Ndut and Falor have apparently lost their concord systems altogether. C. Bak Languages28 Unlike the Sénégal group the noun classes of the Bak languages are comparable. Of a total inventory of twenty-four classes, seven are found in Balanta, fourteen in Manjaku, eleven in Papel, twenty in Diola, nineteen in Gusilay and sixteen in Kwaatay (cf. Table IX).27 All of Balanta's seven classes are shared by other members of the group and hence may be thought of as the 'core' classes: A, BAK, B, P, K,KA, and/. The class marker vowels can, with certain exceptions, be classified as strong or weak.28 This distinction is clearest in Balanta where the strong vowel is /a/ and the weak is zero, and in Diola where the strong is /a/ and the weak either /i/ or /u/. The unique Diola marker s- can be arbitrarily classified as strong. Table VIII sets out the vowel forms. Any class consonant combines with a strong or a weak vowel to form a class marker. A number of consonants, especially in Diola, combine with both a weak and strong vowel to form two different markers. At no time are two markers formed by the same consonant taking two strong or two weak vowels. The exceptions here concern the personal plural BAK class. Thus the Manjaku BAK ba- parallels the BA ba-, and the Diola BAK, which is ku-, parallels the K, which is also ku-. Comparable classes generally maintain their strong or weak vowel between languages. Two exceptions are Diola and Gusilay BAK and Papel A which either zeroes or becomes subject to vowel harmony. Kwaatay weak vowels are subject to vowel harmony. With classes F, K, and N this appears as an /i/ ~ /u/ alternation: /I/ before stem Vi: /a/ and front vowels and /u/ before Vj : back vowels. Complete vowel harmony, i.e. the marker vowel becoming identical to the stem Vi, operates with classes B, ft and T. Gusilay B and Diola (Fogny) # a n d 7 have /i/ ~ /u/ alternation similiar to that in Kwaatay, though its use in Fogny is not at all regular. That /I/ ~ /uI alternation operated in proto-Bak is suggested by the I class where the i- alternate appears in Manjaku and Papel and the u- in the Diola group and with Balanta I dependents (w/_C, w/_F). though common to Cangin turn up as Serer: i ndaxar najtaxar ka, Fula:tekki(or leggal/ledde), and Wolof garag g- < *ga-rag g-. m The term Bak is derived from the dependent plural personal marker common to the group as a whole, cf. Table IX, note 4. " The available information for Kwaatay and Gusilay is not abundant, especially the latter, and there might just be other classes. *8 J. Doneux (p.c.) has brought this distinction to my attention.

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

79

Concord in Bak (1) The Diola group. a. Diola concord (Sapir 1965) extends to nouns, pronouns, the basic cardinals 1 through 4, ordinals, adjectives, a variety of different determiners, genitives, and all verb constructions, whether or not the regent or regent substitute is present. Certain of the dependent forms can take a class marker independently of any regent (cf. Ch. 8 in Sapir 1965 and compare a typologically similiar device in Wolof (above, p. 75)). These indicate time, place, manner, succession, anterior reference etc., for example: banalakom 'where he was', nanalakom 'when he was', mukila 'this that has been said', mola 'his manner' jola 'his own activity, way of acting' etc. b. Kwaatay concord follows the general Diola pattern though it is rather more complex using the post relative 'binder' (as in Basari, Gola, etc.),29 e.g. hunak h-a-buki hu 'the day on which you were born', and, optionally, a post genitive binder, e.g. sibos su sita su wane 'our (dual) cows' (cows the of the (referring back to cows) us). (2) Manjaku Manjaku concord (Doneux 1967) extends to nouns, cardinals 1 through 4, ordinals, adjectives, determiners and pronouns. Genitives are formed by juxtaposition and without concord, while verbs show agreement only in certain limited situations. These are: In the affirmative indicative tense, with an implied subject, the personal plural (only) is marked via the prefix bu-. All other classes take a-. Relative phrases are marked with a class prefix and terminated with a proximate demonstrative 'binder' following the pattern Ca-n-STEM-Ci. Relative future phrases add a pre-posed proximate demonstrative: Ci-Ca-n-STEM-Ci, ka-to ki-ka-n-tara ki 'the house that will burn'. Finally, one type of conditional construction takes the prefix Cm- when the regent is present: (uci) na-mpali nuu-tsap 'if the girl goes (went)', but Ca- when the regent is absent: (uci) na-tsap 'if she goes' (3) Balanta Balanta concord (Wilson 1961a) covers pronouns, adjectives, determiners, and the basic cardinal and ordinals numbers 1 through 5. It marks the verb only when the regent noun phrase is understood, fkobe 'it fell', but flud kobe 'the chair fell'. Relative clauses are marked by an invariable ne' following the first part of the verb, while the genitive is linked to the regent via a neutral nasal (*). Neither is subject to concord. The tense marker of the main ('result') clause in a conditional construction combines with the class marker when the subject is not repeated: C(V)+ke > Ce, e.g. a flud feebe kobe,fe ma tinyat 'if this chair falls it will hurt him', but: a ntok ma, flud ma ke kobe 'If I push him, his chair will fall'. Balanta concord is subject to notional 'interference' when the regent is animate. An animate plural, regardless of class, always generates personal plural concord; while

" Appears optionally only in Diola ordinal phrases (e.g. siyenas sakanum futok di yskonfas) 'the sixth group of dogs').

80

J. DAVID SAPIR TABLE VILI

Bak class marker vowels Diola and Gusilay Strong Weak *

Kwaatay

a, (e) u, i

Manjaku

Papel

Balanta

a, u 0, 3, i

0 0, u, e, a*

a 0

a, (e) V, u, i

Doneux (p.c.) records these as V. TABLE I X

Bak Class Markers Cover Marker and common function 1. A (sg. per.) 2. BAK (pi. per.)4 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

Diola 1

aku-, buk0buk-) B (sg. trees etc.) buBA (collective) badi-, rijD7 F (sg., fruit) fu-8 FA (mass, abstract) faJ (sg. dim)10 jiJA (aug., rare) jakuA: (pi.)11 KA(sg.) kaM (mass) mu-13 MA (abstract) ma— N (sg.) — ND #(pl.)ls hi-, nuftAu naNlMA (pi. per.) — siS (pi. of E) T ti-, tuWA18 wa1 /(pi.) » u— [/(sg.) E (sg.) e-

Gusilay

Kwaatay

Manjaku

Papel

agu-, bak(bug-) bu-, bibadifu-

a-2 baka-

n-,nha-3 bo-, wo- bd((b)ok-) (bak(ib)ub-

dihi-, hu

na-,a-,0 ba(bVk-) babà-* da pa-s

bV-6 —

—

depa-

Balanta

— —

/-

ha-

—

—

—

tsa-

xe-, rse-

—

—

—

—

—

—

gugamuma-

ki-, kukami-, mu-

kakam-

ka-ia —

kka-

faji-

—

—

—

ni-, nu-

—

—

—

—

—

hV-

ndanga-

ha-

—

—

—

—

«/ma-9

—

—

si-, sutV-

—

E-

14

m-

—

sitiwau-

—

—

V-,0

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

u—

iu-

i0-

e-9

—

—

0

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

81

I The Diola class markers are those of the Fogny dialect, but they are general throughout the language, with the possible exception of JA and ft A. (N.B. In many dialects, especially to the south of the Casamance river, f > h, hence classes F and FA become hu- and ha- respectively.) * In Kwaatay A also serves, instead of J, as the regular diminutive, thus the gender pair: ajmu. * According to Wilson (1961a:142) the 7»- prefix ... is generally inaudible, but more commonly heard in [the] 'Fora' [dialect]'. 4 In general the BAK form appears in demonstrative dependents beginning with a vowel and plural personal pronouns: Balanta: bak-oobo 'these'; Manjaku: ba-tjan bik-i, buk-un 'these, those people'; Papel: ([b)ok-i, (b)ok-un 'these, those'; Fogny (where its use is optional): (b)uk-e 'these'; Kasa Diola: a-kum-buk-e 'these'; Gusilay: bugs 'these'; and Kwaatay: bok-ond-u 'those there'. For the disjunctive plural pronouns, third person: Manjaku: bukul; Papel (object): boco, boko; Diola: (bu)ko (in Kasa it also appears in the second person plural bukurul); Gusilay: bugo and second person plural bugul; and Kwaatay: bowoko. Otherwise it appears in the Manjaku and Papel plural for 'woman': M. goats/ bakaats; P. gaars/ba'ars, and the Diola (all dialects) and Gusilay word for 'people' an/bukan. In the Diola of Samatiit (Esulau) it turns up as the definite article, e.g. ku-Hil-a-buxu 'children' (in other dialects this is simply ku-M-a-k(u)). Kwaatay makes more extensive use of the BAK marker. Besides appearing in demonstratives and as a pronoun it also forms a genitive construction: ewaate yu baka-ta ku juwAt 'the people of Juwat' (note class shift in the dependent e > baka); marks numerals haare bAgA-suba 'two women'; and, more prominently, appears as the regular regent marker for personal plurals (especially kin terms): baka-ti-am 'my same sex sibling', bAkA-i 'kings'. 6 bV- operates also as a personal plural (with class 2 concord): a-legecjbi- 'baby', and in such contexts probably corresponds to BA which in Diola frequently marks a diminutive collective (many small). ' Appears to be very uncommon, Doneux (1967:262) giving just one contrast: ba-maaj 'smallpox' vs. ba-maaj as proof of its existence. ' D serves as a locative in Manjaku and with the one Diola form di-n 'place within' (cf. the demonstrative dare 'here inside'). With the sub-dialect of Diola-Fogny spoken around ftankiit it serves as an 'intensive' diminutive, 'very small': dilibaljilibaleliba 'penknife/knife/sword', which when applied to human beings becomes a strong pejorative: disek 'puny woman' (contrast: asek 'woman' and jisek 'good little woman' (the augmentative fusek 'big, gross, woman' is also pejorative, though less so than disek)). Kwaatay has only one recorded stem taking D: du-fuwa 'meat'; and Papel only has mes 'household', with the marker appearing in concord. * Diola and Manjaku F c a n function as an augmentative with pejorative overtones (but cf. note 7). F j f f is the regular augmentative gender in Diola. * Like bV-, hi- (hu-) as well as e- and Hima- can operate as a personal plural with class 2 (BAK) concord. The latter marker is rare occurring only with a restricted number of kin terms: a-tokotoij-aml Hima- 'my husband's sister' (-am 'my'). 10 J also operates as a locative marker in Manjaku and Papel and is frequently used with Diola place names, e.g. Jilakunda, Jibijon etc. It also acts as an animal 'personifier' especially in folktales; Maqjaku: tss-lants 'Crane' / u-lants 'crane' and in applying animal names to people as praise terms; Diola: ji-myna jo enum aw 'you who are a bull', contrast fu-myns 'bull'. II K operates in Manjaku as a 'restricted' plural for B, KA, and F a n d in Balanta as a general plural for F, I and KA. In Diola, Gusilay and Kwaatay it is the regular plural for F. In Diola, Huluf and Gusilay as well as the F61up recorded by Koelle it also functions as a dual in the gender KA/K which covers a number of body parts that come in pairs, cf. G. gaat/gjot, Filup gaats/goots 'leg' and H . kanujkunu 'ear'. 11 K and KA merge in Papel. This can be assumed because of its double function: as a 'dual' for certain nouns in F (compare Manjaku K (note 11)) and as a singular alternating with the plural I (as do all other KA markers). " Diola and Kwaatay M functions also as a diminutive plural in the genders J\M (Diola) and A\M (Kwaatay). " Mass nouns in Balanta take a number of different markers. Wilson (1961a:143) gives: I e-liisa' 'palm-wine', B b-leefat 'palm-oil', Ff-tufac 'saliva', and Kk-saham 'blood*. 15 f t is the plural marker for U in Manjaku and Papel and of N and B in Kwaatay. Diola fii-

82

J. DAVID SAPIR

an animate singular shifts to the personal singular whenever a dependent becomes isolated, either after a non-concord form or with a change of speaker. Consonant Alternation in Bak Manjaku (including Papel) is the one Bak language to show, in a number of its dialects, clear indication of a once operating consonant alternation system. Greenberg (1966) in observing irregular sg./pl. alternations as recorded in Koelle postulated alternate grades associated with the following classes: Grade III with A (jut- variant), F, I, M; Grade II and III with U and I (the latter when coupled with KA); and Grade I with if and KA. Doneux (1967:273) suggests (for Papel) a Grade III for the BAK class as well as for the na- variant of A. Doneux also observes a number of instances that could be interpreted as fossilized consonant alternation. For the Manjaku dialect of Bok he notes: 1. The n as it appears before the stem in relative and in certain first person singular constructions implies the contrast: Grade Ill/other Grades, i.e. the grammatical distinctions: first person singular/other persons and relative/other modes. Thus: ma-ntsdp 'I leave'ja-tsap 'he leaves'; na-nci i 'who is '¡a ci 'he is'. 2. The conditional class marker Cuu when in concord with M becomes muunbefore all stops: m-ko muun cats 'if the trees di¿\nga-gus nguu cats 'if the dogs die'. 3. The use of Grade III in deriving nouns from verbs (cf. Wolof): There are many NCVC (etc.) noun roots but only CV or CV(N)C verbs; and there are also a number of actual alternations: -pst-ar '(to) fight'/ka-mpat '(n) fight', a rink 'he mows'¡pa-ndink 'machete', a tan 'he girds self'¡ka-ntan-i 'climbing belt'. 4. The allophonic alternation [d] ~ [f], the latter appearing as the unstressed variant. Evidence is slim for the former operation of consonant alternation in the Diola Group. There are, however, occasional hints. 1. The only indication of sg./pl. alternation comes up in two of Koelle's items for Felup: ekonchotlsuhonchot 'throat' (compare his 'Filham' ekoncbodjsikoncbod and modern Fogny ekondor\sikondor) and the two variants for 'skin': gapol/gupol and gafollofol (compare Kasa kafongol); thus implying the Grade I/II alternations A/fc and //p, both common to West Atlantic. 2. As with Manjaku there exists allophonic alternation of [d] and [r] ( lax, the verb stem must be taken as basic, giving: verb + tenseness > noun, e.g. -bom '(to) dance'/ji-bom '(n) dance' etc. D. Eastern Senegal-Guinea Languages (1) Tenda Group (Houis 1964, 1967, n.d.; Ferry 1967, 1968a-b, p.c.; Wilson MS.). In defining the noun class in any of the Tenda languages five more or less independent features must be taken into account: 1. the phonetic shape of the regent marker, 2. consonant alternation, 3. tone (recorded only for Basari and Bedik), 4. the presence or absence of what we shall call 'adding', and 5. (less important) variations in dependent markers. 1. and 2. Unlike Fula, a phonetic marker in the Tenda group is never associated with a particular grade. Thus any one marker can, by shifting grade, define up to three separate noun classes. 3. A distinction personal/non-personal is made in Basari where mid-tone is reserved for the former and high for the latter. This is equally true in Bedik except that the plural non-personal marker ma- is always, like the personals, mid-tone. 4. A noun class can be defined by adding to an already existing marker. This occurs most frequently in plural formation. In Basari (Ferry, p.c.), stems subject to Grade III in the singular may form their plural by 'addition'. In these instances they maintain Grade III. The singular markers, all vowels, are a, e, 5 and i and become, where addition operates, respectively 6d, 5e, 65, By. Assuming that the vowel of the plural marker elides to a, e, and o, while i itself elides, the plural marker can be taken as By. Further analysis of the Basari phonemic system might show y to be a high tone allophone of A which would then give us the plural base as equivalent to the personal plural 5A, differentiated only by tone.30 In Konyagi (Houis 1964, 1967, n.d.) the singular markers a, 0, i, u, and fa may all form plurals via addition. The plural marker for fa is wa, forming wafa, and for the

90

For Tanda (Cacine), which in the class system is almost identical to that of Basari, Wilson (MS.) derives the plural b- from *6a-. The personal plural is variously bee- or ba- (cf. a-Iajbee-la 'person' and a-liarlbs-liar 'stranger'), with the dependents in both cases taking ba.

84

J. DAVID SAPIR

others is v, forming respectively va, vs, vi, and VK. Considering the plural for the zero marker (va) as the base we arrive, as in Basari, at the personal plural. 81 The stem grade is always maintained in the 'added' plural for fa-l-ll (relative for both: Grade I fa-le), as it is for a, 0, i, and u with Grades II-III (relative always Grade III V-nte). i-I may add to form a Grade I (relative: vi-Ie), Grade II (relative not known) or Grade III plural (relative: vi-nte). u-1 can become plural VM-II (relative vu-de). Thus: fa-romp/wafa-romp 'turtle', fa-gantlwafa-gant 'milieu', a-gu/va-gu 'duck', a-nkoljva-nkol 'village', kankeljva-kankel 'basket', i-ntawar/vi-ntavar 'heart', u-cankafl vu-cankaf chief', i-hoba/vi-hoba 'hoe', i-luri/vi-duri 'straw'. Modern Bedik (Ferry 1967, 1968, p.c.) has, at first glance, no overt indication of plural addition. A comparison, however, of Bedik 3/4, 9/10, and 14/15 class genders (Table X) with Basari 3/4, 9/10, and 6/15 shows immediately that in fact it does. As in Basari the vowels and grade of these pairs match in the singular and plural. In Bedik, however, the three singulars all take the consonant g. With an eye towards Basari and Konyagi, this can be interpreted as addition that operates both ways. An 'unexpressed' Grade III class marker adds g to form the singular and 6 to form the plural. 82 By making two not unreasonable assumptions we can set up a number of rules that would bring Bedik's Grade III class markers (excepting ma-III, which has mid and not high tone) into line with those of Basari and more distantly Konyagi: 1. The plural marker B derives from the personal plural, i.e. 6 < *BA ; and 2. the singular nya has replaced an earlier *j which still finds expression in the plural be, i.e. < * B A + I . 3 3 The rules would then be: (CM = 'class marker') 1. CM + III + fsg.1 \g 1 + CM + III W N 2. CM /, e, d, 5 3. 6A + 1 -* Be £ é 4 .BA + d -*6 â ô ó 5. g + i + III nyâ + HI 5. Change in dependent marking defines, in certain rather rare instances, class 81

In Houis' paper (1964) the personal plural is given as ve, whilst the zero plural is va. Both of these, however, are corrected to va in his response to my questionnaire (though with a number of exceptions for the personal plural). In his 'Notes sur le Koniagui' (n.d.) the personal plural is given as va. 3S The g, interestingly enough, remains less pervasive than 6 in that it only appears in the regent and adjective markers and not with determiners or relatives, e.g. Bâ-tô-Bd-pârâmè Bag 'the big trees', but gâ-to gâ-pârâmè ârj. " Only three vowels are possible in initial position : /e/, /a/, and loi (Ferry 1967:30) and the replacement of the marker */ by nyâ probably occurred in response to these restrictions. Compare the Bedik class S 0 and its occasional alternate dyn with the equivalent Basari cl. 5 0 with its alternate i-.

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

85

membership. The Basari 5-1 marker is assigned to two of its classes on this basis: an animate that takes the determiner 51 and an inanimate that takes (This places 5 in five distinct classes: 5-1, 51; 5-1, 5g\ M l ; ¿-III and &5-III). The corresponding Konyagi u-1 is also placed in two classes, this time defined by the relative markers: u-le and u-nte. The animate/inanimate distinction is not made. Two other instances come up in Konyagi where 0-11,111 and i-II,III are distinguished respectively from 0-11 and i-II via the determiners ya for the II, III classes and ha for the II. Finally, Konyagi wa-\l forms two classes on the basis of its determiners: wa for one and rja for the other. Table X is set up so that comparisons can be made between the singular/plural gender systems of Bedik, Basari and Konyagi. Group A sets off the personals which alternate marker but not Grade (which is always I); B sets off those genders formed by addition (cf. above for Bedik nya) and which always take Grade III in Bedik and Basari, but which are subject to variation in Konyagi; C non-personal, alternation of marker and, (Basari and Bedik cl. 6 aside) restricted to Grades I and II. In this latter group Bedik pairs always alternate grades as well. Spread out in this fashion we are tempted to generalize a common gender system for the Tenda Group: A. Personals with mid-tone, marker alternation, Grade I maintained. B. Non-personal with high tone, alternation via addition, Grade III maintained. C. Non-personal, high tone, alternation via marker and grade, restricted to Grades I and II. One final point: at no time are singular/plural distinctions made solely by consonant alternation.34 In Table X the small letters in group C. suggest possible class correspondences between the languages. In the Tenda group concord as well as consonant alternation extends to adjectives, possessives, determiners, relative markers and numbers. An important feature, appearing at least in Bedik and Basari is the use of a determiner to 'bind' possessive, relative and genitive phrases. Thus in Bedik we have: Possessive: a-syan a-ram a-wara ale 'my light colored man' E-CAd ¿-dam e-bara id 'my red bird' Genitive: as*an ar e-kdn ale 'the man of the village' e-kdn ed a-s*an ed 'the village of the man' Relative: a-sydn ar yd-k g-ma ale 'the man whom you called' 81

Ferry (1968), however, observes that dependent adjectives with initials belonging to two consonant series will alternate in irregular ways to insure a sg/pl distinction.

86

J. DAVID SAPIR TABLE X Comparison

of Bedik,

Basari,

and Konyagi

Genders

1

Bedik

Sg.

PI.

A. Personal 1. a-1

(alef-

-2.

6a-I(5AI£)

B. (alternation by addition) 3 . gd-lll

—4. ¿¡rf-III (fid//) augmentative

(dy)

9. gé-III (ey)~ 14. gó-III (iij)-

12. «^a'-III

(nyày)-

-10.

fie-III

(6éy)

-15. &5-III(to>/) -13. ¿¿-Ill (Béy) diminutive

C. a. b. c.

5. 7. 11.

mà-III (ma//)l

0-1 (le) ¿-Il

8.

(éd)

ò-l(ód).

ma-I (may)

11. ò-I(ód)

J

d.

e.

Basan1 Pl.

Sg. A. Personal 1. d-I

(dy)-

-2.

BA-I (BAD)

B.

3. a-III (ay} 9. e-III (sy}, 6.

ò-l\l(óy}

12. i-III (///)

4. Bà-lll (Bay) augmentative (3/4)

10. ¿¿-Ill (Bey) 15. Bò-III

(Bóy)

13. By-Ill (Byy) dimunitive (12/13)

C.

5. 0 i-1 (/«) 7. £-11 (¿/) b. [16. ¿-I (£/;) 8. ó-l (5y) c. 111. ó-l(òl) a.

6. ¿-111(^)1 14. M I (ók) j

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

TABLE X (continued,

87

2)

Konyagi Sg. A. Personal 1.

a-\(ya,ante)2-

PL 17. va-I (va,vale)3

B. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

a-II,III (y a, ante} 0-11,111 (ya-nte) i-II, III (rja,inte «-II, III (da, untéj fa-l,ll(Ja,fale>

wz-II, III (va, vante) va-II, III (va, vante)3 vz'-II, III (va, vinte) vw-II, III (vu,vunte) diminutive 8/21 wafa-l, II (wa, wafale) vi-l (va, vile) v/'-II (valide)* vw-II (va, vude)

C. 7. éa-I 5 (augmentative) 8. fa-ll, III {fa,fante) 0-1 {y a,le) a - { i a 0-11 (Ha,nte> ile) j l l . i-I(y«,i/i inte) [12. /-II (na, i'j -I (wa,ule) J13. m-I C - | l 4 . «-I (wa,unte) 15. ga-l (ga,gale)— 16. gû-II (ga, gante)

1

wa-1 (wa, wale) wa-II (y a, wade) w-II (y a, wade)

-26. wa-1 (time of year) -29. wa-II (wa, wade) (time of day)

The class numbers for Bedik and Basari are taken from Ferry, 1968 and p.c. * The forms in parenthesis are, for Bedik and Basari, the determiner, and for Konyagi, respectively, the determiner and the relative marker. 3 Corrected to /a/ as of note 31, page 84. * Dependent forms postulated by analogy with class 25. 6 Mentioned by Houis in 1967:99,105 only; dependents not given. It takes v- in the plural, though which grade was not indicated. Cf. ba-wud "large mango', contrast: i-gud'maxigo'¡wa-wud 'mangoes'.

88

J. DAVID SAPIR

Relatives aside, concord does not extend to verbs. Consonant alternation, besides affecting nominals and their dependents, is involved in verb inflection, but not, unlike Fula and Serer, to distinguish number. In Bedik (Ferry 1968a : 95-6) only two grades (I and II) and eight series are relevant. Grade I applies to the narrative (vs. Grade II 'ordinary discourse'), positive response (vs. statement), prohibitive (vs. imperative), inchoative (vs. progressive), and to relative constructions. Ferry postulates that in general Grade l'marquerait, indépendamment du temps, un éloignement, une distance, entre le procès de renonciation et le procès de l'énoncé'. Konyagi uses all three grades, for which examples are given above (p. 65). (2) Biafada and Pajade (Wilson, fieldnotes). Biafada and Pajade classes are compared in Table XI where all 14 Pajade classes correspond with 13 from Biafada, though the sa ~ se match is tentative. The Biafada classes are summarized in Table XII which has been drawn in its entirety from Wilson's field notes.

TABLE X I

Biafada-Pajade Class Correspondences

Biafada 1. u2. bi-

4. (w) (with plural marker: ge-) 5. faa6. ga- with pi. nyagu- with pi. bwa(g)- with pi. ba-(gaa) 7. ge8. gu9. ma10. nu- (diminutive-productive) 11. nyali. (?) sa-

Pajade we-, wu- (personal, sg.) be- (personal, pi.) pepamawa- (animals) fa-

kakokuma- (liquid) nu- ~ ni- (diminutive (unproductive?), also 'old') nyase-

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

89

Non-personal pluralization in Pajade is accomplished solely by 'adding'. Whereas the personal gender indicates plural via alternation of we/be (e subject to vowel harmony), all other stems prefix the same plural be to the singular marker, e.g. ku-naa/baku-naa 'cow'. A number of Biafada markers form plural by adding ba-, with the stem maintaining the grade of the singular. From Wilson's wordlist all recorded nouns taking either faa-l, fu-ll, nya-l(qua sg.), sa-II, or 0-1,11 (with gaa- dependents) form their plural in this fashion i85 faa-rjba-faa-r 'path', fu-cujba-fu-cu 'smoke', nya-sin/ba-nya-sin 'nose', sa-dajba-sa-da (-dch (?)) 'house', and (g-)turuma/ba-(gaa-)-turuma 'hyena'. The latter marker (g-) is by far the most frequent. A number of other markers occasionally form their plural with ba-, viz. ga-III, gu-lll, and more commonly nu-III (diminutive). Wilson (field notes) also mentions that plurals can be formed by prefixing maa-l to the singular prefix. In these instances the Grade of the stem shifts to I. From information presently available (Wilson's field notes) Pajade concord extends little beyond demonstratives and relative phrases (the latter using a 'binder'): kana, pana, (classes ka- and pa- respectively) as bne of the demonstrative forms and such phrases as: kunaa wu jeenarj wetj 'the cow that he saw' bakunaa bd jeenaq bey 'the cows that he saw' Although consonant alternation is no longer operative in Pajade there are enough remnants to have enabled its reconstruction, as was done by Wilson (1965) (cf. Table V above). Biafada concord and consonant alternation extends at least to genitives (-be), demonstratives (cf. Table XII), possessives and relative phrases: Genitives: boofa bube usa/maagafa maabe bisa 'the head(s) of the man (men)' nunda numbe usajmadda mabbe usa 'the (children) of the man' nnaga bbe usa/genaga gebe usa 'the cow(s) of the man' Possessives: boofa bubeeli 'my head'¡maagafa maabaleeba 'our heads' Relatives: usa leem uleegarejbisa leem bileegare 'I saw the man (men) who came' puula leem reegarejmaafuula leem maaleegare 'I saw the girl(s) who came' nunda leem nunreegare/madda leem mareegare ' I saw the child(ren) who came' but when the regent is a subject the demonstrative is used and there is no verb concord: usa wo leegare 'the man who came' puula wanna leegare 'the girl who came' "

Although in one instance 0 (gaa-) formed its plural via alternation with maa-l: (g-)-fiiyaallmaa-

fiiyal 'rat'.

90

J. DAVID SAPIR

TABLE X I I

Biafada

(Cubisseco

Dialect) — Noun

Classes

(prepared by W. A. A. Wilson) Class prefixes (nouns)

'this'

1. u-

wo 1

2. bi- (6a-) 3. 0 4. 0

'that'

3

(gaa-)

mbe

mbo

wanna

wwanra8

gaaga

ijgaagd

bee-

beegd

mbeega

6. bu- (ba-)

bugu

mbugu

bwa-

bwaga

mbwaga

faa-

faag3

mpaaga

fu-

fuggu

mpuggu

geega

ygeega

ga-

ganna

rjgannz

gu-

gunna

ygunm

5. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. ll.

ge-

(g3-)

13. ju- O ) 14. lu- (la-) IS. maa16. mall. lS.

19. 20. 21.

manu-

(m-)

jugu

njugu

lugu

nrugu

maagd

mmaaga

magga

mmagga

may nurj

mmarj

*

nnutf

nya-

nyags

nnyagd

saa-

saagd

ncaagd

sa-

saggB

ncaggs

Alternation Grade

Notional features

I I II and III I and II I I I I II I III III I I I II III III I I II

Sg. persons PI. persons Sg. anim. Sg. Sg. Sg. plants Sg., pi. (insects, pi.) SgSg. Sg., pi. (anim. pi.) Sg. Sg. insects Sg. Sg. PI. PI. dimin. Coll., Liquids Sg. dimin. Sg., pi. PI. plants Sg.

1 In classes 2, 6 , 1 0 , 1 3 , 1 4 , 1 8 , with noun and verb stems the vowel of the prefix is generally heard as /a/. -gg- take grade II

* gaa- used in dependents.

I

-tin-, -rj take grade III -VV- take grade I (cf. class 4)

(3) Kasanga, Kobiana, Banhum (Wilson, MS.; Sauvageot 1967). A comparison of Kasanga, Kobiana and Banhum classes, as set up by Wilson (MS.), is given in Table XIII.

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

91

TABLE X I I I

Kasanga — Kobiana — Banhum Classes (from W.A.A. Wilson, MS.)

1. Sg. 2. pi., col. 3. col. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

sg. sg. pi., col. pi. sg. pi. sg. sg. pi. pi., col. sg. pi. sg. sg. sg. liquids pi. abstract place pi. pi. pi. pi. sg. sg. sg. sg. sg. sg. sg.

Kasanga

Kobiana

Banhum (Gujaaxat dialect)

a-l1 ba-l —

a-li ba-1 —

bu-1 — du-ll ga-1 gu-l — ha-I I hu-I I i-I ja-I ji-1 ju-1 ka-ll ko-1 ku-1 ma-1 — (ni-)-H

bu-I da- I I ¿i-II ga-l gu-1 (9)£«-(I)2

ababi-(bi, ~ti, ~pi in Gunyamolo) budadi— gu-

— —

i-l ja-l ji-1 ka-ll ko-l ku-l ma-1 — (ni-)

—

xuH±-3U)3 ja-(±-ay) ka-(±-9ij) — kun — mun-

(nu-)-ll

nu-II, III

—

nya-ll nyi-H nyu-1 rja-

nya-ll nyii-ll

nya—

tja-

xa-

—

pa-II

fa-

— — sa-II «-lì ta-li iz-II

pu-I I — sa-II ¿/-II ta-ÌI iMI

—

ra(sa-) ci-, cinta—

92

J. DAVID SAPIR TABLE X I I I (continued,

34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

1 2 3 4

sg. (personal) sg. sg. sg. sg.

u-1

u-I u-(a-1)

u-III

u-II

0-(a-1)4

0-(A-I)4

-A [GAR I )

4

2)

u-

0

-a(ga-T)*

Grades for Kasanga are based on dependents. Grade I in dependents. Cf. below, discussion on plural formation. (a-1) etc. appear with dependents.

Aside from the common pattern of sg./pl. prefix alternation Kasanga and Kobiana have one exceptional gender, oj-a, with (at least for Kobiana) a very large membership; e.g. Kobiana: boolug/boolug-a 'rainy season' (compare Eb. and C. and Limba). The dependents are prefixes: a-/ga- respectively. In one (Kobiana) instance another pair made use of the plural suffix: u-jji-.-a, u-haan/ji-haan-a 'soul' and thus a variation on the regular u-/ji- personal gender. The corresponding plural suffix in Banhum is not only rather more irregular but also shows variation between the two reported dialects. The suffix in Gujaaxat is -ay; that in Gunyamolo is V with the vowel quality determined by the last vowel of the stem. In Gujaaxat there are three plural formations involving -ay: Type a. Simple sg./.-ay alternation, with the sg. classes: a, mu, di,fa, ba, ka, tu, 0. Of these, three (ba, di and mu) otherwise function as mass noun or collective genders. Type b. The alternation of a singular marker with a plural taking both -ay and a prefix: bi-la-.-ay and personal u-ji-.-ay and u-jnya-.-ay (cf. Kobiana a-jji-.-a). The a- (qua pi.) always appears in

combination with -ay, the nya- and i- only rarely. Type c. The retention of the singular in forming a collective (giving the appearance of plural addition): a-ja-.-ay and fca-/ka-.-ay. The former, used exclusively for insects, takes plural bi-; the latter, limited to a small number of animals, has two recorded plurals: ja- and i-. Examples: a. a-xay/xay-ay 'cow', m.u-saal\saal-ay 'urine', di-boobojboobo-ay ' b r a i n ' , ba-dox/dox-ay

'headloadfa-cat/cat-ay 'rainy season', tu-wunay/wunay-ay 'shade', bolmbotolbolmbotoay 'tortoise', b. bi-dox/a-dox-ay 'headpad', u-cel/nya-ncel-ay 'elder', u-doon\i-ndoon-ay 'younger sibling', c. a-yon/bi-yon/a-yon-ay 'house-fiy', ka-tinno\ja-tinno\ka-tinno-ay 'vulture'. In Gunyamolo the most common form is type c. with the 'added' suffix acting as plural and not as collective (Sauvageot 1967:passim): We have the markers: 0,ji, a, fa, and fu\ where the dependent forms for a (?), 0 and ji are the same and irregular: a with adjectives, no with demonstratives. Examples: sahajsaha-a 'sheep' fa-jamenjfa-

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

93

jamen-e 'goat' ( < Diola e-jamsn), a-hayja-hay-a 'cow', ji-boñ¡ji-boñ-o 'horse' and fu-nagenjfu-nagen-e 'bow' ( < Diola). The coupling is not immutable, and these stems may take secondary genders: ja-saha 'many small sheep', ti-nagen 'many bows', da-hay 'big cow', ko-boñ 'small horse'. The plural prefixes ja and ti, which are collectives (pluriel illimité), may optionally retain the V giving type b. The other secondary markers {da and ko) may not: ~ja-saha-a and ~ ti-nagen-e, but not *da-hay-a etc. Type a. does not appear to exist in Gunyamolo, though 0/-Pmight be considered as such. Like Kobiana, the plural suffix marker is very common (Sauvageot (1967:229) notes almost 200 out of a list of 800 nouns), with its productivity attested by the large number of loans assigned to the class. In Kasanga (Wilson, MS.) concord and consonant alternation covers adjectives, participial relative clauses, the numerals 1, 2, 3 and (presumably) demonstratives. Since there is considerable variation in the regent, the grade of any class must be determined by a dependent adjective. In one instance, cl. 1 (a-), where the regent regularly takes Grade II, the dependent takes Grade I. The corresponding pi., ga-, always takes Grade I in both regent and dependent. A similiar situation operates in the 0-/-a (37/38) gender where the dependents parallel those of a-/ga-: a-diin a-ree/ga-liin ga-ree 'another well' jaafany a-ree/jaafany-a ga-ree 'another month' Participial relatives agree with the regent and take the grade of the relevant class dependents: ulien wok ufog me 'the man I saw, or the man who saw me' jalien iik jafog me 'the men I saw, or the men who saw me' An unambiguous subjectival phrase can be made via an n prefix (and by dropping concord) + Grade-II: ulien wok mpog me 'the man who saw me' The numerals 1 through 3 (teena, naandiid, taar) take concord. The initial of taar has a unique alternation in Grade I, its alternation series being e/t/nt rather than the expected r\t\nt. Kobiana (Wilson, MSS.) concord and consonant alternation extends to adjectives, demonstratives, and participial relatives. Consonant alternation further extends (in contrast to Kasanga) to finite verbs. In dependents, the Grade I variant ó goes to j when preceded by a consonant: ja-huh jee 'these houses', jero dee 'this grass'. Finite verb initials alternate in Grades I and II where the Grade II variants of voiced stops become nasal compounds: mb, nd, nj, and rjg instead of the expected geminates (cf. Grade II in Kasanga). Verb alternation is with respect to number and tense. At all times the 1st and 2nd person singular contrast with the 3rd person singular. In certain contexts the 1st and

94

J. DAVID SAPIR

2nd persons take Grade I, while the 3rd takes II; in other contexts the reverse. The plural persons always take Grade II Wilson (MS.) gives these examples: aff. neg. Sg. 1. màpùlì màfùlìi (I went out; did not go out) àfùlìi 2. àpuli pulii 3. àfulì PI. 1. géepùlì géepùlii 2. kàapulì kdapùlìi 3. nàapulì nàapùlìi In other tenses the aff./neg. does not have grade contrast. Sg. 1. mdfulcih megbfula 'I am, am not, going out' 3. dapuldh gapuld 'he is, is not, going out' Certain inflectional elements are also affected by consonant alternation: Sg. 1. mandepali 'I, he, had already gone again' 3. alefali I. mabaakafal 'I haven't, he hasn't, gone yet' 3. mbaakapal Hence the alternation l/nd and mjmb. Relative clauses agree with the regent in class and in grade and are not subject to person alternations: ulige ufeg me, afali 'the man who saw me has gone' jalige jafeg me, naapali 'the men who saw me have gone' Note the respective grades of the relative and finite verbs in the second example: -feg takes Grade I because of the regent and -pal takes I because of the person and tense of the verb. Objectival relatives are formed via a finite verb preceded by the appropriate concord element: ulige u-mapegi, afali 'the man I, he, saw has gone' ulige u-afegi, afali jalige i-mapegi, naafali 'the men I, he, saw have gone' jalige i-afegi, naafali Banhum (Gunyamolo) concord (Sauvageot 1967:231) extends to appositionals, adjectives, interrogatives and numbers: si-deen in-silmu-deen-o um-mu 'this (these) dugout(s) (that are) here' si-deen si-wuri/mu-deen mu-wuri '(a) long dugout(s)' si-rax se-rajmu-rax mo-ra 'which tree(s)?' mu-deert mu-nak 'two dugouts' Remnants of consonant alternation appear with class markers na-, mu- i- and tiwhere the stem initial (stop or fricative # /h/) is 'prenasalized'. u-cerjna-ncer 'witchdoctor'

95

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

Group E. a. Nalu (Wilson 1961b:61, field notes; Houis 1950:43-6, 1953a:387-8). Nalu has three classes, one singular and two plural, of which one is animate. As indicated in Table XIV concord extends just to demonstratives and verbs. TABLE X I V

Nalu Noun Classes (from Wilson 1961b: 61)

Noun prefix 'this' 'that' Verb prefix

Singular

Plural (animate)

Plural (inanimate)

0, n-, mama' mu a-

ba-, be-* be" bi be-

a-, nwa' wa wa-

* In the Nalu dialect recorded by Houis (1953a) this class takes a suffix, giving be-.-e.

One form in Houis (1950:43) reveals a remnant of consonant alternation: nyibbel/ benyibele 'leopard' giving the partial series bibb. The corresponding word in Mbulungish, mbel, would suggest the full series: b/bb/mb. If we can assume bel to be the root we get an example of adding: *nyi-/be-nyi- and hence an extinct *nyi- sg. class. This, of course, might be no more than a loan: cf. Pajade ya-mbaray 'leopard', with the presumed pi. of ba-ya-mbaray. b. andc. Mboteni and Mbulungish (W.A.A. Wilson 1961b:60-l; Houis 1950: 43-6). Mbulungish concord extends to demonstratives and verbs. In the dialect recorded by Houis there are 13 classes and in that by Wilson there are 19. A comparison of Table XV with Tables 9 and 10 in Wilson (1961b: 60) shows considerable variation. One interesting feature in Mbulungish is the use of class suffixes (not subject to concord) which (optionally?) appear in plural formation (cf. Table XVI). The function of these suffixes is unknown (but cf. D.3 and Limba). Remnants of noun initial consonant alternation were observed in a short Mbulungish word list: bjmb, k/nk, t/nt, pimp and the full series d/ljnd (for the latter cf. a-di, e-li 'hair'; lem/i-ndem-il 'tongue'. Mboteni is one of the few West Atlantic languages to have lost its concord system (as have the Cangin languages Ndut and Falor). However, sg./pl. class elements in noun stems remain and can be compared to the operating marker of Mbulungish. Table XVI reproduces the plural suffix parallels observed by Wilson.

96

J. DAVID SAPIR TABLE X V

Mbulungish — Noun Classes (based on material presented by Houis 1950:45 and word list (p.c.)) Vb. 1. 0 2. (a-).-lirj ~ -ìjil ~ -il 3. ku4. 0 5. fu-.{-il ~ -iij) 6. 0 7. te-~ te-~ toft. mi- ~ me- ~ mo9. a-.(-irj ~ -lir; ~ -il) 10. wil l . e-.{-i>j) 12. o13. i-

Demonstrative

Vbikunu ~ nig fuputubuinu1 ? ?

pebekonifupetobeyem1 ? ?

Sg. (personal) PI. (personal) Sg. PI. of 3 PI. of 3, 6 Sg., pi. of 3 Sg. PI. of 7 PI. of 3, 10 Sg. e.g. e-bil-{irj) 'moon' e.g. o-nop 'ear' e.g. i-luila 'belly'

Note. Vowels in CFnoun and verb markers are subject to vowel harmony.

TABLE X V I

Plural Suffixes in Baga Mboteni and Mbulungish (from Wilson 1961b:61) B Mb

Mbul.

-al used with pfx 0, a-, an-, n-aij used with pfx an-, sa-alatj used with pfx 0, a-, an-, n-, sa-arjal used with pfx a-am used with pfx 0

-al used with pfx a-, an-, «-, ci-, ma-arj used with pfx a-alarj used with pfx a-, ci-arjal used with pfx a-, »-

Note: 0 and n- always have suffix when plural; /-, cm-, and san not found with plural suffix.

Note:

always has suffix when plural.

97

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY

II.

Bijago

(Wilson, fieldnotes; Arthur, n.d.) Besides demonstratives and disjunctive pronouns (as per Table XVII) Bijago concord extends to genitives, certain interrogatives, adjectives, numeral, and verbs.

TABLE

XVII

Bijago (Orango dialect) — Noun Classes

(prepared by W.A. A. Wilson) Class prefix

1. 2. 3. 4.

0-/0yaeka-

Demonst. I 'this' oono yeeye eene keyke

II 'that'

8- oa/ui+i0 9. mo10. n(+Q/nny(+V) 11. u-/b(+V)

mme memme nne uune

ogarj yagarj egay kagaq rjogarj negay kogay yagay mogay TJZay ugay

12. I-

iine

igay

5. wP-q (+ v)

vevye

6. nV7. ku-

nenne keyke

Note: Vowel harmony. prefix vowels nearest o u V stem vowel o u I i e o e e a e o a o o u u * 0 . 1 has u- in certain tenses of the verb.

Simple Pronoun og yag

ig

eg kag rjog neg kog yag mog yg ug

Notional features Sg. personal PI. personal Sg. Sg. Sg. Sg. Sg. PI. PI. PI. Sg. (b- some parts of body) Pl.

98

J. DAVID SAPIR

There are three genitive forms each taking a concord marker: -nri, n-.-a and -a. The latter is reserved for body parts. kusiye kunri Joy/yka Joy 'the cows of John' yarate tjanri Joy/yya Joy 'the boats of John' erage ya Joy 'the shoulder of John' kugbi ka Joy 'the body of John' Interrogatives: esiye era eygo/kusiye kora koygo 'which cow(s) is (are) this (these)?' esiye eerejkusirje koore 'where is (are) the cow(s)?' nooks nenaa/nyooke rmaa 'what's (are) the well(s) like?' Adjectives: yam esiye ewororajyam kusiye koworora 'it's a white cow(s)' Numerals: okuta odige 'one man' yakuta yasobe 'two men' etc. Verbs: both finite and relatives. Thoughfiniteverbs and subjectival relatives apparently just prefix the class marker (subject to certain vowel changes depending on tense), the objectival relative constructions are quite complex and involve 'binding'. Some examples from Wilson's notes: ökütä ddümäi 'the man fell' kadeera kadumai 'the chair fell' cl. 1: ü-bäk 'he catches'¡ö-bäk 'he has (just) caught' yääm enyä öjööybnä yäg dg 'it's me they saw' (where the final pronoun recalls verb object and prefix; yäg is the subject: 'they'; and -n5 the relative marker; esiye eygd enadjööyond eg 'this is the cow I saw' (-ndd = I) kusiye koygo konaajooyom kog 'these are the cows I saw' okuta odenaano odumai 'the man who came fell' yakuta yadenaano yadumai 'the men who came fell' III. Southern Branch A. Sua. (Wilson, field notes) Sua concord takes in: Demonstratives: -oonan 'here', -onan 'there' -demen 'yonder' neer ma foonan 'there is a person here' neer mo wonan 'there are persons there' m-ren me m-demen 'there are persons there' n-beeyge mo ndemen 'there is a path over yonder'

99

WEST ATLANTIC: AN INVENTORY TABLE X V I I I

Sua — Noun Classes (prepared by W.A.A. Wilson) Noun afx.

-an (g-)(k-Y (V-Y ni-

(r-)

m-

1

Dep. pfx. + V

Dep. pfx. + C

Dep. sfx.

Examples

fwkVny-

0, a0,1kni-

-a -u -k -V -n -i

m-

-r -m

neer person neer-an 'persons' (k-)roon 'well' (rj)-kumfu 'garden' n-beerjge 'path' i-roon, i-kumfu, i-beeyge (plurals of respective nouns) (r-)ren "stone m-ren 'stones'

rm-

Markers in parenthesis elide in initial utterance.

'Copula' constructions: neer mia yetjgate 'this person is good' neer-an miow wyerjgate 'these persons are good' m-ren miam mjeygate 'these stones are good' neer waha nen 'a person isn't here' m-ren r/gwaha nen 'stones aren't here' Interrogates : loon seerj 'how many cows?' iroon iseetj 'how many wells?' neer mia naale afenne/neeran miow naale ufenne 'what is (are) the person(s) like?' Relatival (subjectivals; there is no information available on objectivals): n-yek ye nsaan a saam ne 'I saw the man who came' n-yek ye nsaanan aw usaam ne 'I saw the men who came' Mel TableXIX reproducesDalby'simportantcomparison of Melclassmarkers(1965a: 8). (1) Temne Group (primarily: Houis 1953a-b; Wilson 1961b, 1962, 1968; Dalby 1966b). These languages have extensive concord systems. In Temne it extends to adjectives, demonstratives, independent pronouns, genitives and verbs (cf. Wilson 1961b and Dalby 1966b, especially his table on p. 9). B.

J. DAVID SAPIR

100

a

a; a; co t0 00 ^ -'Ra Tai sA; à tsa aA

§

•8

I

O

S sa O j-aS

S. «

S^rl

©

R «>

«

'2

• 8 . 60 eSd8.9 ci.) °H c .9056 •g m g «3Ó .9M.56Ó .9oh.9 M•g < VÌ vi
••—' coI

s i V ir s •8 -4

M &% 3*5-S„ „ TF

M

o

2 © >o

? 19 A

E

rti

cii »

tH o

ri a

a

£ §

a

«a

i S

»0

. 0

a

«

S3 3

8

a

a

3

1

O B*

& §

g 1

>i

3

i

o

w

h

o

2

o

« 1

a

o

«

JOHN T. BENDOR-SAMUEL /—\ /-s S—S .-""S '(5 ' O fi w O tí tí w î

tí sG^

8 O ft

- 2 - o îS •a * a co

e

1

'S

2 •a "S, CO

o -a - a

sìni

lèni

i

'S ylni

H m

f

f 'fw 1 'W

£

ï/2 - a •a to 1 a »W a ""SS - a

'3

sìni

170

S

'S? S >. TS 'O +5 Tí tí '¡ft. 60 oa' >

-to S

P tí o „S *S? >. «c >\ 43 *5 -tí tí "ií, 60 «co SIf

Ö g C »to v S "w c

'W s co - a

60

e

-tí a

f . 'S. S % 'S) ' 2

co ' g

-«S

ft K w O

-S a co H

•S. ' S . ' 3

'S) ' S

*

,"s n

§ & s

s

tí S

?

a

-s «

v

a -ft «

§

h

co

Sì & tí o «

S, 5t1 ' V J? O Ut O oj —

i m

1 u

3 S

•s ë 3 S tí O X> O

tí •O

g

S « BQ' Si g60 i f t v i Q i g60i A^ en CO 05 i» S co « J J -S I l l •o V y V S vì g ¿ ¿o £

NIGER-CONGO, GUR

171

noun classes in any really thorough way. On the other hand semantic correlations are noticeable in many languages.32 It is very common for all but a few nouns referring to human beings to belong to the same class. Many animals tend to be grouped in one singular-plural set. Liquids tend to belong to a nasal class. Borrowed words usually belong to the same class. Seldom, however, can these semantic labels exhaust the whole membership of a class and even when the majority of nouns in the class appear to be of one particular semantic category there are always additional nouns which do not belong to this category. 5.3.2

Nominal phrase

In Gur languages nominal phrases are usually quite simple. Constructions consisting of a noun followed by a numeral or a noun followed by a demonstrative are common, but a noun followed by an adjective is not frequent and a noun with a string of adjectives never occurs. Where a noun adjective construction might be expected, it is often the case that a noun verb construction occurs or else that the noun is followed by a relative clause. In some languages appositional constructions occur quite frequently. Two or three nominal phrases in an appositional relationship may function as subject or object. This type of appositional juxtaposition of phrases is reported quite widely, e.g. Kusal, Kirma, Tyurama. Possessive constructions always consist of the nomen rectum preceding the nomen regens, the possessive pronoun also precedes the noun. There seem to be no exceptions to this order in Gur. Usually there is no linking particle between the possessor and the possessed item. A somewhat similar construction is a noun noun construction where the first noun modifies the second. This construction is quite widespread. Kasem, for example, has Paga tiiyna 'Paga people', i.e. 'People from Paga' or Kcislna gwaaru tilii na lana tu literally, 'Kasena clothes which are beautiful', i.e. 'her beautiful Kasena clothes'. 5.3.3

Adjectives

In most Gur languages the class of adjectives is a comparatively small class occurring immediately after the noun in the nominal phrase. Three main types of adjectives are found: 1. Some adjectives are invariable in form. In a nominal phrase they do not enter into any type of concord with the head noun of the phrase. 2. Some adjectives are marked for class in the same way as the nouns in the language concerned. When occurring as attributives in the phrase they always carry their own class affix. Thus Dagara adjectives occur in two forms, singular and plural, and do not carry the affixes of the head noun. 3. Some adjectives are marked by the class affixes of the noun which they are modi32

Various scholars have attempted to summarize such correlations for specific languages. See for instance G. Canu (1967) and A. Prost (1964).

172

JOHN T. BENDOR-SAMUEL

fying. This type of construction is very widespread though details vary considerably. In some instances, for example, the noun suffix occurs both with the noun and adjective and in other instances only with the adjective. In Kabre the noun retains its suffix and the adjective also is marked by a concording suffix. Sometimes the same adjective will occur with the concord affixes of the head noun in one construction but without them in another. In Bargu all three types of adjective are found: Type 1, invariable, e.g. kad 'white'. Type 2, tbkorii 'old', always occurs with the suffix -ru in the singular and -nu in the plural, exactly as the nouns which occur with this singular plural pair. Type 3, baka 'big' is marked by the suffix of the noun head e.g. boo bako 'a big goat' and tam bakasu 'a big yam'. In Kasem adjectives are of two types: a class with invariable suffixes including, for instance, babla/babe 'brave', baloro/balwaaru 'ugly', guguwlu/guguwllu 'round', kamuwnti/kdmuwnnu 'big, important', etc. and a smaller class which occurs with different suffixes according to the class of the head noun. To date this class comprises: ddwy-jddowrdutj-jditurgurkiir-

'old, former' 'new, fresh' 'wretched' 'dry, dried'

pown-lpdwtj- 'white' sly-/suy'red* zdwn'black'

When an adjective of this group follows a noun, the noun suffix marks the total construction and occurs in final place. Thus, kdor-u 'waterpot' and ditur- 'new' form kwaduuru 'new water pot'. Other examples are, caari 'millet' and cadituri 'early millet', zurja 'calabash' and zundutja 'new calabash', sdtjfo 'house' and sddurju 'new house'. In many languages the noun adjective sequence is a close knit one suggesting treatment as a compound noun rather than as a sequence of two independent forms. In Dagbani and M55re, for instance, the noun occurs with no class suffix as the suffix is carried by the following adjective. In Senari adjectives take the class suffix of the noun and the noun occurs in its radical form. This construction is probably the most common noun adjective construction throughout Gur. Similarly, in Kasem, nouns lose their suffix and have a contracted stem form in a noun adjective construction, as has already been illustrated. On the other hand the Kasem construction, shortened noun followed by adjective, is distinguishable from other nominal compounds on phonological grounds. Rather similarly, Tampulma adjectives occur with singular/plural suffixes and the preceding noun occurs in a stem form without its normal class suffix, except for nouns in one class where the singular/plural contrast is shown by a vowel change, and this change is retained where the noun is followed by an adjective. This construction contrasts with constructions in which the noun is followed by a numeral or a demonstrative for in these constructions the noun suffix remains, e.g. ku-ta 'benches', ku-pene 'wide benches', ku-ta tura 'three benches'.

NIGER-CONGO, GUR

173

In Basari adjectives such as 'white', 'black', 'large' and 'small' may function as independent forms, e.g. dikpaau 'big one' — but when modifying a noun they function as second element in a noun compound, e.g. dinokpaandi 'big yam'. In contrast a small group of invariable adjectives, e.g. koko 'all' and tikpil 'many', follows the noun. Numerals are distinguished from these two classes since, while being independent words which follow the noun, they are marked by concord, the concording prefix being determined by the noun. In some languages adjectives appear to occur only as a second element in a compound noun adjective form. Bwamu is an example of this. In all Gur languages many noun compounds are found. Frequently subclasses of nouns have to be set up on the basis of the distribution of noun roots as first and second elements in compounds. Furthermore verb roots can occur as second element in a noun compound following a noun root, and often do. The noun adjective sequence is frequently of the same pattern and can most easily be handled as a type of compound rather than as a construction of two words. In many Gur languages the majority of adjectives are forms which are derived from verbs, e.g. the Birifor construction, verb stem and -ra (singular) -si (plural). Such constructions contrast with other types of nominalization of verbs which occur very frequently; e.g. Birifor construction, verb stem and -fu, which nominalizes all verbs. In Kirma many adjectives are derived from verbs and these take the class form of the nouns they accompany but some adjectives are not derived from verbs and these have an invariable form. This summary of the phonological and grammatical characteristics of Gur languages illustrates the type of common features found right across the Gur languages. It is, however, only a rather impressionistic sketch. Other scholars undoubtedly would draw attention to other features and possibly omit some included in the present discussion. Before this necessarily subjective element can be eliminated more systematic data must be made available for study. A more rigorous comparative phonology and comparative grammar of Gur is much needed. This could be a fine contribution to the whole field of African linguistics. BIBLIOGRAPHY

M. and Cox, M. 1966. Phonology of Basari. Legon, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. ALEXANDRE, P. 1953. La langue m5r6. M I F A N 34. BENDOR-SAMUEL, J . T . 1965a. Problems in the analysis of sentences and clauses in Bimoba. Word 21(3).452-62. . 1965b. The Grusi sub-group of the Gur languages. JWAfrL 2(l).47-55. BENDOR-SAMUEL, J. T. and WILSON, W. A. A. 1965. Phonology of Dagbani nominals. Legon, Bulletin of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.

ABBOTT,

174

JOHN T. BENDOR-SAMUEL

P. M. 1965. Phonemic interpretation problems in some West African languages. SLLR 4.85-90. BERTHO, J . 1949. Langues voltaïques du Togo nord et du Dahomey nord. NAfr. BENDOR-SAMUEL,

44.124-7.

. 1952. Les dialectes du Moyen-Togo. BIFAN 14(3). 1046-107. . 1953. La place des dialectes dogon de la falaise de Bandiagara parmi les autres groupes linguistiques de la zone soudanaise. BIFAN 15(1).405-41. BON, G. 1953. Grammaire l'élé. MIFAN 24. CALAME-GRIAULE, G . 1956. Les dialectes dogon. Africa 26(l).62-72. CALLOW, J . C . 1965a. Kasem nominals: A study in analysis. JWAfrL 2(l).29-36. . 1965b. Phonology of Kasem. Legon, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. . 1966. Nominal and verbal group matrices for Kasem. Tagmemic and matrix linguistics applied to selected African languages ed. by K. L. Pike (q.v.), pp. 197-205. . 1968. A hierarchical study of neutralization in Kasem. JL 4(1).33—47. CALLOW, K. 1966. Preliminary notes on serial constructions in Kasem. Tagmemic and matrix linguistics applied to selected African languages, ed. by K. L. Pike (q.v.), pp. 182-6. CANU, G . 1967. Les classes nominals en MÔ:rë (dialecte de Ouagadougou). CNLNA

175-205.

A. W. 1921. The natives of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, pp. 113-30. Kurze Grammatik, pp. 131-58, Vokabular. CHANTOUX, A. 1954a. Essai de grammaire gourmantche. Niamey, I F AN. . 1954b. Dictionnaire gourmantche-français. Niamey, IFAN. CHÉRON, G. 1925. Le dialecte sénoufo du Minianka. Paris. CHRISTALLER, J. G. 1889a. Sprachproben vom Sudan zwischen Asante und MittelNiger (Kasem, Lyele, Sisala). ZAS 4.107-32. . 1889b. Sprachproben aus dem Sudan von 40 bis 60 Sprachen und Mundarten hinter der Gold- und Sklavenküste. ZAS 3.133-54. CLAMENS, G. 1952. Essai de grammaire sénoufo-tagwana. BIFAN 14(4). 1402-65. CORNEVIN, R. 1962. Histoire du Togo. Paris. CREMER, J. 1924. La grammaire de la langue kasséna ou kasséné parlée au pays des Gourounsi. Mat. d'Ethnographie et de Linguistique Soudanaises II. Paris. CROUCH, M. and SMILES, N. 1966. Phonology of Vagala. Legon, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. CUENOT, M . 1952. Essai de grammaire bobo-oule. B I F A N 1 4 ( 3 ) . 9 9 6 - 1 0 4 5 . DELAFOSSE, M. 1904. Vocabulaires comparatifs de plus de 60 langues et dialectes parlés à la Côte d'Ivoire et dans les régions limitrophes. Paris. . 1911. Les langues voltaïques (boucle du Niger). MSL 16(6).386-95. . 1912. Haut Sénégal-Niger (Soudan français), série d'études publiées sous la CARDINALL,

NIGER-CONGO, GUR

175

direction de M. le Gouverneur Clozel, Ire partie : Le pays, les peuples, les langues. Paris. . 1924. Les langues du Soudan et de la Guinée. Les langues du monde, ed. by A. Meillet and M. Cohen, pp. 463-560. Paris. DELMOND, P. 1949. Esquisse ethnographique du Gourma central. NAfr. 4 3 . 8 6 - 9 . DELORD, J. 1964. Morphologie abrégée du kabrè, manuel à l'usage des classes secondaires. Université de Dakar, Documents Linguistiques 4. . In Press. Dictionnaire kabrè-français. FERREOL, M. 1924. Essai d'histoire et d'ethnographie de quelques peuplades de la subdivision de Banfora. Bulletin du Comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale Française 7. FISCH, R. 1912. Grammatik der Dagomba-Sprache. Archiv für das Studium deutscher Kolonialsprachen 14.1-79. . 1913. Wörtersammlung Dagbane-Deutsch. MSOS 16.113-214. FROEUCH, J.C. 1949. Les Konkombas du Nord Togo. BIFAN 11.409-37. . 1950. Notes sur les Naoudeba du Nord-Togo. BIFAN 12.102-21. FRÖHLICH, J. C , ALEXANDRE, P., and CORNEVIN, R. 1963. Les populations de NordTogo. Presses Universitaires de France. 13-15 and 68-70. FUNKE, E. 1922. Die Isala-Sprache im Westsudan. MSOS 23-25. 69-87. . 1922. Vokabular der Kussassi-Sprache im Westsudan. MSOS 23-25.88-98. GIRAULT, L. 1962. Notes sur la langue dagara. Dakar, IF AN, Polygraphie. . 1963. Le verbe dagara et les familles de verbes dérivés. ASCILNA, pp. 173-81. GREENBERG, J. H. 1955. Studies in African linguistic classification. Branford, Conn., Compass Publishing Co. GROH, B. 1911. Sprachproben aus zwölf Sprachen des Togo-Hinterlands. MSOS 14.227-39. Houis, M. 1956. Schèmes et fonctions tonologiques. BIFAN 18(B. 3-4).335-68. JACOBS, G. 1966. The structure of the verbal clause in Bimoba. JWAfrL 3(l).47-53. KENNEDY, J. 1966. Phonology of Dagaari. Legon, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. KOELLE, S.W. 1854. Polyglotta Africana. London, C.M.S. Reprinted 1963. KÖHLER, O. 1953. Review of Westermann and Bryan 1952. AuÜ 37.187-90. . 1954. Das 'Pferd' in den Gur-Sprachen. Eine sprach-kulturgeographische Studie. AuÜ 38(3).93-109. . 1958. Zur Territorialgeschichte des östlichen Nigerbogens. Baessler-Archiv. Neue Folge, Bd. VI, pp. 229-61. Berlin. LABOURET, M. 1931. Les tribus du rameau lobi. Travaux et Mémoires de l'Institut d'Ethnologie de l'Université de Paris. . 1958. Nouvelles notes sur les tribus du rameau lobi. MIFAN 54. LAMOTHE, REV. CH. 1963. Esquisse du système verbal lobi. Université de Dakar, Documents Linguistiques 2.

176

JOHN T. BENDOR-SAMUEL

1966. Esquisse du système grammatical lobi. Recherches Voltaïques 4. Paris and Ouagadougou. LAVERGNE DE TRESSAN. 1953. Inventaire linguistique de l'Afrique Occidentale Française et du Togo. MIFAN 30. MANESSY, G. 1960. La morphologie du nom en bwamu. Dakar, Publications de la section de langues et littératures de la Faculté des Lettres, No. 4. . 1961. Le Bwamu et ses dialectes. Dakar, Publications de la section de langues et littératures de la Faculté des Lettres, No. 9. . 1962. Observations sur la classification nominale dans les langues négroafricaines du Soudan et de la Guinée. BSL 57(l).126-60. . 1963a. Les particules affirmatives postverbales dans le groupe voltaïques. BIFAN 25(B. 1-2). 107-24. . 1963b. Rapport sur les langues voltaïques. ASCILNA, pp. 239-66; cf. 248-51. . 1963c. Structure de la proposition relative dans quelques langues voltaïques. JAfrL 2(3).260-8. . 1964. Adjectifs épithètes et adjectifs conjoints dans les langues voltaïques. BIFAN 26(B. 3^).505-17. . 1965a. La classification nominale dans les langues voltaïques : Observations et hypothèses. BSL 60.180-207. . 1965b. Le verbe dans les langues du groupe tem. AuÜ 49.237-56. . 1965c. Les substantifs à préfixe et suffixe dans les langues voltaïques. JAfrL 4(3). 170-81 and 5(1).54-61 (1966). . 1966a. Essai de typologies du verbe voltaïque. BSL 61.299-318. . 1966b. Recherches sur la morphologie du verbe sénufo. BIFAN 28(B. 3-4). 690-722. . 1967. Evolution de la classification nominale dans les langues gurunsi (groupe voltaïque). CNLNA 207-24. MANOUKIAN, M . 1952. Tribes of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast. London. LEMOAL, G. 1957. Note sur les populations 'Bobo'. BIFAN 19(B. 3^).418-30. MERCIER, P . 1949. Vocabulaire de quelques langues du Nord-Dahomey. Études Dahoméennes 2.73-83. MIGEOD, F . W . H . 1911. The languages of West Africa. 2. Vols. London, Kegan Paul & Co. MÜLLER, P. 1905. Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Tem-Sprache (Nord-Togo). MSOS

LAMOTHE, REV. CH.

8.251-86.

1953. Glossaire l'élé-français. M I F A N 24.123-455. PIKE, K . L . , ed. 1966. Tagmemic and matrix linguistics applied to selected African languages. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press. PROST, A. 1961. Grammaire moba. Mission de Dapango.

NICOLAS, F .

NIGER-CONGO, GUR

177

A. 1963a. Le verbe dans les langues voltaïques. ASCILNA, pp. 161-71. 1963b. Les classes nominales en bassari-tobote. JAfrL 2(3).210-17. 1964a. Contribution à l'étude des langues voltaïques. MIFAN 70. 1964b. Lamba. Université de Dakar, Documents Linguistiques 5. 1964c. Li tâmari. Université de Dakar, Documents Linguistiques 6. 1964d. Mi gangam. Université de Dakar, Documents Linguistiques 7. 1966. Notes sur le naudem du Togo. BIFAN 28(B. l-2).433-69. PROST, A., and GIRAULT, L . 1958. Abrégé de langue degara; grammaire et dictionnaire. Bobo-Dioulasso. RAPP, E.L. 1933a. Die Sprache de Kolango auf der Elfenbeinkuste und auf der Goldkuste. MSOS 36.54-66. . 1933b. Die Nafana-Sprache auf der Elfenbeinkuste und auf der Goldkiiste. MSOS 36.66-69. RATTRAY, R . S. 1932. Tribes of the Ashanti-Hinterland. Oxford. RICCITELLI, J.M. 1965. Tone analysis: A practical approach (analysis of Bwamu tone). BT 16(2). 54-73. ROWLAND, R . and M . 1965. The phonology of Sisala. Legon, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. . 1966. Sissala noun groups. JWAfrL 3(l).23-8. SCWEEGER-HEFEL, A. and MUKAROVSKY, H . G . 1961. Notes préliminaires sur la langue des Kurumba (Haute-Volta). ArchV 16.177-97. SHIRER, W . L . 1939. Dagbane grammar. Tamale, Assemblies of God Mission. STEELE, M . and WEED, G. 1966. Phonology of Konkomba. Legon, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. SWADESH, M. and ARANA, E. with BENDOR-SAMUEL, J. T. and WILSON, W. A. A. 1966. A preliminary glottochronology of Gur languages. JWAfrL 3(2).27-65. TAIT, D . 1954. Konkomba noun classes. Africa 2 4 . 1 3 0 - 4 8 . TAUXIER, L . A . 1912. Le noir du Soudan: Pays mossi et gourounsi. Paris. . 1921. Le Noir de Bondoukou. Paris. . 1924. Nouvelles notes sur le Mossi et le Gourousi. Paris. . 1931. Vocabulaire dorhosié et dorhosié-finng. JSAfr. 1.87-110. . 1933. Les gouin et les tourouka, résidence de Banfora cercle de BoboDioulasso. JSAfr. 3(1).77-128. VALLIANT, M . 1967. Grammaticale du lobiri de Haute-Volta. Université de Dakar, Documents Linguistiques 10. WELMERS, W . E . 1950. Notes on two languages in the Senufo group; I. Senadi, II. Sup'ide. Lg. 26(1 and 4). 126-46, 494-531. . 1952. Notes on the structure of Bariba. Lg. 28 (1).82-103. . 1957. Report on Senufo dialect studies. Mimeographed. WESTERMANN, D. 1913. Die Mossisprachengruppe. Anthropos 8 . 4 6 7 - 5 0 4 , 8 1 0 - 3 0 . . 1914. Die Grussisprachen im westìichen Sudan. ZK 4.161-80, 312-32 and 5.45-76. PROST,

. -. . . . .

178

JOHN T. BENDOR-SAMUEL

D. 1 9 2 2 . Die Sprache der Guang in Togo und auf der Goldküste und fünf andere Togosprachen. Berlin, D. Reimer. . 1927. Die westlichen Sudansprachen und ihre Beziehungen zum Bantu. MSOS 30, Beiheft. . 1933. Die drei dialekte des Tem in Togo: Delo, Cäla und Bagó. MSOS 36(3).7-33. . 1935. Nominal Klassen in Westafrikanischen Klassensprachen und in Bantusprachen. MSOS 38(3). 1-53. WESTERMANN, D., and BRYAN, M. A. 1952. Languages of West Africa. Handbook of African Languages II. London, Oxford University Press for IAI. W I L S O N , W . A . A . 1963a. Esquisse du verbe en Dagbani (N.Ghana). ASCILNA pp. 201-3. . 1963b. Relative constructions in Dagbani. JAfrL 2(2). 139-44. WOLF, L. 1889. Beitrag zur Kilir-Sprache (Sugu). ZAS 3.293-5. ZWERNEMANN, J. 1 9 5 7 . Untersuchungen zur Sprache der Kasena. AuÜ 4 1 . 3 - 2 6 ,

WESTERMANN,

97-116.

. 1958a. Remarques sur la structure classificatoire et sur une ancienne classe nominale du lyélé. BIFAN 20(B. l-2).215-24. . 1958b. Shall we use the word 'Gurunsi'? Africa 28(2).123-5. . 1961. Notizen über das Verbum des Nuna. AuÜ 45.258-71. . 1963. Remarques préliminaires sur le verbe du kasem et du nuna. ASCILNA, pp. 191-9. . 1967. Versuch einer Analyse der nominalen Klassifizierung in einigen Gursprachen. CNLNA 75-97.

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

JOHN M. STEWART

INTRODUCTION

The Kwa languages for the purpose of this chapter are the languages tentatively classified as Kwa by Greenberg (1963a).* They occupy a belt of about 200 miles average width which extends about 1400 miles along the West African coast from Monrovia in Liberia in the west through the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo and Dahomey to the eastern extremity of the Niger delta in Nigeria in the east. Four of the languages are of outstanding importance; from west to east these are (i) Akan (Twi-Fante), which is the dominant indigenous language of Ghana, (ii) Ewe, which is the dominant indigenous language both of Togo and of Dahomey and which is also spoken in eastern Ghana, (iii) Yoruba, which is the dominant indigenous language of what used to be the Western Region of Nigeria and which is also spoken in eastern Dahomey, and (iv) Igbo, which is the dominant indigenous language of what used to be the Eastern Region of Nigeria. The treatment of the Kwa languages in this chapter inevitably reflects the writer's special interest in Akan and the languages most closely related to it. None of the Kwa languages has the status of official language in any state; each of the states in which Kwa languages are spoken has either English (Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria) or French (the Ivory Coast, Togo and Dahomey) as its only official language. One reason which is often given for this, but which is not altogether convincing when one considers what actually happens in other parts of the world, is that even in those states in which one indigenous language is clearly dominant there are important minority languages whose speakers would be placed at a disadvantage. The main reason is probably that the status of the likely indigenous languages as written languages is not felt to be sufficiently secure; the alphabet in which they are written only arrived with the languages of the Europeans, and no Kwa language has ever been the most important written language in its own area. The main stimulus for Kwa language studies as for African studies in general has been the need to adapt imported European institutions to African conditions. The institution most obviously concerned is that of the Roman alphabet, as any Roman orthography of any Kwa language represents an adaptation of that alphabet to the * A grant of study leave by the University of Ghana, without which this work could not have been undertaken, is gratefully acknowledged.

180

JOHN M. STEWART

language in question. Another institution concerned is that of formal education, particularly in its capacity as the main instrument by which linguistic skills are fostered and maintained. In the early days of formal education in the Kwa area the policy in some schools was to use the local language as the medium of instruction throughout, and this called for the preparation of grammars and dictionaries of the languages concerned; in the early Basel Mission schools in the Akan area, for instance, the policy was to use Akan throughout, and J. G. Christaller, a linguist in the service of the Basel Mission, produced a grammar of the language in 1875 and a dictionary in 1881. Now that English and French are very much morefirmlyestablished in the Kwa area, the policy everywhere is to use the official language (i.e. English or French) as the main or sole medium of instruction; in the French-speaking states French is generally the sole medium throughout, while in the English-speaking states it is common to use a local language in the initial stages. Although there has undeniably been a decline in the relative importance of the Kwa languages as media of instruction in the area, however, there has not been so great a decline in the relative importance of Kwa language studies for the language side of formal education in the area; it is being increasingly realized that in order to understand the difficulties which speakers of Kwa languages have in learning English or French it is necessary to study the Kwa languages and to compare them with English or French as the case may be. It is not only in the fostering of linguistic skills, however; that formal education depends on Kwa language studies for its proper adaptation to local conditions, but also in the teaching of certain secondary school and university subjects. It is an axiom of local educational thinking that formal education as imported from Europe was, for local purposes, excessively European in content; that general courses in history and geography, for instance, placed the main emphasis on European instead of local, or African, history or geography. It is not a simple matter to put things right, however, as too little is known about local history, geography, and so on, and because of this, great importance is now attached to research in such fields. Of the subjects of this kind, linguistics, which is taught at a number of universities in the Kwa area, is the one that most obviously demands research on the Kwa languages, but it is not the only one; history is another. In a part of the world where there is a paucity of written records, and an almost total absence of written records going back more than half a millenium, the languages are of course particularly important for the historical inferences that can be drawn from them. It should be mentioned that in Nigeria and Ghana certain Kwa languages are treated as subjects in their own right both at secondary school and at university level. The demand for written forms of the more important languages and for comparative vocabularies of the less important ones has naturally resulted in students of Kwa languages placing special emphasis on phonology. In this field serious problems have been encountered in the analysis of phenomena which are of great importance in Kwa languages but of little or no importance in European languages, but considerable

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

181

progress has been made and results of general typological interest have been achieved. In the present chapter a large section is devoted to each of the two most important phenomena of this kind, namely tone and vowel harmony. The early demand for grammars and dictionaries diminished with the shift of emphasis from the African to the European languages as media of instruction, but in recent years the increasing interest in the academic study of African languages has led to a new wave of publications in this field; the first six titles in the new West African Language Monograph series, for instance, include a grammar of an Ijp dialect by Williamson (1964), a grammar of Yoruba by Bamgbo?e (1966a), and a dictionary of Grebo by Innes (1966). Most of the new grammars show due concern for grammatical theory; Williamson's grammar, and also a more recent grammar of the verb in an Akan dialect by Boadi (1966), are transformational, and Bamgbo§e's grammar, and also a more recent grammar of Ewe by Ansre (1966), follow the scale and category theory developed by Halliday. Perhaps the most interesting of the grammatical phenomena from the general typological point of view is what might be called SERIALIZATION. Westermann (1930: 126) gives the following description of it in Ewe: A peculiarity of Ewe is that we oftenfinda row of verbs one after the other. The chief features of this are that all the verbs stand next to each other without being connected, that all have the same tense or mood, and that in the event of their having a common subject and object, these stand with the first, the others remaining bare: should a conjunction stand between two verbs, the subject and object must be repeated. In English these consecutive verbs are partly rendered by composite sentences. But very often several Ewe verbs may be expressed by a single verb in English. The explanation of this is that the Ewe people describe every detail of an action or happening from beginning to end, and each detail has to be expressed by a special verb: they dissect every happening and present it in its several parts, whereas in English we seize on the leading event and express it by a verb, while subordinate events are either not considered or rendered by means of a preposition, adverb, conjunction, or a prefix of the verb. Although Westermann himself does not say so, his account applies equally well in every detail to the same phenomenon in Akan. More modern accounts of serialization both in these and in other Kwa languages are to be found in the recent grammars referred to earlier. Pike (1966: chapters 1 and 2), in a cross-language study of serialization in African languages, devotes most of his attention to Gur languages but does take Akan into consideration. Linguists working on Kwa languages would appear to have been more sympathetic to the demand from historians for inferences about the past than they might have been if they had not themselves been more interested in ancestral ('genetic') interrelationships than their colleagues working on Indo-European languages. Their interest is apparently to be explained by the fact that these interrelationships are much less firmly established in the case of the Kwa languages than in that of the IndoEuropean languages; which suggests, of course, that the decline in interest in diachronic studies which accompanied the coming of modern linguistics in Europe and

182

JOHN M. STEWART

America was probably due in part at least to the fact that the Indo-European family, to which nearly all the major languages of these continents belonged, had already been established and there seemed little possibility of further advances of comparable importance in the diachronic study of these languages. In any case the problem of the ancestral interrelationships of the Kwa languages is, by European and American standards, of unusual interest both to the historian and to the linguist, and it is discussed in some detail in a separate section of the present chapter.

TONE

It seems that all the Kwa languages are tone languages insofar as differences of pitch have to be treated as distinctive even when all sentences carrying special intonations are disregarded. The tone patterns of sentences not carrying any special intonation are usually to be accounted for partly by tonal distinctions in segmental morphemes, partly by nonsegmental morphemes with tonal implications, and partly by realization rules, though there are enormous differences from language to language in the relative importance of these three factors and it seems quite probable that there are some Kwa languages in which at least one of the three factors does not operate at all. It should be mentioned that if in a particular language the first of the three factors, namely that of distinctive tonal features within the segmental morpheme, was not present, that language would not be a tone language by Pike's definition; he defines a tone language as 'a language having lexically significant, contrastive, but relative pitch on each syllable' (1948). Nor, of course, would it be a tone language even by the broader definition suggested by Welmers: 'a tone language is a language in which both pitch phonemes and segmental phonemes enter into the composition of at least some morphemes' (1959). Now it is quite possible that there is no Kwa language in which no segmental morphemes at all have distinctive tonal features, but there are languages in which none of those segmental morphemes which function as verb stems have distinctive tonal features; an example is the Akuapem dialect of Akan. Nearly all Akan verb stems are analyzable as either monosyllabic or disyllabic in their base form. The monosyllabic stems are generally analyzable as having either low or high tone in their base form, and the disyllabic stems as having low tone on the first syllable and high tone on the second syllable of their (fully specified) base form, so that generally speaking monosyllabic verb stems, but not disyllabic verb stems, have tones which must be specified in the lexicon. In very many contexts, however, the contrast between monosyllabic stems with low tone and monosyllabic stems with high tone is neutralized by the operation of a realization rule, with the result that there are some important forms of the verb, such as the imperative and the simple past tense, in which the contrast is invariably neutralized. The contrast is thus seriously undermined, and it is not surprising that it should be showing signs of disappearing: there is considerable disagreement among speakers as to which stems are low and which high, and

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

183

with some speakers, including, apparently, all speakers of the Akuapem dialect, they are all high. Thus it is, of course, that in the Akuapem dialect no verb stems have tones which must be specified in the lexicon. In Akan as a whole, in fact, the importance of lexical tonal contrasts is slight not only in monosyllabic and disyllabic verb stems but also in monosyllabic noun stems; it is unnecessary to recognize tonal distinctions in monosyllabic noun stems other than those which belong to a small subclass of noun stems all of which indicate inalienable possessions (mostly body parts and kin). Even in simple disyllabic noun stems it seems to be unnecessary to recognize more than two contrasting tone patterns, at least in the case of those stems not belonging to the inalienable possessions subclass. It is clear that by Pike's definition of a tone language or Welmers's, Akan would be a rather marginal sort of tone language. Dr. Kay Williamson has recently suggested (1967) that one of the Kwa languages at least, namely Ijp, might be a pitch-accent language rather than a tone language. By the present writer's definition of a tone language, however, a pitch-accent language is merely a tone language of a special kind in which pitch has the role of marking the accented syllable of the morpheme but has no further lexical role. Akan, in fact, which we have just been considering, comes very close to being a pitch-accent language and is possibly becoming one. It was seen that in Akan, although it is unnecessary to recognize tonal distinctions in monosyllabic noun stems not belonging to the inalienable possessions subclass, it is necessary to recognize two contrasting tone patterns in simple disyllabic noun stems not belonging to that subclass; it is possible, however, to interpret this contrast as one between the tone patterns LH (low-high) and HL (highlow, realized as high-downstep-high; the phenomenon of downstep will be described later) and therefore to look upon it as merely a matter of accent placement, HL and LH stems having the accent on the first and second syllables respectively. The only convincing evidence that Akan is not merely a pitch-accent language would therefore appear to be the vanishing contrast between monosyllabic verb stems with high and low tone, and the contrasts operating in the small number of noun stems in the inalienable possessions subclass. It seems that the great majority of Kwa languages have either two or three basic tone levels in their surface phonology, and that the importance of tonal distinctions within segmental morphemes tends to be greater in the languages with three basic tone levels while the importance both of nonsegmental morphemes with tonal implications and of realization rules involving tonal features tends to be greater in the languages with only two basic tone levels. Of the four most important Kwa languages, Ewe and Yoruba have three basic tone levels and Akan and Igbo two. The Grebo language of Liberia was until recently the only Kwa language widely known to have four basic tone levels. In 1966, however, Pike gave Igede, a Nigerian language which he tentatively classified as Kwa on unstated criteria, as an example of a language with four basic tone levels. Now Pike makes the following comments on Igede (p. 132):

184

JOHN M. STEWART

The four levels of contrast were extraordinarily clear, with the particular informant brought to the workshop... Instrumental analysis of utterances — which were spoken quite normally — gave displays which left the levels so clear cut that they appeared to [Ruth] Brend almost as if they had been 'sung'. The whistling of the patterns by the informant gave a similar result. Very little influence is seen where one tone affects another. In the first place, this confirms the present writer's own strong impression, based purely on his experience of languages with two or three basic tone levels, that in Kwa languages the overall tonal complexity tends to be in inverse proportion to the number of basic tone levels. In the second place, it suggests an explanation of a mystery which has puzzled the present writer ever since his first encounter with Kwa languages other than those which exhibit key lowering (which we shall be considering presently). He found that the levels were so clear that the number of levels was immediately obvious, and wondered why Pike (1948) should have found it necessary to devise techniques to determine the number of levels in languages of this kind. It would now appear that in the American languages which led Pike to devise his techniques the situation must be less straightforward. Although some Kwa languages would appear to be among the world's most straightforward tone languages, however, the tonal situation is complicated in very many Kwa languages by the phenomenon of KEY LOWERING, one manifestation of which, namely DOWNSTEP, has attracted a considerable amount of attention in recent years. Ewe is the only one of the four most important Kwa languages which appears to be free of the phenomenon. As far as is known downstep occurs without exception in all those Kwa languages which have only two basic tone levels, and in the first instance we shall describe it in the form it takes in Akan, which is a typical two-tone language. Where a high tone is followed by a low tone which is followed in turn by a high tone, in this language the second high tone is normally lower in pitch than the first, so that when the high tones of a sentence are interrupted by low tones at a number of points, the high tones normally descend in pitch by a series of steps from the beginning to the end of the sentence. In examples (1) and (2) the high tones are indicated by an acute accent and their relative pitches are numbered upwards, 2 being the lowest as 1 is required for the pitches of the low tones: 1 (1) Kofi hwehws Kwabena. 'Kofi looks for Kwabena.' 14 1 3 1 1 i (2) Kwabena hwehwe Kofi. * Kwabena looks for Kofi.' 114 1 3 12 1

This system of numbering is based on Christaller's; the ways in which the two systems differ will be seen later. Although all the low pitches are treated as if they were the same, it seems in fact that the interval between a low pitch and a following high pitch remains fairly constant, so that not only the high tones but also the low tones descend in pitch by a series of steps as the sentence proceeds. It would be possible to reflect this in the system of numbering by giving each non-final sequence of low pitches the number below the following high pitch, so that the pitch contour of example (1), for instance, would be represented as 3.4.2.3.1.1.2 instead of 1.4.1.3.1.1.2; this would, however, create another difficulty by incorrectly suggesting that in any LHLH sequence the initial low tone necessarily had the same pitch as the final high tone.

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

185

It will be noted that as a result of the lowering, Kofi, which has the tone sequence LH in both (1) and (2), has the pitch sequence 1.4 in (1) and 1.2 in (2), and that similarly Kwabend, which has the tone sequence LLH in both (1) and (2), has the pitch sequence 1.1.2 in (1) and 1.1.4 in (2). Another manifestation of key lowering, which we shall call DOWNGLIDE, occurs where the final syllable has low tone: the pitch of that syllable generally falls slightly towards the end. In example (3) the fall is indicated by a minus after the pitch number: (3) Sseii yi so. 'This pot is big.' 1 22

2 1-

Generally, then, key lowering can be considered to occur at the end of every low tone syllable which is not followed by another low tone syllable; where it is non-final it is manifested as lowering of the pitch of all the subsequent high tones, and where it is final it is manifested as a slight fall towards the end of the final syllable.2 If we indicate key lowering by a raised exclamation mark, its incidence in examples (1) to (3) is then as follows: (1) Kofi hwe]hwe Kwabend, (2) Kwabeina hwe]hwe Kofi, (3) £lsen yi so1. In Akan, however, and also, apparently, in all the other two-tone Kwa languages, key lowering occurs not only at the end of a low tone syllable which is not followed by another low tone syllable, but also occurs sometimes at the point of transition from one high tone syllable to another high tone syllable, and in surface phonology at least key lowering is thereby distinctive between high tone syllables; it can even be minimally distinctive, as Akan examples (4) and (5) illustrate: (4) A'1 den na '¿nhye ka'wa? 'Why must he wear a ring?' 5 44 1 33 3 1 2 (5) A'^deA na 'in'hye ka]wd? 'Why does he not put on a ring?' 6

SS

1 44

3

1 2

Moreover, in some of the languages, including Akan as spoken by some speakers, key lowering sometimes fails to occur at the end of a final low tone syllable, and in surface phonology at least key lowering is thereby distinctive after final low tone syllables, as Akan examples (6) and (7) illustrate: (6) £*sM yi so\ 'This pot is big.' 1

22

2 1-

(7) Dlb5fox 'Messenger.' 1

2 11

Thus in surface phonology key lowering can be distinctive whether it is non-final and therefore manifested as downstep, or final and therefore manifested as downglide. 9

There is a case for taking downglide to be the more basic of the two manifestations since, if we postulate it in both contexts in sub-surface phonology, we can plausibly treat the other manifestation namely downstep, as secondary to it; we can say that in a HLH sequence the pitch interval which separates the end of the L from the following H is the same as that which separates the beginning of the L from the preceding H, but that the following H has a lower pitch than the preceding H as the LH interval starts from the bottom of the downglide at the end of the L. The fact that in surface phonology there is no downglide in this context can be covered by a surface rule deleting downglide in non-final position.

186

JOHN M. STEWART

In a large proportion of the instances of the absence of key lowering at the end of a final low tone syllable it is obvious that under the surface the final low tone syllable is analyzable as a high tone syllable, and that it is for this reason that the key lowering is absent; Akan examples (8) and (9) illustrate: (8) D'bi'ffo nd wo hi? 'Where is the messenger?' 1

4

33

3

1 2

(9) D'bifoo. 'Messenger.' 1

2 11

Here the low tone which the first word has on its last two syllables in (9) is due to the fact that where one or more final high tone syllables on the same key are immediately preceded by a high tone syllable on a higher key, the final high tone syllable or syllables lose their high tone. The key lowering which separated them from the preceding high tone syllable is also lost; key lowering never occurs at the beginning of a low tone syllable. The absence of any key lowering in final position remains, however, as a vestige of the lost high tone. It is admittedly not customary in these circumstances to take the view that the final high tone syllable or syllables lose their high tone; it is argued that since the pitches of the low tone syllables of the utterance follow the same general downward drift as those of the high tone syllables,3 it is not at all surprising that the pitch of a final high tone syllable should be no higher than that of an initial low tone syllable. In oneword utterances such as O^bifoo. 'Messenger.', however, which is traditionally analyzed as Dlb5lf65., the pitch of the final (allegedly) high tone syllables is actually identical to that of the initial low tone syllable, as the present writer reported in 1965 (:45— 6), and this surely calls for some such view as he now takes. Pike (1966:141) reports the same situation in the Izi language of Nigeria; he says that in /m6e re 1 ji/ (the transcription is Pike's; he marks low tone syllables with a grave accent and indicates key lowering only between high tone syllables) 'I-present sell yams', /e/ and /' ji/ are affirmed to have the same pitch, and that this is clearly confirmed by laboratory tests. As his transcription implies, however, he takes the traditional view that in surface phonology the final syllable has not low tone but high tone as there is still a contrast with low tone; he does not consider the possibility of looking upon the contrast as one between the absence and the presence of key lowering in final position, though from the examples he gives this would be perfectly satisfactory. He quotes examples (10) and (11) (in addition to low tone and high tone he recognizes 'extra high tone', which he indicates with a double acute accent, but this 'extra high tone* appears to be equivalent to ordinary high tone for the present purpose): (10) /mflturdgbo'noSi/ 'I threw the stick at Ogbona.' (with /-r6-/ and /-'noSi/ on the same pitch) (11) /mfityrdgbSnlphe/ 'I threw something at Ogbona.' * See footnote 1.

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

187

(with /-ni-/ lower than ¡-TO-/ and /-'no-/; and with /-phb/ still lower, since prefinal low-low drifts down a bit) In a large proportion of the instances of key lowering between two high tone syllables it is obvious that either the high tone syllable preceding the key lowering or the high tone syllable following the key lowering is analyzable as a low tone syllable in deep phonology, and that the key lowering is thus to be accounted for by the transition from this low tone syllable to the following high tone syllable; Akan examples (12) and (13) illustrate: (12) Kwa'ame axkasa. 'Kwame has spoken.' 13 11 2 2 (13) Kofi dkasa. 1 2 2 11 analyzable under the surface as Kofi axkdsa. 'Kofi has spoken.' Here the high tone which the second word has on its initial non-CV(C) syllable in (13) is due to assimilation to the final syllable of the preceding word; it is possible, simply by excluding the assimilation from the representation, to make the second word the same in both examples, thus: Kwa'ame a}kdsa, Ko'fi axkasa. The key lowering in a'kasa is then clearly to be accounted for by the transition from the preceding low tone syllable to the following high tone syllable. Where it is the syllable following the key lowering that is analyzable as having low tone in deep phonology, the situation is slightly more complex as the location of the key lowering is not the same in deep phonology as in surface phonology; examples (14) to (17) from the Abura Dunkwa form of the Fante dialect of Akan illustrate: (14) Ko 1do. 'Go on.' 1 2 x (15) D r6ko ld6. 'He is going on.' 1 3

1

2

(16) Ko xh5. 'Go there.' 1 2 (17) DWkd hi. 'He is going there.' 1 3

2

2

In all four examples the second word is a postclitic consisting of a single syllable with high tone. The high tone which the first word has on its final syllable in (17) is due to assimilation to the following syllable; the final syllable of the first word is not assimilated to the following syllable in any of the other three examples as it is assimilated only where (i) the preceding syllable is high, and (ii) the following syllable does not have an initial voiced stop or fricative. When the assimilation does take place, however, the assimilated syllable is assimilated not only in tone but also in key, since by our analysis a low tone syllable is on a higher key than a following high tone syllable, and the assimilation in key automatically transfers the key lowering from the end to

188

JOHN M. STEWART

the beginning of the assimilated syllable. It is still possible, of course, to have a subsurface representation from which all inter-word tonal assimilation is excluded, thus: Oxr6ko xhd; the surface representation can then be arrived at by applying the following ordered rules: 1. If a low tone syllable is preceded by a high tone syllable and is followed by a postclitic high tone syllable which does not have an initial voiced stop or fricative, transfer the 1 from the end of the low tone syllable to the beginning of that syllable, thus: Oxr6xko hi. 2. Add ' to any syllable which is followed by a high tone syllable from which it is not separated by thus Oxrolkd hi. In some instances of key lowering between two high tone syllables we can analyze one of the adjacent syllables as having low tone in deep phonology only if we recognize on the far side of that syllable a zero syllable with high tone to which we can consider our theoretical low tone syllable to be assimilated; examples (18) to (21) from the Fante dialect of Akan illustrate: (18) Dxr6hwex. 'He is looking at it.' 1 2

1-

(19) E'ben axdzi na xirdxhwi? 'What is it that he is looking at?' 511 1 4 1 3 3 2 x (20) O ridzix. 'He is eating it.' 1 2

1-

(21) E'ben axdze na x6rVdzi? 'What is it that he is eating?' 511 1 4 1 3 3 2 Here we obviously cannot consider that the high tone which (19) and (21) have on their final syllable is due to assimilation to a following syllable unless we recognize a following zero syllable with high tone, thus (; being a zero syllable): (19) ... x5r6xhw£:, (21) ... x6rixdzi:. Then, of course, by excluding the assimilation from the representation, we have (19) ... '¿rdhwe1;, (21) ... x6ridzix':. Zero syllables recognized on such grounds commonly correspond to non-zero syllables in other dialects or languages; compare (18) to (21) with (22) to (25), which are the equivalents in the Asante dialect of the same language: (22) Ooxhwe. 11 2 (23) S'deen na x55hwe? 1 331 1 22 1 analyzable under the surface as 6'dden na 'te'hwe? (24) Ooxdi. 112

NIGER-CONGO, KWA ( 2 5 ) G'deen

na

'¿¿die?

6'dien

na

'¿¿'did?

189

1 331 1 22 11 analyzable under the surface as

Here, although we still have to recognize a zero syllable in (23) we do not have to do so in (25), the two examples being analyzable thus: (23) ... 'tehwe':, (25) ... '¿¿di'e. In both dialects the final high tone syllable is analyzable as a suffix; in Asante this suffix is realized as a vowel after close vowels and after the only oral consonant which occurs finally in stems and as; in the remaining contexts; in Fante it is realized as: in all contexts.4 We can account quite plausibly for some of the instances of key lowering between two high tone syllables by recognizing a zero syllable with low tone between the two syllables with high tone; Akan examples (26) and (27) illustrate: (26)

'This pot is big.'

E'seft yi so'. 1 22 2 1-

( 2 7 ) S'bett

1

2 2

sen yi.

11

1

analyzable under the surface as 'sen yi. 'He will buy this pot.'

O'beti

The initial low tone vowel in e'sen 'pot', which is analyzable as a prefix, does not as a rule occur where anything precedes, but even when it does not occur key lowering generally takes place just as it would if the vowel did occur, as (27) illustrates. It is therefore reasonable to consider that where the prefix is not realized as a vowel it is realized as a zero syllable; compare the Asante high tone suffix which we saw in the last paragraph. (27) can thus be analyzed as O'beti :'sen yi. Since, when the : is postulated, the example D'beti :'sen yi no longer contains any instance of key lowering between two high tone syllables, it is possible to exclude all key lowering from the representation, thus: Dbet5 :sen yi. Now the :sen of this representation corresponds, of course, to the 'sen of the surface representation, and such examples have given rise to widespread confusion between : (zero syllable with low tone) and 1 (key lowering). The confusion betrays a misunderstanding of the possibly valid hypothesis* that every instance of key lowering between two syllables with high tone reflects the loss of a low tone; very often the loss is not of a low tone syllable but merely of the low tone of a syllable, as will be abundantly clear from the foregoing account. The phenomenon of key lowering does not affect the biunique nature of the surface representations, at least where the language has only two basic tone levels and the utterance does not carry any special intonation; a single utterance may include a large * It will be seen that for Asante the tone patterns of the verbs in the examples with odd numbers are not so directly comparable with those of the verbs in the examples with even numbers as they are for Fante; if it had not been for this the case for the zero syllable could have been satisfactorily demonstrated with reference to Asante alone. * See postscript on tone, p. 212.

190

JOHN M. STEWART

number of different pitches, but even if we do not understand that utterance we can normally still transcribe its tone pattern by applying the following procedure: 1. Enter an upward pointing arrow at every point of transition from a lower pitch to a higher pitch, and a downward pointing arrow at every point of transition from a higher pitch to a lower pitch, disregarding for this purpose any fall which occurs towards the end of the last syllable of the utterance. The utterance is then divided by the arrows into PITCH SPANS. 2. Mark the syllable or syllables of a pitch span as having high tone if there is an upward pointing arrow at the beginning of the span or a downward pointing arrow at the end of the span. 3. Enter 1 after the last syllable of the utterance if there is a fall towards the end of that syllable. 4. Mark the syllable or syllables of the final pitch span of an utterance as high if there is no 1 at the end of the span and, in the case of those languages in which the syllable or syllables of the final pitch span invariably have low tone if a syllable of higher pitch precedes, no downward pointing arrow at the beginning of the span. 5. Enter 1 before every high tone syllable which is preceded by a syllable of lower or higher pitch. 6. Delete the arrows. It will be seen that it is not normally necessary to estimate either (i) the position of any pitch span on any low/high scale, or (ii) the size of the interval between any two pitch spans; in the case of a final pitch span which is not preceded by a lower pitch span, however, and particularly in the case of a pitch span which is coextensive with the utterance, the tone is normally more immediately apparent from the height of the pitch than from the presence or absence of the final fall. The historical development of the study of key lowering in two-tone languages has been closely associated with the Akan language; there are three scholars to whom we appear to be chiefly indebted, namely Christaller, Jones, and Welmers, and of these Christaller (1875) and Welmers (1946) are authors of Akan grammars. The first of these scholars is Christaller; he disregards non-distinctive key lowering (i.e. non-distinctive downstep and non-distinctive downglide) and appears to have no occasion to recognize distinctive key lowering in final position (i.e. distinctive downglide), but apart from this his analysis of the surface tone pattern is essentially the same as that presented here. This is somewhat obscured, however, by the very different way in which he economizes on tone marks; his rules for marking the tones are the following (1875:15): 1. Low-toned syllables, preceding the first high tone of a word or sentence, are left unmarked; e.g. aberewd (1113) 'an old woman'. 2. The first high tone in a word or sentence is marked with the acute accent; e.g. obd 'child'; wanydn 'he is awaked'; mawie 'I have finished'; ade no 'that thing'; oyi 'doing' (inf.).

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

191

3. Subsequent middle tones, i.e. high tones abating by one step or successive steps, are likewise marked with the acute accent; e.g. obontd (132) 'a boat'; ne ba anyan (1,3,32) 'his child is awaked' [the initial a of anyan (13) has been attracted by the preceding d and thereby made equally high, whereas the a of anyan has become middle (32)]; mawie ade no ye (144,43,3,2) 'I have finished doing that thing'. 4. Low tone after or between high tones is marked with the grave accent; e.g. dba 'he comes'; dnyctn 'it has become sour'. 5. As many syllables, as follow in equal tone after a syllable marked according to the rules under 2-4, are left unmarked, so that each mark avails for all the following syllables of the same word or succeeding words, until another mark of tone or a mark of punctuation follows; e.g. Abdkobi (1333); akdko ani sd burdfua (133,33,1,1322). It will be seen that we can convert our own tone marking into Christaller's by applying the following rules: 1. If a tone-bearing unit is not marked with an acute accent, mark it with agrave accent, e.g. a}k6kd ani sa bu]rdlfitd -» axk6k5 dnisd btirdfua. 2. If two or more successive units bear the same accent and are not interrupted at any point by ', remove the accent from all of the units other than the first, e.g. dxkdko ani sa bu'rd'fua. 3. Remove any e.g. dkdko ani sd burdfua. 4. Remove any grave accent from the initial unit, e.g. akdko ani sd burdfua. Thus if we take the output of the first of these rules to be full tone marking, we can say that whereas we economize by removing any grave accents, Christaller economizes by applying the last three of these rules. Christaller's tone marking is, of course, like our own, reconvertible into full tone marking. Christaller's disregard of non-distinctive downstep is shown by his representation of the pitches in akdko ani sd burdfua; he gives (133,33,1,1322) where we should have expected (144,44,1,1322). His use of numbers to represent the relative pitch levels is otherwise the same as our own except that he very reasonably represents the pitch of a final high pitch span with a (3) instead of a (2) if a low pitch span precedes, e.g. aberewa (1113). An unfortunate effect of Christaller's notational economies was that by not using a separate mark for the distinctive downstep he obscured its autonomy. According to Tucker (1964:597), the raised exclamation mark was first introduced by Jones (1928) in his treatment of the tones of Sechuana, a Bantu language; it replaced another symbol first introduced by Jones and Plaatje (1916) in an earlier treatment of the tones of the same language. Another source of misunderstanding was Christaller's use of the term 'middle tone' for a 'high tone abating by one step' (i.e. for a high tone with a distinctive downstep at the beginning). Even though Christaller explicitly stated that it was a high tone and indicated it with the same symbol as a simple high tone, later scholars repeatedly confused it with the mid tone of three-tone languages. Probably the most influential

192

JOHN M. STEWART

of these was Westermann, whose main interest was the three-tone Ewe language; he declared bluntly that Akan 'hat die gleichen Tonhöhen wie das Ewe' (1925:19) and accordingly introduced the mid tone symbol in his marking of its tones. Weimers, whose treatment of the tones in his Akan grammar (1946) was essentially the same as Christaller's, was misunderstood in the same way, but he later succeeded in straightening the matter out. Pike (1948:38-9) protested that Welmers's tonemarking was not 'a phonemic writing defined as a one-to-one correlation between sound unit and symbol unit', and suggested writing every high tone with one mark, every mid tone with another, and every low tone with zero mark. At the time, of course, Pike, like Westermann before him, and been completely unaware of the phenomenon of distinctive downstep, and it fell to Weimers (1959) to draw attention to the inadequacy in this respect of Pike's Tone languages (1948), and to the inappropriateness of the term 'mid' for a high tone with initial distinctive downstep. Welmers's terms 'terraced level languages' for languages with distinctive downstep and 'discrete level languages' for comparable languages without it (i.e. for Pike's 'level pitch register languages') have gained wide currency. It seems to be uncommon for distinctive key lowering to occur in languages with more than two basic tone levels, but it does occur in Yoruba; Yoruba is in fact the best-known example in Africa. The following account of the Yoruba tone system is based on a recent one by Bamgbo§e (1966b); high tone is indicated by an acute accent, low tone by a grave accent, and mid tone by the absence of any accent. In vowel-initial disyllabic nouns in Yoruba there is a two-way tonal contrast (mid/ low) on the first syllable and a three-way tonal contrast (high/mid/low) on the second; examples (26) to (31) illustrate the six possible combinations: (28) (29) (30) (31) (32) (33)

g k p 'hoe' pkp 'husband' pk$ 'vehicle' btá 'enemy' qta 'champion' $tá (place name)

The tone indicated on the second syllable, however, although it has its normal realization at the end of that syllable, does not necessarily have that realization at the beginning. The pitch occurring at the beginning of the second syllable is determined by the context; it is level with the pitch occurring at the end of the syllable except as follows: (a) It is lower than the following pitch if that is high and the preceding pitch is low; thus btá 'enemy', for instance, has a rising pitch on the second syllable. (b) It is higher than the following pitch if that is low and the preceding pitch is not; thus pkd 'vehicle', for instance, has a falling pitch on the second syllable. Where one of these vowel-initial disyllabic nouns is preceded in certain grammatical • f>, e, f are normally realized as [a, e, S] respectively.

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

193

circumstances by a word ending with a high tone syllable, the initial vowel of the noun is usually lost, though not always without the preceding vowel first becoming assimilated to it with respect to certain of its non-tonal features, e.g. (34) 6 f4 igba -+ 6f£gb& 'he wants a calabash' (35) 6 f i agbo -» dfdgbo 'he wants a circle' (36) o f t pgbd -* dfpgbd 'he wants a fence' In all three of the above examples the initial syllable of the noun has mid tone; where the initial syllable of the noun has low tone the second syllable retains the pitch contour it has after a low pitch even when the initial vowel is lost and a high pitch precedes, so that the deviation from the pitch contour which normally occurs after a mid or high pitch becomes distinctive; Bamgbo§e indicates this distinctive deviation with a dot written before the syllable, thus: (37) 6 Igbd -*• 6f4.gbd 'he wants a garden egg' (38) 6 f t dgba -> ¿fp.gbd 'he wants an equal' Where the second syllable of the noun has mid tone it has level pitch whether the preceding pitch is mid or low, as has been seen, and moreover, provided the noun is coextensive with the utterance, the pitch appears to be the same whether the preceding pitch is mid or low, as Bamgbo?e notes with surprise in spectrograms made by John Kelly. However, where the second syllable of the noun has mid tone and the initial vowel is lost after a high tone syllable, the second syllable of the noun is distinctly lower in pitch where it is a preceding low tone syllable that has been lost than where it is a preceding mid tone syllable that has been lost, and Bamgbo?e indicates this also with a dot, e.g. (39) 6 f£ dgbo -* ¿fd.gbo 'he wants an infusion' The phonological element which his dot symbolizes he calls 'assimilated low tone'. The setting up of this 'assimilated low tone' appears to involve equating two very different phenomena which happen more or less accidentally to be in complementary distribution, namely (i) REGISTER LOWERING (the replacement of one tone with another, lower, tone), which occurs only at the beginning of a syllable with high or low tone, and (ii) key lowering, which occurs only before a syllable with mid tone. Bamgbo§e himself does not apparently see this objection; his term 'assimilated low tone' suggests that he considers the two phenomena to be adequately united by the fact that they are both clues to the loss of a low tone. If we analyze the register lowering in Bamgbo§e's examples as occurring on the initial consonant of the syllable, we can show it in surface representation by marking the tones of the consonants in addition to those of the vowels (placing the tone mark for typographical reasons after rather than over the consonant symbol or digraph, thus: $gb*d 'equal'; cf. pgbd 'fence' in which the absence of any tone mark after the conso-

194

JOHN M. STEWART

nant digraph indicates that the consonant is analyzed as having mid tone); Bamgbo$e's examples are then as follows: (40) (41) (42) (43) (44) (45)

6 f'i 6 f'i 6 f'i 6 f'i 6 f'i 6f'i

igb'a 6f igb'a 'he wants a calabash' igbd df'igbd 'he wants a garden egg' agbo -* ¿f'dgbo 'he wants a circle' d'gbo -> of d'gbo 'he wants an infusion' pgbd -y df'igbd 'he wants a fence' ¿gfrd ¿f igb'a 'he wants an equal'

It is not of course necessary to specify either the register lowering or the key lowering in the deepest representation; the following three rules cover the incidence, as noted so far, of consonantal high tone, consonantal low tone, and key lowering in the examples quoted: Y.l. If a consonant is followed by a vowel with' and not preceded by a vowel with4, add ' to the consonant, e.g. igbd 'calabash' -> igb'a. Y.2. If a consonant is between two vowels with \ add v to it, e.g. Qgba 'equal' -> 9gb"d. Y.3. Enter 1 at every point of transition from a syllable with 4 to a syllable without ' o r ' , e.g. dgbo 'infusion' d'gbo. This formulation appears, however, to be incomplete with respect to key lowering; it seems that just as the pitch of the second syllable of dgbo 'infusion' is lower where o f i precedes, so the highest pitch to which the second syllable of igbd 'garden egg' rises is lower where 6 f i precedes. This is not evident from Bamgbose's account, but Stevick (1965.96-1) gives the pitch contour of ilu 'city' as [_ '] and that of ni + ilu -* nild 're. a city' as ']. It seems, therefore, that it would be better to revise the third of the above rules as follows: Y.3'. Enter 1 at every point of transition from a syllable with* to a syllable without' e.g. igbd 'garden egg' -> i'gba, dgbo 'infusion' -> d'gbo. The distinction between igbd 'calabash' and igbd 'garden egg' thus appears to be maintained after 6 fe not just in one way but in two, as follows: (46) 6f'i igb'a -> df'igb'd 'he wants a calabash' (47) 6f'i i'gbd -*• ¿f'fgba 'he wants a garden egg' It will be seen that on the above evidence high tone in consonants is never minimally distinctive, and that there is therefore no need to indicate it in biunique transcription. If a biunique transcription were our aim, then, we could abolish the first of our three rules, namely the one which introduces high tone in consonants, and retranscribe (46) and (47) as follows: (48) 6 f i igbd dfigba 'he wants a calabash' (49) 6fi ixgba -* dffgbd 'he wants a garden egg'

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

195

Compare the revised form of (42) and (43), the examples with mid tone on the second syllable of the noun, which are then exactly parallel: (50) 6 f p agbo dfagbo 'he wants a circle' (51) 6 a'gbo -> dfd'gbo 'he wants an infusion' This challenges an assumption about key lowering languages formulated by Stevick (1965:91): In a language which has two tone levels that occur after a low tone (or after pause), the number of possible tone levels after a non-low tone is three, and the extra tonal contrast is realized as the difference between non-low on the same level as the immediately preceding non-low, and non-low that is slightly lower than the immediately preceding non-low. More generally, in a language with n tone levels after a pause or low, the number of levels after a non-low is n +1. In the present writer's view it is inappropriate to treat key lowering as a paradigmatic feature of the following syllable rather than as a syntagmatic element,6 but if one does treat it in this way the number of tone levels after a non-low would appear to be not n + 1 but 2n — 1: the n basic levels plus the lowered counterparts of the basic levels other than the lowest. The situation is, of course, obscured in Yoruba, with which Stevick is specially concerned, by the register lowering at the beginning of high tone syllables with initial consonants. The incidence of non-distinctive key lowering in Yoruba has apparently not been determined, though one would expect it to occur wherever non-low tones were separated by low tones, and Siertsema (1963:60) gives an example which suggests that this is correct at least in part; she says that in oldwd g?l?t$, iwgfagelft? 'rich-man is-idle, slave is-idle', the second g?l?t? is 'a "lowered mid" compared with the first'. It thus seems likely that the description of the Yoruba tone system could be greatly simplified by treating non-distinctive key lowering before distinctive key lowering, as in the above description of the Akan tone system; it seems in fact that in all languages in which both occur the distinctive key lowering is secondary to the non-distinctive key lowering, and that we shall probably never find a language with distinctive key lowering but not non-distinctive key lowering.7 It might be mentioned that a common result of the widespread, and of course perfectly understandable, preoccupation with the distinctive key lowering has been a failure to recognize its relationship to the nondistinctive key lowering, which is commonly dismissed as a completely independent phenomenon of 'downdrift' although nobody has ever shown that any language with distinctive key lowering has any 'downdrift' that cannot be interpreted as nondistinctive key lowering. Since there are some Kwa languages which appear to be entirely free of key lower* Stewart (1965) discusses this at some length. ' By this view non-distinctive key lowering is typologically more fundamental than distinctive key lowering, and Welmers's typological distinction between 'discrete level languages' and 'terraced level languages', based as it is on distinctive key lowering, is unsatisfactory; see Stewart 1963.

196

JOHN M. STEWART

ing, and since in those Kwa languages in which it occurs it is generally analyzable as non-distinctive in deep phonology, it is unlikely that it occurred in the latest common ancestor of the Kwa languages. It would seem that there is a general tendency for Ewe-type three-tone languages without key lowering to develop non-distinctive key lowering, for this to develop into distinctive key lowering, and for the resulting highly complex Yoruba-type system to be simplified by a merger of two of the basic tone levels and thereby to be converted into an Akan-type system; this would explain the fact that although there are many Kwa languages with only two basic tone levels, there is apparently not one of these languages that does not have key lowering. Schachter (1962:60 and 1965:39) has more than once compared the pitch contours of utterances in the Akuapem Twi dialect of Akan (which, as we have seen, is a typical example of a language with two basic tone levels and distinctive key lowering) with those of utterances in English; the following extract is from a handbook on the teaching of English pronunciation to students of Akuapem Twi mother tongue (1962) (the tone marks are not Schachter's but those used for Akan elsewhere in this chapter, except that Schachter's use of a grave accent for low tone is retained): The Twi tone system can produce counterparts of virtually all the English intonation patterns ... For example, the pattern of He came home this morning is analogous to that of a Twi sentence like D''b5'f6 n6 huu nd "The messenger saw him'. (It is, in fact, quite possible to mark the 'tones' of English sentences using the Twi notational system: e.g. Hk 1cdme 'hdme this mdrning.)

Although Schachter himself does not make the point, the remarkable similarity is of more than merely pedagogical interest; it suggests that it might be profitable to re-examine English and other European languages in the light of the distinction between register and key as it emerges from the study of African languages. A form of register lowering similar to that which occurs in Yoruba is reported by Ansre (1963) to occur in Ewe. Ewe, as we have seen, is the only one of the four most important Kwa languages which does not appear to have key lowering. It has three tones on the surface but apparently only two under the surface; in the case of monosyllabic stems at least, the only tonal distinction which has to be represented in the lexicon is that between the presence and the absence of high tone. Now the surface tone pattern of the monosyllabic verb stem varies according to whether the verb is in the imperative or not, as follows: (a) When the verb is not in the imperative, a stem which has high tone in the lexicon has high tone throughout, and a stem which does not have high tone in the lexicon normally has mid tone throughout (though in certain circumstances which will not be considered here it has low tone throughout), e.g. (using the same tone marking system as for Yoruba) gb'd 'refuse', kp'e 'meet', gbe 'pluck'. (b) When the verb is in the imperative, a stem which has high tone in the lexicon has the tone pattern low-high unless the initial consonant is voiceless, in which case it has high tone throughout, and a stem which does not have high tone in the lexicon has low tone throughout, e.g. gtfi 'refuse!', kp'e 'meet!', gb"e 'pluck!'.

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

197

If, in the lexical form of the stem, we mark no tone apart from high tone in vowels, e.g. gbe 'refuse', kpe 'meet', gbe 'pluck', we can derive the above tone patterns by the following rules: E.l. If the consonant is followed by a vowel with', a d d ' to the consonant, e.g. gbe 'refuse' -» gb'e, kpe 'meet' -> kp'e. E.2. If the imperative marker is present, remove' from the consonant and add' to it, e.g. (gbe ->) gb'i 'refuse!' -> gb'e, (kpi ->) kp'e 'meet!' -> kp'e, gbe 'pluck!' -y gb'e. E.3. If the vowel does not have' and is preceded by a consonant with \ add 4 to the vowel, e.g. (gbe -*) gb'e 'pluck!' -> gbe. E.4. If the consonant is a voiceless stop or fricative and is followed by a vowel with ', remove * from the consonant and a d d ' to it, e.g. (kpe -» kp'i -») kp'e 'meet!' -> kp'e. It will be seen from a comparison of Ewe rule E.2 with Yoruba rules Y. 1 and Y.2 that the effect of the imperative marker in Ewe is similar to that of a preceding vowel with low tone in Yoruba: it gives the syllable-initial consonant a lower tone than it would have otherwise. Quite unlike anything that has been reported in Yoruba, however, is the consonantal conditioning of the tones which occurs in one form in Ewe imperative verbs and in another form in Ewe nouns, and which has been extensively described by Welmers and Ansre (1960) and Ansre (1961 and 1963). The situation in imperative verbs has already been described; see especially rule E.4 above. The surface tone patterns of noun stems are essentially the same as those of verb stems except that if the consonant is a voiced stop or fricative the stem invariably has low tone throughout, e.g. n'u 'thing', xo 'house', dz'o 'fire'; we can derive these patterns by inserting the following rules between E.l and E.2: E.la. If the nominal marker is present and the consonant is a voiced stop or fricative, remove' from the consonant and a d d ' to it, e.g. dzo 'fire' -> dz'o. E.lb. If the vowel is preceded by a consonant with \ remove' from the vowel and add x to it, e.g. (dzo -») dz'o 'fire' -» dz'd. It will be seen that these rules account for the neutralization of the usual lexical distinction in tone in nouns with a voiced stop or fricative, since even if we assume dz'd 'fire' to have the lexical form dz6 instead of dzo we obtain the same surface tone pattern, thus: dzd (by E.l) dz'd -* (by E.la) dz'd ->• (by E.lb) dz'd. We thus have one rule (E.la) which makes voiced stops and fricatives low and another (E.4) which makes voiceless stops and fricatives high. Laterals, nasals and semivowels are not affected by either rule. Ladefoged (1963) offers the following physiological explanation: [Both rules] can be correlated with an economy in the physiological adjustments required in the production of speech. The pitch (or, to be more precise, the rate of vibration of the vocal cords) during a syllable largely depends on two factors: the tension of the vocal cords; and the rate of flow of air through the glottis. During a voiced stop or fricative the rate of flow decreases; consequently the pitch goes down, unless the speaker makes the delicate adjustment in the tension of the vocal cords which would compensate for the decrease in flow.

198

JOHN M. STEWART

Conversely, during the first part of a vowel after the release of a voiceless stop or fricative there is a high rate of flow, which results in an increase in pitch as long as there is no counteracting adjustment in the tension of the vocal cords. Although consonantal conditioning of tones does not appear to be widespread in the Kwa languages it is certainly not confined to Ewe; the present writer has found voiceless stops and fricatives to have a minor role in determining the tone patterns in one Akan dialect (see example (15) above) and a major role in determining them in the Cama (Ebrii) language of the Ivory Coast.

VOWEL HARMONY Very many of the Kwa languages, including two of the four most important languages, namely Akan and Igbo, have vowel harmony of what we shall call the CROSS-HEIGHT type, which is apparently found nowhere outside Africa south of the Sahara. Vowel harmony is of this type if, on the basis of the harmony, the vowels of the language in question can be divided into two mutually exclusive sets such that (i) the tongue positions of the vowels of one of the sets are high in relation to the tongue positions of their counterparts in the other set, but (ii) the tongue position of at least one member of the relatively high set is lower than the tongue position of at least one member of the relatively low set. Languages such as Abe which have cross-height vowel harmony in its fullest form have five vowels in each set; the relatively low vowels appear to be always [i, e, a, o, u] and their relatively high counterparts appear to be normally [i, e, 3, o, u]. In these languages the vowels of simple stems are normally all of the same set, and all vowels in prefixes and suffixes normally harmonize with the vowels of the stem, with the result that the vowels of the whole word are normally all of the same set provided the word does not have a compound stem. Neither Akan nor Igbo has quite so full a form of the harmony, though Akan, from which examples (52) to (55) are taken, comes closer to it: (52) (53) (54) (55)

[num] 'drink it' [obenumii] 'he came and drank it' [nflm] 'suck it' [obenumfl] 'he came and sucked it'

The relatively low and relatively high vowels are obviously similar in tongue position to the lax and tense vowels respectively of European languages, and it is presumably because of this that some writers have seen the lax/tense distinction as the articulatory basis of the harmony; Jakobson and Halle (1962:550) even claim that 'the autonomy of the tense-lax distinction is clearly exhibited by those African languages which display vowel harmony based on the opposition of tense and lax'. It certainly seems highly unlikely that a student of African languages who knew nothing of European languages or linguistics would ever have thought of using the terms lax and tense in

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

199

this way, though he might well have used them the other way round; Welmers, in fact, describes the relatively high vowels of the Fante dialect of Akan as 'more relaxed' (1946:15).® Berry (1952:18-19) hears the relatively low and relatively high vowels of Akan and other languages of southern Ghana as having creaky and breathy voice quality respectively, and he accordingly takes the creaky/breathy distinction as the basis of the harmony. This analysis has since been supported by the results of a cine-radiological investigation of the vowels of Igbo carried out by Ladefoged; as Ladefoged (1964:38— 40) points out, 'the most striking difference between the vowels in the two sets is that in each case the body of the tongue is more retracted for the vowels of Set 2 [i.e. the relatively low vowels; J.M.S.]'. The advancing of the root (or body) of the tongue for the relatively high vowels enlarges the throat cavity and thereby produces the breathy voice quality heard by Berry. Stewart (1967) shows that the difference in the position of the root of the tongue accounts not only for the difference in voice quality but also for all the other phonetic differences which have been observed; what is usually looked upon as the most obvious difference, namely that in the height of the highest part of the tongue, is of course due to the advancing of the root pushing the highest part higher. We shall therefore take the difference in the position of the root to be the basic difference, and call the distinction not creaky/breathy but ROOT-UNADVANCED/ROOT-ADVANCED. The validity of taking the difference in the position of the root as the basic difference is confirmed by the fact that those of the ten vowels which appear to be most commonly eliminated by sound changes are (i) [3], in which low position of the highest part of the tongue co-occurs with advanced position of the root, and (ii) [1, u], in which high position of the highest part co-occurs with unadvanced position of the root; we would expect these to be the most awkward of the combinations of points on the low/mid/high scale with points on the root-unadvanced/root-advanced scale as the root naturally tends to be pushed backwards when the highest part is low and pulled forwards when the highest part is high. We would expect the influence of the position of the highest part of the tongue on the position of the root to result occasionally in the replacement of [3] with its rootunadvanced counterpart [a] and of [1, u] with their root-advanced counterparts [i, u]. The replacement of [1, u] with [i, u] has in fact occurred unconditionally inunsuffixed monosyllabic stems in the Bawule dialect of Anyi-Bawule, as Table 1 illustrates; the change neutralizes a contrast which continues to operate in the Anyi dialect, e.g. Anyi [wu] 'give birth to', [wu] 'die'; cf. Bawule [wu] 'give birth to', [wu] 'die'. The replacement of [3] with [a] would appear to have occurred unconditionally in monosyllabic stems in Akan, though in this case it is not possible, so far at least, to produce evidence of the continuing operation of the contrast in cognate stems in related languages ; in Akan there are no monosyllabic stems with [3], and some monosyllabic 8

I am indebted to Keith Brown for drawing my attention to this.

200

JOHN M. STEWART

stems with [a] are exceptional in that they produce root-advancing in prefixes in spite of the fact that the [a] itself is root-unadvanced, e.g. (56) [CS^a] 'cut it' (57) [obeCS^aai] 'he came and cut it' It would appear that in these stems the initial consonant must be root-advanced, although this has not been demonstrated instrumentally; it would appear in any case that these stems must have had the vowel [3] at one time and that the [3] must have been unconditionally replaced with [a]. We would similarly expect the reverse influence, namely that of the position of the root of the tongue on the position of the highest part, to result occasionally in the replacement of [3] with one or both of its mid counterparts [e, o] and the replacement of [1, u] with their mid counterparts [e, 0]. The first of these replacements has evidently occurred in Fante, in which prefixes which have [a] before stems with root-unadvanced vowels have not [3] but [e] before stems with root-advanced vowels, e.g. (58) (59) (60) (61)

[tsiw] 'pick it' [atsiw] 'you have picked it' [dzi] 'eat it' [edzi] 'you have eaten it'

The second of the two replacements would appear to have occurred in the presence of the nasal feature in some dialects of Anyi-Bawule, e.g. Akan [SSInl] 'drum', [num] 'drink', Anyi-Bawule [kle] 'drum', [no] 'drink'; [I, u] are not, however, known to be in contrast with [e, 0] in any related language, and the only evidence for the direction of the change is that [I, u] are the sounds which most commonly occur in cognates in related languages. Quite commonly, however, the awkward vowels are eliminated by an interesting combination of two changes in tongue position; root-advanced low [3] is replaced with one or both of its root-unadvanced mid counterparts [e, 0], and root-unadvanced high [1, u] are replaced with their root-advanced mid counterparts [er o]. There is no escaping the conclusion that the change in basic tongue height and the change in tongue root position occur simultaneously, as in many cases it can be shown that either of the changes on its own would have produced a merger that has not in fact taken place. The changes evidently have an auditory rather than an articulatory basis; as a result of the secondary raising of the height of the highest part of the tongue in the root-advanced vowels, the auditory difference between a root-advanced vowel and the root-unadvanced vowel one step above it on the low/mid/high scale is not great. The replacement of [1, u] with [e, o] would appear to have taken place in a number of languages. The vowels [1, u] have a very important role in seven out of nine VoltaComoe (Greenberg's 'Akan') languages which the present writer has examined, including at least one out of each of the three major subdivisions of the Volta-Comoe

201

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

group, namely Ono or Western, Tano or Central, and Guan or Eastern, and the fact that in general they occur in the same simple stems in all seven languages suggests that they have been inherited direct from the latest common ancestor language. In the remaining two languages, however, namely Betibe, an Ono language spoken in the extreme south-west of the Volta-Comoe area, and Awutu, a Guan language spoken in the extreme south-east of the Volta-Comoe area more than 200 miles away, the vowels [i, u] either have a very unimportant role or do not occur at all; those simple stems which usually have [i, u] in the other Volta-Comoe languages usually have [e ,o] in Betibe and Awutu, as Table 1 illustrates. This suggests that [i, u] have been replaced with [e, o] independently in Betibe and Awutu. The same change would appear to have occurred in the Cama language of the Potou (Greenberg's 1955 'Eastern Ivory Coast Lagoon') group, a group relatively closely related to the Volta-Comoe group; Table 1 illustrates this also. The replacement of [a] with [e] and [o] has evidently occurred in the Abure language of the Ivory Coast, in which prefixes which have [a] before stems with root-unadvanced vowels have not [a] but [e] or [o], according to whether the first vowel of the stem is front or back, before stems with root-advanced vowels; the initial syllable of the name of the language, for instance, is pronounced [o]; root-advanced [3] presumably changed first to root-advanced [ae, o] and then to root-unadvanced [e, a]. In the Akuapem dialect of Akan [3] has evidently been replaced with [e]; Schachter (1962:7) reports that prefixes which have [a] before stems with root-unadvanced vowels have not [3] but [e] before stems with root-advanced vowels irrespectively of whether the first vowel of the stem is front or back; root-advanced [3] presumably changed first to root-advanced [ze] and then to root-unadvanced [e]. TABLE 1

'father' Cama Betibe Anyi-Bawule (Anyi) Anyi-Bawule (Bawule) Akan Awutu Chiripon-Lete-Anum

n-the e-he si si O-SI

se SI

'under'

•on'

a-the

a-tho

'ear' o-ho su

a-si a-in-se a-si

su su e-so su

(a-sü) su

Examples of the sound correspondence Cama (Potou) [e, o] = Betibe (Ono, Volta-Comoe) [e, o] = Anyi dialect (Anyi-Bawule language, Bia, Tano, Volta-Comoe) [1, u] = Bawule dialect [i, u] = Akan (Tano, Volta-Comoe) [I, u] = Awutu (Guan, Volta-Comoe) [e, o] = Chiripon-Lete-Anum (Guan, Volta-Comoe) [i, u]. The languages are arranged approximately in geographical order from west to east. A blank in the table does not indicate that the item in question does not occur but merely that it has not been found to occur. Brackets in the body of the table indicate that the item enclosed is not completely regular with respect to the sound correspondence illustrated.

202

JOHN M. STEWART

The advancing of the tongue root pushes the highest part of the tongue not only higher but also, sometimes at least, farther forward, as Pike (1967:136) has suggested it might: 'It would seem that if one were to move the tongue root forward, for purposes of phonemic contrast, the tongue blade would be likely to go forward at least a little bit at the same time.' He is correct also in his expectation that because of this 'vowels which involve a front tongue root position might occasionally develop palatal allophones' (p. 137), as is illustrated by the fact that in the Asante dialect of Akan, /u/ has the 'allophone' [u] before /o/ although the root-unadvanced counterpart of /u/, namely /u/, does not have a palatal 'allophone' before the root-unadvanced counterpart of /o/, namely /a/, e.g. /etuo/fetuo] 'bottom', but /etuo/ [etiio] 'gun'. Indeed some of the changes resulting from the secondary raising of the highest part of the tongue appear to be due in part also to the secondary advancing of the highest part of the tongue; we saw that in Akan, prefixes which have [a] before stems with root-unadvanced vowels have a front vowel ([e] in the Fante dialect and [E] in the Akuapem dialect) before stems with root-advanced vowels even where the first vowel of the stem is back; compare Abure, in which such prefixes have [E] or [O] before stems with rootadvanced vowels according to whether the first vowel of the stem is front or back, and in which the frontness or backness of the prefix is clearly due to assimilation to what follows. In no Kwa language, however, nor indeed for that matter in any Niger-Congo language, is the palatalization of root-advanced vowels known to have gone so far as in Somali, in which the root-unadvanced vowels are [i, E, a, o, u] and the rootadvanced vowels [i, e, ae, o, ii]; see Tucker's chapter in the present volume. The secondary advancing of the highest part of the tongue has evidently played some part in a consonant change in the Asante dialect of Akan. We have already seen that some Akan monosyllabic stems in which the vowel is [a] produce root-advancing in prefixes in spite of the fact that the [a] itself is root-unadvanced, and that this suggests that the initial consonant of the stem is root-advanced. Now in the Fante and Akuapem dialects root-advanced consonants may be either unpalatalized or palatalized before [a], e.g. [gwa] 'chop up (animal)', [£Swya] 'cut', but in the Asante dialect they are invariably palatalized, e.g. [JX^a] 'chop up (animal)', [2§wya] 'cut'. Root-unadvanced consonants on the other hand may be either unpalatalized or palatalized before [a] in all dialects, e.g. [i)-kwa] 'life', [yam] 'grind'. Root-advanced [gw, hw], the only two unpalatalized root-advanced consonants which occur before [a] in Fante and Akuapem, presumably became palatalized in Asante under pressure from the secondary advancing. We have just seen an Asante example of a change in the place of articulation from velar to palatal in the presence of root-advancing; there would appear at an earlier stage to have been a change from palatal to alveolar in similar circumstances, affecting the Akan language as a whole. In Akan dialects such as Akuapem which are not affected by the Asante change, the sounds [sy, s*5'] generally occur in stems only before [a], and are generally in complementary distribution with the sounds [sy, §wy], which generally occur in stems only before front spread vowels, as examples (62) to (69) illustrate:

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

(62) (63) (64) (65) (66) (67) (68) (69)

203

[§yia] 'meet' [§wyIm] 'snatch' [§yi] 'burn' [§wyi] 'beat' [PE] 'put' [§wye] 'look' [syaw] 'be entangled' [swya] 'be small'

Now [sy, swy] are invariably root-advanced although no other alveolars are ever rootadvanced before [a]; therefore, since all palatals other than [y] are invariably rootadvanced before [a] and no voiceless continuant palatals at all occur before [a], it seems that root-advanced [5y, §wy] or something like them occurred before [a] as well as before front spread vowels at one time, and that all root-advanced voiceless continuant palatals before fa] were later replaced with their alveolar counterparts ([sy, s wy ] respectively in the case of [sy, Swy]) under pressure from the secondary advancing. The root-unadvanced/root-advanced distinction as it appears in the light of the study of the Kwa languages differs in two ways at least from the lax/tense distinction as it is described by Jakobson and Halle (1962). In the first place, whereas lax vowels are all nearer the middle of the vowel triangle than the corresponding tense vowels, such evidence as is available9 suggests that in the Kwa languages root-unadvanced vowels are generally more retracted than the corresponding root-advanced vowels; thus whereas lax back vowels would appear to be relatively advanced, root-unadvanced back vowels would appear to be relatively retracted. In the second place, although 'the heightened subglottal air pressure in the production of tense vowels is indissolubly paired with a longer duration' (p. 551), there does not appear to be any difference in length between root-unadvanced and root-advanced vowels in the Kwa languages; if there was, of course, one would expect to hear quite a considerable difference in the respective lengths of the words [obenumli] and [obenumfl] cited earlier (examples (53) and (55)). It might be profitable to re-examine the lax/tense distinction in European languages in the light of what is now known about the root-unadvanced/root-advanced distinction in African languages; it might be possible, for instance, to treat the lax/tense distinction as a special form of the root-unadvanced/root-advanced distinction. The fact that those of the ten vowels which have the most awkward combinations of points on the low/mid/high scale with points on the root-unadvanced/root-advanced scale, namely [3,1, u], are commonly eliminated by sound changes, and the fact that, as Westermann and Bryan (1952:90) observe, 'in most of the [Kwa] languages there appear to be seven vowel phonemes' (the seven being [i, e, e, a, 0, o, u]), together suggest that the ten-vowel system goes back to the latest common ancestor of the Kwa • See for instance Ladefoged's tracings of the tongue positions of the Igbo vowels (1964:38; reproduced in Stewart, 1967:198).

204

JOHN M. STEWART TABLE 2

10-vowel system i i e e

u u o o

9-vowel system i i e S

u u o 3

7-vowel system i

u

e 8

o 3

3

a

a

a

The vowel systems characteristic of the three presumed successive stages in the neutralization ot the root-unadvanced/root-advanced distinction.

languages. Moreover, it seems to be quite common for Kwa languages to have [i, u] but not [3], but not at all common for them to have [3] but not [1, u], so that there seems to be a general tendency for the apparently original ten-vowel system to be reduced first to a nine-vowel system by the loss of [3] and then to a seven-vowel system by the loss of [1, u]. It is not surprising, of course, that a pair of vowels should show a greater capacity for survival than a single vowel. The vowel systems characteristic of the three presumed successive stages of development are shown in Table 2. It will be observed that in the seven-vowel system any root-advanced vowel has a higher tongue position than any root-unadvanced vowel, so that cross-height vowel harmony is impossible. This does not of course mean that vowel harmony based on the root-unadvanced/root-advanced distinction is impossible; in Yoruba, for instance, an initial mid vowel in a disyllabic noun usually10 harmonizes with the vowel in the second syllable, as examples (70) to (73) illustrate: (70) (71) (72) (73)

[eta] 'three' [eji] 'two' [sks] 'husband' [oko] 'farm'

In many of the seven-vowel languages, however, there appears to be no trace of vowel harmony based on this distinction; the Bawule dialect of Anyi-Bawule is an example, even though, as has been seen, the Anyi dialect of the same language has cross-height harmony. Very commonly the elimination of [3] or of [1, u] interferes with the root-advancing harmony as it results in the co-occurrence of root-unadvanced and root-advanced vowels in words which were previously either root-unadvanced or root-advanced throughout. As has been seen, however, the eliminated vowels are sometimes replaced 10 Interestingly, an important exception is that a root-unadvanced mid vowel can occur before a root-advanced high vowel, e.g. [ebi] 'relations'; cf. [ebi] 'hunger'. As has recently been pointed out by Yoruba scholars, this in itself is sufficient to suggest that Yoruba once had a nine-vowel system with cross-height vowel harmony and that [1, u] were lost by a merger with [i, u]; see Awobuluyi (1967) and Bamgbo$e (1967).

NIGER-CONGO, KWA

205

with mid vowels of the same tongue root position, in which case, of course, there is no interference with the root-advancing harmony; [3], for instance, would appear to have been replaced with [e] in the Fante dialect of Akan and [I, u] with [e, 0] in most dialects of Anyi-Bawule. It follows that in theory at least it would be possible to have full scale root-advancing harmony even where there was no cross-height harmony at all; affixes, for instance, could have vowel alternations such as [a] ~ [e], [e] ~ [e], [0] ~ [o], [e] ~ [i], [0] ~ [u] in place of the alternations [a] ~ [3], [e] ~ [e], [0] ~ [o], [1] ~ [i], [u] ~ [u] characteristic of the languages with full scale cross-height harmony. The replacement of a vowel with one of different tongue root position does not by itself interfere with the root-advancing harmony if that vowel controls the harmony of the whole word. In the Akuapem dialect of Akan the root-advanced mid vowels [e, o] contrast with the root-unadvanced high vowels [1, u] in monosyllabic stems, e.g. [slq] 'pass', [seq] 'carve'. In the Asante dialect of Akan this contrast is as a rule neutralized, [1, u] occurring not only where Akuapem has [1, u] but also where it has [e, o], e.g. [siji] 'pass', [slji] 'carve'. It therefore appears that in Asante there has taken place the reverse of the common change from [1, u] to [e, o]. Now the vowels of affixes harmonize with the new stem vowel, as examples (74) and (75) illustrate: (74) Akuapem [obeslq] Asante [obeslji] 'he will pass' (75) Akuapem [obeseq] Asante [obeslji] 'he will carve' The result is that words with root-advanced vowels throughout are replaced with words with root-unadvanced vowels throughout, and that the root-advancing harmony survives intact. ANCESTRAL INTERRELATIONSHIPS

The title of the present chapter reflects Greenberg's treatment of the Kwa languages as a subgroup of his Niger-Congo language family (1955, 1963a). Greenberg's subgrouping is, however, only tentative; just how tentative it is in the case of the Kwa languages he makes clear in an account of the way he arrived at it (1963b): The [Kwa] problem in its modern form goes back to the fundamental work of Westermann (1927) ... [in which] Kwa takes its place as one of the fundamental subdivisions of Western Sudanic alongside such groupings as West Atlantic, Mande, Gur, Togo-Remnant, and BenueCross. Its membership is given as consisting of the following subfamilies: 1. Ewe-Tschi, 2. Lagoon Languages, 3. Kru, 4. Yoruba, S. Nupe, 6. Ibo, 7. Edo; Ij