The Tonal System of Igbo (Publications in African Languages and Linguistics)

The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Overview 2. An Introduction to Igbo 2.1. Syntax 2.2. Morphology 2.3. Phonology Notes to Chapter 1 Chapter 2: THE NATURE OF THE TONAL REPRESENTATION 1. The Separation of the Tonal and non-Tonal Features 2. Underspecification in Underlying Representation 2.1. The Underlying Representation 2.2. Default Tone Assignment 2.3. Assignment of Tone by Tonal Affixes 2.4. A Comparison with Previous Analyses 2.5. Potential Problems 3. The Phonological Representation of Downstep 3.1. The Distribution of Downstep 3.2. The Rule of H Deletion 3.3. Downstep and Downdrift 3.4. A Comparison with Other analyses 4. Conclusion 5. Rule Summary Notes to Chapter 2 Chapter 3: THE ORGANIZATION OF THE LEXICAL PHONOLOGY 1. Introduction 2. Cyclicity 3. The Word Level 4. The Root and Stem Levels 4.1. The Argument from Morphological Ordering 4.2. The Argument from ATR Harmony 4.3. Palatalization 5. The Organization of the Lexical Phonology 6. Strict Cyclicity 6.1. Introduction 6.2. Strict Cyclicity in Reduplicated Nouns 7. Rule Ordering 7.1. Ordering Relationships That Follow from the Level Ordering 7.2. Ordering Relationships That Follow from the Cyclical Application of Rules 7.3. Ordering That Follows from a “Feeding” Relationship Between Rules 7.4. Ordering by the Elsewhere Condition 7.5. Positive Advantages of Free Ordering Within the Level 8. Conclusion 9. Rule Summary Notes to Chapter 3 Chapter 4: THE PHRASAL PHONOLOGY 1. Introduction 2. Two Phrasal Levels 2.1. H Deletion 2.2. Vowel Assimilation 2.3. Phrase Level I and Phrase Level II 2.4. Falling Contour Simplification 2.5. Middle H Deletion 3. he Role of Syntactic Structure in the Postlexical Phonology 3.1. Syntactic Structure in Phonological Rules 3.2. The Branching Condition 4. The Role of Prosodic Structure in the Phrasal Phonology 4.1. Intonational Phrasing 4.2. The Lack of Evidence for Other Levels of Prosodic Structure 5. Coalescence and Syllable Shortening 5.1. Coalescence 5.2. Feature Sharing and Long Syllable Shortening 6. On Conditions of the Form “X is Unspecified for [F]” 7. Conclusion 8. Rule Summary Notes to Chapter 4 Chapter 5: VERBS AND VERBAL CONSTRUCTIONS 1. Introduction 2. The Inflectional Morphology of the Verb 2.1. The Inflectional Affixes 2.2. The Assignment of Inflectional Features 3. The Tonal Melody of the Verb 4. The [+ASSERTIVE] INFL Particle 5. The Tonal Alternation in the NP That Follows the Verb 6. The Subject Prefixes 7. The Relative Clause Forms 8. The “Question” Forms 9. The Sequential Forms 10. Auxiliary Verbs 11. The Structure of INFL 12. Conclusion Notes to Chapter 5 Chapter 6: THE LEXICAL PHONOLOGY OF NOUNS 1. Morphology 2. The Tonology of Nouns with Monosyllabic Roots 3. Polysyllabic Nouns 3.1. Nouns Formed by the Lexicalization of Phrases 3.2. Nouns Formed from Compound Verb Stems 3.3. Nouns Formed by Reduplication 3.4. Nouns Formed with the Nominalizing Suffix -lV or -rV 3.5. Nouns Formed by Compounding 4. Conclusion Notes to Chapter 6 Chapter 7: THE ASSOCIATIVE CONSTRUCTION 1. Introduction 2. The Syntactic Status of the Associative Particle 3. The Phonological Effects of the Associative Particle 3.1. The Associative Forms of Nouns with Monosyllabic Stems 3.2. Associative Marking in Polysyllabic Nouns 3.3. Associative Marking in Nouns that Begin with Geminate Nasals 3.4. Agentives and Personal Name Possessives 3.5. Cardinal Numerals 3.6. Monosyllabic Possessive Pronouns 4. Conclusion Notes to Chapter 7 Chapter 8: CONCLUSION Notes to Chapter 8 Appendix I: Maps Appendix II: Summary of Principles Appendix III: Summary of Rules REFERENCES