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Volume 42 Number 3
  • ISSN 0176-4225
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Abstract

Abstract

In this paper, I provide a first systematic analysis of grammatical tone (GT) in the verb phrase of northwestern (NW) Bantu languages. Based on a sample of twelve languages, I show that GT on preverbal subject agreement, tense, aspect, mood, and polarity markers, on the verb stem, and tonal phrase-medial/phrase-final verb distinctions are inherited features. In contrast, GT on elements immediately following the verb is an innovation in some genealogical subgroups of NW Bantu. In Proto-NW-Bantu, GT generally co-occurred with segmental morphemes. This “co-exponence” type is retained in the Proto-B clade of NW Bantu, while languages of Proto-A innovated more exponence types, namely tone-only and segment-only exponents, synchronically exhibiting all three exponence types in individual languages.

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2026-03-11

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Towards reconstructing grammatical tone in the northwestern Bantu verb phrase
Diachronica 42, 324 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.24020.gri
/content/journals/10.1075/dia.24020.gri
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Bantu languages; grammatical tone; morphological complexity; tense-aspect-mood-polarity systems; tone; verb phrase

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