ATR harmony in English borrowed words in Ng’aturukana: An optimality theory account
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
Abstract
Ng’aturukana, a language spoken by the Turkana people of North Western Kenya, gets into contact with English through trade, education, among other fields. As a consequence, the borrowed words have to be assimilated, especially through vowel harmony to befit Ng’aturukana. Vowel harmony which was observed to be bidirectional (both progressive and regressive) under the rule-based Generative Phonology was problematic in rule ordering. Optimality Theory was the better option to account for the vowel harmony phenomenon noted in this paper. From the analyses, this paper reports three outcomes of Vowel Harmony in the borrowed words; firstly, regressive sharing of ATR feature was observed in situations where the root or suffixes ATR feature was stronger than the preceding root vowels. Secondly, both progressive and regressive ATR harmony simultaneously occur in situations where the root ATR was stronger than the preceding and following roots vowels. Lastly, some vowels manifested opacity where regressive ATR was blocked from spreading to the preceding vowels.
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.displayStats.downloads##
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
References
Barasa, D. (2017). Ateso grammar: A descriptive account of an Eastern Nilotic language. Published Ph.D Thesis. University of Cape Town. https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/25182.
Barasa, D. (2018). ATR harmony in Ateso. Stellenbosch papers in Linguistics. 54, 61-69.
Beckman, J. N. (2013). Positional faithfulness: An Optimality Theoretic treatment of phonological asymmetries. London: Routledge.
Dimmendaal, G. J. (1983). The Turkana language. Forris: Dordrecht.
Dimmendaal, G. J. (2000). Number marking and noun-categorization in Nilo-Saharan languages. Anthropological Linguistics. 42(2), 214-261. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30028548.
Dimmendaal, G. J. (2018). A typological perspective on the morphology of Nilo-Saharan language. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323446821_A_typological_perspective_on_ the_morphology_of_Nilo-Saharan_languages.
Grimm, S. (2012). Number and individuation. Unpublished Ph.D thesis. Stamford University. http://www.sas.rochester.edu/lin/sgrimm/publication/.
Haspelmath, M. (2009). Lexical borrowing: concepts and issues. Loanwords in languages. Comparative handbook. Pp. 35-54. DOI10.1515/9783110218442.
Hyde, B. (2012). Alignment constraints. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 30(3), 789-836. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-012-9167-3.
Kager, R. (1999). Optimality Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Krämer, M. (2012). Underlying representations. New York: Cambridge University.
McCarthy, J. (2004). Optimality Theory in phonology: A reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Mwaniki, I. N. (2013). The underlying reality of phonological simplification of loanwords by speakers of Agikuyu. International Journal of Education and Research. 1 (8), 1-18. www.ijern.com.
Nandelenga. H. S. (2013). Constraint interaction in the syllabic phonology of Lubukusu: An Optimality Theory account. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. Kenyatta University.
Noske, M. (2000). [ATR] harmony in Turkana. A case of suffix>>faith root. Natural language and linguistic theory. 18, 777- 812. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/66.
Schroeder, H. (2008). Word order in Toposa: An aspect of multiple feature-checking. Arlington: SIL International.
Tioko, C. N., Nandelenga, H. S & Itumo, J. M. (2020). Vowel harmony in English loanwords in Ng’aturukana. Proceedings of the International Mother Language Day 2020 Conference. Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kakamega, Kenya.
Tioko, C. N., Nandelenga, H. S & Itumo, J. M. (2020). Grammatical gender marking of English loanwords in Ng’aturukana. International Journal for Research and Innovation in Social Science ̶ 4 (9), 465-471.
Tioko, N. (2021). A morphophonological adaptation of English loanwords in Ng’aturukana. Unpublished MA Thesis, Kenyatta University. Nairobi.
Walker, R. (2011). Vowel patterns in language. New York: Cambridge University Press.