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In:The Form of Structure, the Structure of Form: Essays in honor of Jean Lowenstamm
Edited by Sabrina Bendjaballah, Noam Faust, Mohamed Lahrouchi and Nicola Lampitelli
[Language Faculty and Beyond 12] 2014
► pp. 13–36

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Lowering harmony in Bantu

An RcvP account

 | University of Connecticut
Published online: 17 December 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.12.03hul
In this article I propose an analysis of lowering harmony in the Bantu languages Kikuyu and Kimatumbi. This analysis is carried out within a model called Radical cv Phonology (RcvP). Following Dependency Phonology, RcvP uses unary elements as primitives and dependency relations between elements when they occur combined in one phoneme. Following proposals in Government Phonology, my account for harmony postulates that harmony involves a licensing relation. A novel aspect of my approach is that harmonic alternations are represented in terms of elements that are variably present. A variable element is phonetically interpreted only if it is licensed by a non-variable element in an adjacent syllable.
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

van der Hulst, Harry
2017. Deconstructing tongue root harmony systems. In Sonic Signatures [Language Faculty and Beyond, 14], ► pp. 74 ff. DOI logo
van der Hulst, Harry
2018. Asymmetries in Vowel Harmony, DOI logo

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