Phuthi phonology

Sustained field work in 1994/1995 among speech communities in Sigxodo and Mpapa (southern Lesotho) resulted in the discovery of a surprisingly wide range of phonological and morphological phenomena, aspects of which are unique to Phuthi (within all of the southern Bantu region).

The following phoneme inventory is found in Phuthi:

Vowels

Contrary to other Nguni languages, Phuthi has a 9-vowel system with four different heights. It has acquired a new series of "superclose" vowels /i/ and /u/ from Sotho, while the inherited Nguni high vowels are reflected as /ɪ/ and /ʊ/.

	Front	Central		Back
		unr.	rnd.
Close	i			u
Near-close	ɪ			ʊ
Close-mid	e	ɘ	ɵ	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ɜ	ɞ	ɔ
Open	æ	a	ɶ	ɒ

Vowel harmony

Two vowel harmony patterns propagate in opposite directions: perseverative superclose vowel height harmony (left-to-right); and anticipatory ATR/RTR tenseness harmony, invoking mid vowels [e o ɛ ɔ] (right-to-left). In the first, 'supercloseness'—also a Sesotho vocalic property—in root-final position triggers suffix vowels of the same supercloseness value. In the second, all mid vowels uninterruptedly adjacent to the right edge of a phonological word are lax ([RTR]); all other mid vowels are tense ([ATR]).

Vowel imbrication

Vowel imbrication is the vowel harmony-like morphophonological phenomenon found in many Bantu languages. Vowel imbrication in two-syllable verb roots is effectively fully productive in Phuthi, that is, -CaC-a verb stems become -CeC-e in the perfective aspect (or 'perfect tense'), e.g. -tfwatsha 'carry on the head' → -tfwetshe 'be carrying on the head', -mabha 'catch, hold' → -mebhe 'be holding'. (Cf. examples 9, 11, below).

Morphological use of vowel height

The 'supercloseness' property also active in the first vowel harmony type (above) is active in at least one paradigm of the Phuthi morphological system (the axiomatic negative polarity of the copula: "There is no..."). A morphological use for a vocalic property (here: [supercloseness]) does not appear to be recorded elsewhere for a Bantu language.

Consonants

Phuthi phonemes

		Labial	Dental/Alveolar		Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal
			central	lateral
Click	plain		ǀ	ǁ	ǃ
	aspirated		ǀʰ	ǁʰ	ǃʰ
	breathy		ᶢǀʱ	ᶢǁʱ	ᶢǃʱ
	nasalised		ᵑǀ	ᵑǁ	ᵑǃ
Nasal	plain	m	n		ɲ	ŋ
	breathy	m̤	n̤		ɲ̤
Stop	voiceless	p	t			k
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ			kʰ
	breathy	b̤	d̤			ɡ̤
	implosive	ɓ
Affricate	voiceless		ts	tl	tʃ
	aspirated		tsʰ	tlʰ	tʃʰ	kxʰ
	breathy		d̤z̤	d̤l̤	d̤ʒ̤
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ɬ	ʃ	x	h
	breathy	v̤	z̤		ʒ	ɣ̤	ɦ̤
Approximant	plain	w	r	l	j
	breathy	w̤	r̤	l̤	j̤

1. The plain voiceless stops and affricates are realised phonetically as ejectives [pʼ], [tʼ], [kʼ], [tsʼ], [tʃʼ] [tlʼ].
2. The dental affricates /ts/ and /dz/ have allophones with a labialised secondary articulation [tf] and [dv] when followed by a rounded vowel (except superclose /u/).
3. The consonants marked with a diaeresis are depressor consonants, which have an effect on the tone of their syllable.
4. The phonemes /p/, /tʰ/, /d̤/, /ʒ/, /kx/, /tl/, /tlʰ/ and /l/ occur mostly in loanwords from Sotho, not in inherited vocabulary. /k/ occurs natively only in affixes; its occurrence in roots is also loaned from Sotho.

Click consonants

Phuthi has a system of click consonants, typical for nearly all Nguni, at the three common articulation points: dental, alveolar, and lateral. But the range of manners and phonations, or click 'accompaniments', is relatively impoverished, with only four: tenuis c q x, aspirated ch qh xh, voiced gc gq gx, and nasal nc nq nx. Swati, by comparison, has clicks at only one place (dental [ǀ]), but five (or even six) manners and phonations. The reduced variety of clicks in Phuthi may be partly related to the nearly total absence of prenasalised consonants in Phuthi, assuming (for example) *nkx, *ngx would be analyzed as equivalent to prenasalized *ng, *nk.

Tone

Either of two surface tone distinctions, H (high) or L (low), is possible for each syllable (and in certain limited cases rising (LH) and falling (HL) tones are possible too). There is a subtype within the L tone category: when a syllable is 'depressed' (that is, from a depressor consonant in the onset position, or a morphologically or lexically imposed depression feature in the syllabic nucleus), the syllable is produced phonetically at a lower pitch. This system of tone depression is phonologically regular (that is, the product of a small number of phonological parameters), but is highly complex, interacting extensively with the morphology (and to some extent with the lexicon). Phonologically, Phuthi is argued to display a three-way High/Low/toneless distinction. Like all Nguni languages, Phuthi also displays phonetically rising and falling syllables, always related to the position of a depressed syllabic nucleus.

Depressor consonants

In line with a number of southern Bantu languages (including all Nguni, Venda, Tsonga and Shona), and also all Khoisan languages of southwestern Africa), a significant subset of the consonants in Phuthi are 'depressors' (or 'breathy voiced'). These consonants are so named because they have a consistent depression effect on the pitch of an immediately successive H (high) tone. In addition, these consonants produce complex non-local phonological tone-depression effects. Swati and Phuthi have similar properties in this respect, except that the parameters of the Phuthi depression effects are significantly more complex than those documented thus far for Swati.

Tone/voice interaction

Significantly complex tone/voice interactions have been identified in Phuthi. This phenomenon results in what is analysed at one level as massive and sustained violations of locality requirements on a H tone domain arising from a single H tone source, e.g. surface configurations of the type HLH (in fact H L* H) are possible where all H syllables emanate from a single underlying H source, given at least one L syllable being depressed. Such tone/voice configurations lead to grave problems for any theoretical phonology that seeks to be maximally constrained in its architecture and operations.

The last two phenomena are non-tonal suprasegmental properties which each take on an additional morphological function in Phuthi:

Morphological use of breathy voice/depression

The vocalic property breathy voice/depression is separated from the set of consonants that typically induce it, and is used grammatically in the morphological copulative – similar to the Swati copula – and elsewhere in the grammar too (e.g. in associative prefixes formed from 'weak' class noun prefixes 1,3,4,6,9).

External links

• Phuthi language