| ROA: | 1128 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Iambic Templates in Hausa Morphology |
| Authors: | Bartek Kurzyca |
| Comment: | Article published originally in 'Studies of the Department of African Languages and Cultures', No 43, 2009 |
| Length: | 48 |
| Abstract: | The following article focuses on tracing the role of iambic foot in Hausa; a tonal language belonging to the Chadic group, native to around 30 million people in northern Nigeria and southern Niger, and used by some further 30 million speakers in West Africa and as far east as Sudan. Providing synchronic and diachronic analysis of a set of nominal and verbal categories in the language, I argue that, while metrical structure does not overtly interact with tone, iambicity significantly determines Hausa morphology, serving as one of the two main prosodic subsystems in the language. While the study is cast within the formal apparatus of Optimality Theory, I deviate from the standard model in directly addressing the prosodic costraints on size. |
| Type: | Paper/tech report |
| Area/Keywords: | Phonology,Morphology,Historical Linguistics |
| Article: | Version 1 |