Search

This paper brings novel data to bear on whether nominal concord relationships are formed in the narrow syntax or post-syntactically. In Guébie, a Kru language spoken in Côte d’Ivoire, nominal concord marking on non-human pronouns and adjectives is determined not by syntactic or semantic features of the concord-triggering noun, but by the phonological form of the noun. Specifically, concord marking on pronouns and adjectives surfaces as a vowel with the same backness features as the vowels of the head noun. Assuming that syntax is phonology-free (Pullum & Zwicky 1986, 1988), the fact that we see phonological features conditioning nominal concord in Guébie means that nominal concord must take place in the post-syntax. I expand on post-syntactic models of nominal concord in Distributed Morphology (Kramer 2010, Norris 2014, Baier 2015) showing that when combined with a constraint-based phonology, such an approach can account for both phonologically and syntactico-semantically determined concord systems. Additionally, the proposed analysis includes a formal account of ellipsis via constraints during the phonological component.

Author(s): Sande, Hannah | Abstract: Most current models of grammar assume that syntax has no sensitivity to phonological information (Pullum and Zwicky, 1986, 1988). Phonologically determined agreement, also called alliterative concord, challenges the assumption that syntax is phonology-free, because it appears that phonological form determines morphosyntactic agreement. Here I present a pattern of phonologically determined agreement from Gu´ebie, an endangered Kru language spoken in Cˆote d’Ivoire, assessing whether phonologically determined agreement is, in fact, phonologically determined. I show that with a combination of Distributed Morphology operations (Halle and Marantz, 1994) plus category-specific phonological grammars (Smith, 2011) via Cophonology Theory (Orgun, 1996; Anttila, 2002; Inkelas and Zoll, 2005), we need not modify our model of syntax as phonology-free. In addition to accounting for phonologically determined agreement in Gu´ebie and across languages, the proposed analysis includes a formal account of ellipsis via constraints at PF.

Nearly all of the natives tribes have their own language, which is only partially, or not at all, intelligible to the members of the neighbouring tribe. The languages of the Liberian natives may currently be classified within two groups: the Mande and the Kru languages. The Bassa language is indeed very closely related to the Kru language. Strangely enough, and especially for the numbers 1-10, a close relatedness may be observed between the languages of the Kosso, the Vey and the Pessy. Closer down towards the coast, the natives are frequently in touch with the English-speaking Liberians. Some will have been in their service or in the service of Europeans; others have learned to speak English fairly well in the mission schools. The languages of the natives are very well developed, and this is most readily observed at the numerous palavers where the speakers display a quite admirable eloquence. Keywords:Bassa language; English-speaking Liberians; Kru language; Liberian natives; Mande language; Negro languages

Liberia was settled during the nineteenth century by freed blacks, mainly from America, whose power was broken by a coup in 1980. Sharing languages and cultures with their neighbours in today's western Ivory Coast, the peoples of the region helped to shape the Liberian state. This chapter outlines the making of a polity, Sasstown, in Grand Kru County, southeastern Liberia, a region with common linguistic and cultural affinities, and common coastal histories, extending eastwards into Cote d'Ivoire, conventionally to the Bandama River. A couple of linguistic islands, Dey and Belle, still further west, presumably attest to a former extension of Kru language speakers confronted earlier by the West Atlantic/Mel and Mande speakers who developed communities around them. Transport had become a massive problem of the southeast, hampering attempts to develop local cash crops. Keywords: America; Kru language; nineteenth century; Sasstown; southeastern Liberia

Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on Syntax and Semantics in Africa (1997)

Klao, a Kru language spoken in Liberia, has a nine-vowel system. Like most other Kru languages, it displays harmony sensitive to pharyngeal constriction (tongue-root retraction). What gives the Klao vowel-harmony system special interest is the fact that a great deal of variation occurs, suggesting that vowel harmony is in some way optional. This provides a counter-example to the claim (made in Clements [1977l) that root-controlled vowel harmony is always obligatory. Given this optionality, the question arises as to which model best captures the facts of Klao vowel harmony. 'l,w frameworks are considered: one, along the lines of Anderson [1930], treats vowel harmony as one more assimilation rule, and the other, following the model found in Clements [1981] handles vowel harmony autosegmentally.

In a 1980 article entitled "The tone puzzle of Wobe," Thomas Bearth and Christa Link argue that only by positing phonemic contour tones can one account satisfactorily for the tone facts of Wobe, a western Kru language spoken in the Ivory Coast. In their analysis, they posit the features [Rise], [Fall], and [Concave] in addition to [High], [Low], and [Extreme]. In fact their analysis abandons the assertion that surface glides can always be "de-composed" into sequences of underlying level tones, it represents an enrichment of phonological theory. The present account calls into question that enrichment, arguing not only that Bearth and Link's analysis obscures more insights than it captures but also that an analysis that uses only level tones at the phonemic level succeeds where Bearth and Link's account fails.