Resumen

HAMANN, Silke  y  KULA, Nancy C.. Phonetic and phonological considerations on the moraic status of pre-NC vowels in Bemba. SPiL plus (Online) [online]. 2022, vol.62, pp.57-74. ISSN 2224-3380.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5774/62-0-899.

The pre-NC vowel in many Bantu languages is generally understood to be long. In Bemba, where there is also a vowel length contrast, this raises the question whether the pre-NC vowel is phonetically as long as lexical long vowels and how phonologised this length might be. In contrast to lexically long vowels, pre-NC vowel length is attributed to vowel lengthening resulting from the restructuring of a nasal to create a prenasalised stop. This is thus relevant to whether such stops are treated as unit segments or not. The present paper focuses on the pre-NC vowel and presents an evaluation of whether the pre-NC vowel is monomoraic or bimoraic by considering both phonetic and phonological evidence. Segmental and most tonal evidence leans towards a monomoraic treatment of the pre-NC vowel. One set of tonal data, however, shows variation in moraicity, presenting a mixed picture that we conclude emanates from the intermediate phonetic duration of the pre-NC vowel.¹

Palabras clave : NC clusters; prenasalised stops; vowel lengthening; mora; homorganic clusters; Bantu languages.

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