Tonal Exponence in Nuer Nominal inflectionSiri Gjersøe – siri moen.gjersoe@uni-leipzig.de

University of Leipzig

Claims

• Nuer is a tone language with H, L and HL tone

• Tone is predominantly grammatical

→H tone marks plural and L marks oblique case

• Nuer has OCP L

• Analysis: Stratal optimization of tones in Extended Stratal

Containment (ESC) (Trommer 2011)

→Epenthetic association lines cannot be alteredacross strata

Nuer language:

• Western Nilotic• Ca. 1 million speakers• Dialect: Eastern Jikany (Gajaak/Gajiok)

Data

• Informants: 2 male speakers (Gajiok and Gajaak)• 52 nouns in nominative and oblique case, sg + pl

(1) h5n1sg

lar-5say.ipfv-1sg

luoñ

lion\plkakEElonce

‘I say ‘lions’ once.’

(2) h5n1sg

c-5pfv-1sg

luoñ

lion\plnEEnsee.inf

‘I saw the lions.’

(3) teehave.3.sg

munsoil\nom.sg

‘he/she has soil’

(4) teehave.3.sg

muOOOnsoil\loc.sg

‘he/she is in the soil’

(5) r5cfish

ji555rriver\gen.sg

/ji55r/

‘fish of river’

< Classes proposed by Frank (1999), Baermann (2012)

(6) Declination classes

cl nom sg obl sg nom pl obl pl gloss

I

é55k é55k-5 é55k-nı é55k-nı¨

‘jug’ke¨eer ke

¨er-5 ke

¨r-ı

¨ke¨er-ı

¨‘line’

dEp dEp-k5 dEp-nı¨

dEp-nı¨

‘butter’

II wOOk wu-k5 wOOOk wOOk-nı¨

‘upp.arm’tet tet-k5 tet tet-nı

¨‘hand’

IIIkeeer ker ker ker-ı

¨‘calabash pl’

do¨oor dooor dUUr dUr-ı

¨‘tribe’

IVdEEl dæææl de

¨t de

¨et ‘sheep’

éOk éOak éiUUk éiUUUk ‘back’

V ba¨ar b5r-5 b5r b55r ‘Anuak’

Nominative Plural

nom sg nom pl gloss

l5k L → H la¨aak ‘dream’

wOOk H → H wOOOk ‘upper arm’keeer HL → H ker ‘calabash plant’

ke¨eer L → L-H ke

¨er-ı

¨‘line’

(7) a. H: [plural]b. ni

¨: [plural, class I]

(8)de

¨tIV

‘sheep/goats’

H L H== (9)

ke¨er-i

¨I

‘lines’

L H(10)

k erIII‘calabash plants’

H L H==

Oblique singular

• L tone marks oblique case→Class I-II: L associates to a toneless suffix→Class III-IV: L tone overrides the stem tone

(11)dooorIII‘tribe’

H L= (12)

d E p -k 5I‘butter’

H L L

Oblique Plural

→Class II-III: L associates to a toneless suffix→Class I, and IV-V: L does not associate

(13)de

¨t

H L H L== (14)

k e¨er-i

¨

L HL(15)

k e r -i¨

H L H L==

Theoretical Assumptions

• ESC based on the Colored Containment Version of OT (Oostendorp 2006; Prince &Smolensky 1993)

→ Stratal evaluation (Kiparsky 2000, Bermudez-Otero 2011)

Proposal

• Strata I: Evaluation of nom sg and pl – Strata II: Evaluation of obl sg and pl

• No ‘Rebirthing’ (Trommer 2011): Epenthetic ass l remain epenthetic across strata

• Lexical Tone: T; pl: H; obl: L

OCP L

Nominative Tone Oblique Tone Gloss

ne¨en L ne

¨n-k5 L-H ‘mirror’

ke¨eer L ke

¨er-5 L-H ‘line’

cOa¨aa L cOOO-k5 L-H bone’

(16)k e

¨e r -5

‘line’

L L H (17) a. mun ‘soil’b. wıii muOOOn

‘on the soil’c. guEEEy muOOOn

‘stone of the soil’

Analysis

(18) Constraints in Containment Trommer 2011 Proposed constraints:

?R σ2? σ T T] σ σ? T|| σσ?

LL

Assign ? to every σ Assign ? to every σ Assign ? to every σ Assign ? to every Pw-final tone Assign ? for every Assign ? towhich is associated to a L which is associated to tones which does not dominate which is not dominated colorless association adjacent L

and a right-adjacent H in P of more than one color in P a tone in I by a σ in I (Trommer 2011) line which is deleted Level-toned σ in I

(19) Stratum I: Plural form in nominative: class I ‘lines’

Input= (a) σσ?

LL

?R σ? T|| σ Tσ2? T] σ Max| Dep|

a.k e

¨er-i

¨

L H

?! ?

b.k e

¨er-i

¨

L H

?! ? ? ?

c.k e

¨er-i

¨

L H= ?! ? ?

d. +k e

¨er-i

¨

L H

?

(20) Stratum II: Plural form in oblique: class III ‘calabash plants’

Input= (a) σσ?

LL

?R σ? T|| σ Tσ2? T] σ Max| Dep|

a.k e r -i

¨

H LH L== ?! ?

b.k e r -i

¨

H L H L== ?! ? ?

c.k e r -i

¨

H L H L=== ?! ? ? ?

d. +k e r -i

¨

H L H L== ?

(21) Stratum II: Plural form in oblique: class I ‘lines’

Input=(a) σσ?

LL

?R σ? T|| σ Tσ2? T] σ Max| Dep|

a. +k e

¨er-i

¨

L HL

?

b.k e

¨er-i

¨

L HL

?! ?

c.k e

¨er-i

¨

L HL= ?! ? ?

(22) Stratum II: Singular form in Oblique: class III (monosyllabic) ‘tribe’

Input=(a) σσ?

LL

?R σ? T|| σ Tσ2? T] σ Max| Dep|

a.

dooor

H L

?!

b.

dooor

H L

?! ?

c. +

dooor

H L= ? ?

Summary

• Nuer is a tone language (!) and tone is highly grammatical• L oblique tones can override the stem tone but not an epenthetic plural

H tone (don’t undo insertion)

Selected References *Baerman, M. (2012). Paradigmatic chaos in Nuer. Language 88(3), 467-494. *Frank, J. W. (1999).

Nuer noun morphology. Master’s thesis, University of New York at Buffalo. *Trommer, J. (2011) Phonological Aspects of Western

Nilotic Mutation Morphology, Habil. Thesis.

Thank you to the speakers for their time, and to Bob Ladd, Bert Remijsen, Jochen Trom-mer, and Eva Zimmermann for feedback.