LOCATIVES IN BANGANGTE-BAMILEKE

In Bangangte-Bamileke (one of the Bamileke dialects), one generally finds a set of prepositions and locative specifications preceding a nominal locative complement. However, in a restricted set of common nouns like "head" and "hand," these are not used, although some special tona...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Studies in African linguistics 1974-07, Vol.5 (2), p.205-221
Main Author: Voorhoeve, Jan
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In Bangangte-Bamileke (one of the Bamileke dialects), one generally finds a set of prepositions and locative specifications preceding a nominal locative complement. However, in a restricted set of common nouns like "head" and "hand," these are not used, although some special tonal and concordial phenomena are present. A nominal locative complement of this set is realized on a lower pitch (after certain verb tenses) and its possesive concord changes, so that there are tonal and concordial differences between "it is my hand" and "it is in my hand." Tonal analysis illustrates that one has to set up a floating high tone preceding a locative complement. This floating high tone acts as a concording prefix on the dependent possessive pronoun, too. This is reminiscent of the Bantu locative construction which uses a locative pre-prefix on the nominal locative complement, which is copied as a concording prefix in dependent pronouns. Some closing remarks on the synchronic relevance of floating tones are included. AA
ISSN:0039-3533