Database

Basaa

(Cameroon; Niger-Congo, Narrow Bantu)

Summary:
'h' metathesizes with a preceding consonant in the Indirective Causative forms.

Examples:

Unsuffixed	Indirect Causative	Nominalised
lE'l	le'hla`	lE'lE^k	'cross'
te`N	ti`hNa`	te`Ne`k	'tie'
a`t	e`hda`	a`da`k	'unite'

cf.

ko'bo^l

ko'bla`ha`

ko'bla`k

'peel'

pi'd i^p

pi'dBa`ha`

pi'dBa`k

'hate'

Conditions:
No information currently available.

Motivation:
No information currently available.

Related Information:
No information currently available.

Symbols:
E = mid central unrounded vowel (schwa)
' = high tone (V' = vowel with high tone)
` = low tone (V` = vowel with low tone)
^ = falling tone (V^ = vowel with falling tone)
N = velar nasal consonant
B = voiced bilabial implosive

Last Updated: 6/20/2007

References:

Hobley, June. 1965. Bassa Verbal Formations. The Journal of West African Languages. Vol. II. No. 2. 39-50.
Lemb, Pierre & François de Gastines (1973). Dictionnaire Basaa-Francais. Douala: Collège Libermann.
Schmidt, Deborah. 1994. Phantom consonants in Basaa. Phonology 11. 149-178.