Database

Kasem

(Burkina Faso and Ghana; Niger-Congo, Gur)

Summary:
Chomsky and Halle (1968) posit a VV metathesis rule in Kasem whereby the first and second vowels metathesize if the second and third vowels are not [a]:

[+voc, -cons](1) [-cons](2) [+voc, -cons](3)
----> 2 1 3
except when 2 = 3= [a]

Phelps (1975) argues against the claim that there is VV metathesis in the langauge.

To our knowledge, there are no productive cases of VV metathesis.

Examples:
Chomksy and Halle (1968) make use of a rule of VV metathesis to derive forms like the following:

	sg.	pl.	sg.	pl.
UR	pia + a	pia + i 'sheep'	babia + a	babia + i 'brave'
Velar Elision
Metathesis		pai + i		babai + i
Truncation	pi + a	pa +i	babi + a	baba + i
Contraction		pe		babe
Glide Formation
Surface form	[pia]	[pe]	[babia]	[babe]

Conditions:
No information currently available.

Motivation:
No information currently available.

Related Information:
No information currently available.

Symbols:
N = velar nasal

Last Updated: 6/14/2007

References:

Callow, John. 1965. Collected Field Reports on the Phonology of Kasem. The Institute of African Studies. University of Ghana.
Chomsky, Noam & Morris Halle. 1969. The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper Row.
Haas, Wim G. de. 1988. Phonological implications of skeleton and feature underspecification in Kasem. Phonology 5: 237-254.
Phelps, Elaine. 1975. Simplicity criteria in generative phonology: Kasem nominals. Linguistic Analysis 1: 297-332.
Phelps, Elaine. 1979. Abstractness and Rule Ordering in Kasem: A Refutation of Halle's Maximizing Principle. Linguistic Analysis 5 (1): 29-68.