Metathesis in Language 2.0

Kasem

Language Family
Niger-Congo
Subgroup
Gur
Area

Summary

CV metathesis is involved in the derivation of singular and plural forms of some nouns. Kasem has also been claimed to have VV metathesis, but this is disputed.


Type(s) of metathesis

Type Status Optionality Position Location
a. CV Synchronic Obligatory Adjacent Root-final

Case types and qualities

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]

Similar cases include:
/lilai/   [lilio] (singular) ~ [lile:du] (plural)  'saliva'
/boa:l + u/   [bolo]  'valley, sg.'


Conditions

No conditions could be found

Motivations

No motivations could be found

Symbols

Comments

Bibliography

  • 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.