Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T15:29:31.162Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Phonology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2022

Paul Newman
Affiliation:
Indiana University
Get access

Summary

The chapter begins with an overview of current Hausa phonology. It then provides a picture of what existed in ‘Old Hausa’ and the subsequent changes that took place, many due to regular sound laws such as Klingenheben’s Law, the Law of Codas in Reduplication, loss of word-final nasals, and the change of non-initial /r/ into /y/. Although sporadic, historical metathesis was much more common than one usually finds in diachronic change. Glottal stop and /h/ are newly introduced phonemes, resulting from the addition of onsets to vowel-initial words. The high frequency glottalized semivowel /’y/ is also a new phoneme resulting from the fusion of /?/ + /y/. Gemination was originally absent but appeared later and became common through phonological and morphological means. Vowels developed from a skewed 2-3-5 (initial-medial-final) system, with vowel length only distinctive medially, into a system with five vowels, all of which now occur long and short. Starting with two level tones, Hausa later developed Falling and Rising contours, the latter having simplified to High. The loss of vowels resulted in the existence of lexical floating tones not underlyingly attached to segments.

Type
Chapter
Information
A History of the Hausa Language
Reconstruction and Pathways to the Present
, pp. 6 - 87
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Phonology
  • Paul Newman, Indiana University
  • Book: A History of the Hausa Language
  • Online publication: 24 March 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009128070.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Phonology
  • Paul Newman, Indiana University
  • Book: A History of the Hausa Language
  • Online publication: 24 March 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009128070.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Phonology
  • Paul Newman, Indiana University
  • Book: A History of the Hausa Language
  • Online publication: 24 March 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009128070.003
Available formats
×