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Verbal Tone Patterns in West African Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

Tonal analysis has revealed many functions, grammatical as well as semantic, which tone performs in West African languages. Here we confine ourselves to one aspect, the incidence of tone in verbs, and in particular we examine the tonal patterns of verbal forms.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1948

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References

page 831 note 1 Final n is used in Yoruba to indicate nasalization of the preceding vowel: initial n in the groups nw and ny indicates nasalized w and y respectively.

page 833 note 1 to feed—intransitive. The transitive form is di.

page 833 note 2 The pronoun is written joined to the verb in this language.

page 833 note 3 m syllabic.

page 834 note 1 This has been made by Mr. J. H. Nketia, formerly a student and now assistant in the Department of Africa. It is hoped to publish Mr. Nketia's analysis shortly.