Reflections on vowel lowering and raising in Malawian CiTonga (N.15)

Abstract

This article explores sources of what appears to be vowel lowering and raising phenomena in CiTonga, a southern Bantu language spoken in Nkhata Bay, a lakeshore district in northern Malawi. The author is a native speaker and the primary source of the data. The central idea in the article is that the vowel lowering and raising in this language follow from a complex interaction of three factors, namely progressive vowel height harmony, vowel reduction, and prosodic phrasing. The root-initial vowel /e/ is responsible, as argued in the article, for lowering the high vowel /i/ to [e], while the root-initial vowel /o/ is responsible for lowering both high vowels /i/ and /u/ to [e] and [o] respectively. Thus, vowel harmony in this language is asymmetric. Vowel reduction, on the other hand, is responsible for the raising of the mid-vowel /e/ to [i]. I was not able to find underlying mid-vowel /o/ in word-final position. Finally, phonological phrasing is responsible for lowering high vowels /u/ and /i/ to [o] and [e], respectively, in utterance-final position.