Hiatus contexts and hiatus resolution strategies in Zezuru

Abstract

This article examines the morphosyntactic environments in which vowel sequences occur in Zezuru and explains the synchronic hiatus resolution strategies that are employed in this language. The findings of this study show that Zezuru relies on glide formation, glide epenthesis, vowel elision and vowel coalescence to resolve hiatus. This investigation demonstrates that the major motivation for resolving hiatus in Zezuru is to maintain its preferred consonant–vowel (CV) syllable structure. The data used in this study are both intuitive and naturalistic and their analysis is mainly couched within the generative CV-phonology model of syllable structure. This study is expected to broaden and deepen our understanding of hiatus resolution strategies in Zezuru and Southern Bantu languages in general.