The High Tone Anticipation Rule in the Lwisukha Dialect of Luyia

Abstract

This paper describes the high tone anticipation rule in the Lwisukha dialect of Luyia, a Bantu language of Kenya. This rule involves the right-to-left spread of a high tone from post-modifying adjectives to toneless syllables of the noun. The data described in the paper consist of 35 noun phrases which were uttered by twelve respondents. Each utterance was analysed for pitch and tone, within the framework of the Autosegmental Phonology Theory (APT). The results show that the high tone anticipation rule is triggered when a noun is followed by an adjective, descriptive or numeral, containing a high tone. In the case of descriptive adjectives, the high tone that spreads leftwards is that of the initial syllable of the stem, while in the case of numeral adjectives it is that of the first syllable of the adjective concerned. In either case, the spreading high tone spreads to all the low toned syllables of the noun that are underlyingly toneless. However, in some utterances, when a noun with a high tone (H) and a low tone (L) is followed by an adjective that has a high tone, the rule is not triggered. Nouns with a surface low tone that allows HTA are analysed as being underlyingly toneless while those with a surface low tone that blocks spreading are analysed as having a low tone at the underlying level. The paper shows that the difference between a noun with a low tone and one with a toneless syllable is not realised on the surface. When the adjectives have a low tone on all the syllables, obviously no high tone anticipation is expected.