An Application Of Ngp And Apt To Vowel Harmony In Standard Kiswahili

Abstract

Kiswahili is not classified as a harmonic language. However, this paper argues that the language exhibits some harmonic tendencies in so far as vowels are concerned. Consequently, the paper discusses vowel harmony as evident in Standard Kiswahili. The paper applies a segmental and a suprasegmental theory. The discussion proves that vowel harmony in Standard Kiswahili is both a segmental and a suprasegmental property. The two theories used are the natural generative phonological theory and autosegmental phonological theory. The corpus used is drawn from verbs and demonstratives.