267 only working through the possibilities in more detail will reveal whether or not it is
preferable. Finally, remember that this exercise has practical applications. If future work
shows that Ikoma is most simply analyzed in terms of systematic [-ATR] dominance, then it would conform to Casali’s hypothesis, further strengthening the typological
observations made in his 2003 study. Furthermore, if this typology continues to be confirmed, it would be grounds for a more restricted theory of [ATR] vowel harmony,
especially one which correlates [ATR] markedness with a language’s vowel inventory.
7.3 An historical explanation of markedness behavior
In this section I discuss some possible historical factors which could have influenced Ikoma’s vowel system and resulted in the unique patterns currently present in the
language. In particular, I seek to account for the development of both superficial [-ATR] and [+ATR] dominance. I first briefly outline the basics of some representative vowel
systems of the 7V languages in Tanzania’s Mara Region, all of which are classified as Bantu JE40 languages. I then discuss three possible histories of these language groups,
and how these histories could have resulted in Ikoma’s current state.
7.3.1 A brief overview of Mara vowel system variation
The data in this section comes from a variety of sources, but primarily from field notes from participatory phonology and orthography workshops held by SIL Int’l in Musoma,
Tanzania during the years of 2006-2009. Some of this data has also been written up in SIL orthography proposals. The only known published material is on the Kuria language,
whose unique vowel height alternations have received a number of previous treatments
268 Chacha and Odden 1998; Parkinson 1996; Cammenga 2004. The Kuria data presented
here is from the first two of the sources above as well as SIL field notes.
95
The chart in 214 summarizes some of the main features of the vowel system of four representative 7V languages in the region. Bantu classifications are from Maho
2003, and ISO codes are from the Ethnologue Lewis 2009. Note that underlining indicates the variants which are most likely the underlying forms.
95
It should be noted, however, that these two sources diverge from SIL’s data concerning the prefix alternations. SIL transcriptions indicate that prefix vowels are [ ] before [ ] in the stem but [e o] before
[e o] in the stem, whereas Chacha and Odden 1998 and Parkinson 1996 both have [e o] prefixes before all mid-vowel stems. It is possible that the Kuria dialects spoken in Tanzania are different in this respect
from those spoken in Kenya, which seem to be the source of these published works.
269 214
Mara vowel system summary chart
Ikoma JE45 Zanaki JE44
Ikizu JE402 Kuria JE43
Inventory plus allophones
i e a o u i a u
plus [e, o] i e a o u
i e a o u
Harmony [-ATR],
[+ATR] [+ATR]
Height Height
Prefix variants with root
vowels Cl. 1 example
omo- i e o u omu- a
m - a omu- i u [e o]
umu- i u omo- e o a
m - umu- i u
omo- e o a m -
Root vowel raising
Caus [-i] etc [e]
spreads at least one syllable
Caus [-i] etc [i u]
[e o] spreads through
the stem to the prefix
Caus [-i] etc e o
[i u] [e o]
one-step raising in stems before
[iu]; spreads to left edge of word
Caus [–i] e o
[i u] [e o]
one-step raising in stems before
[iu]; spreads to left edge of word
Root vowel lowering
no no
no Applicative -er
lowers i u roots to [e o]
Applicative variants with
root vowels -er e o
- r i a u -ir: i u
- r a - r
-er i e a o u - r
High vowel lowering
-er i e a o u root iu
eo - r
Subjunctive with root
vowels -e i e a o u
- - possible
allomorph [–e] -e i e a o u
- unknown
Inversive variants with
root vowels -ur u a
-or i ? e o - r
-ur u - r a
other root vowels
unknown -ur i u
-or e o - r
same as applicative
-or i e a o u root iu
eo - r
The 7V languages in the region can essentially be divided into three groups based on their harmony patterns Zanaki, IkomaNgoreme, and KuriaIkizuSimbiti. Ngoreme
JE401, [ngq] is not listed above, but appears to be similar to Ikoma in many ways, most notably concerning the prefix dissimilation. Simbiti JE403, [ssc] is not listed above, but
270 is in many respects like Kuria.
96 97
Note that both Simbiti and Ngoreme share Kuria’s unusual root vowel lowering which occurs with the applicative and inversive extensions.
The one-step raising and lowering in Ikizu, Kuria and Simbiti prefixes and stems is quite a different pattern than either of the more typical cases of [-ATR] or [+ATR]
dominance. They exhibit what could be considered a combination of both height and [ATR] harmony, and I refer to them in this thesis as height harmony languages. The
incremental raising in these languages e.g. [e o], and e o to [i u] could be a
remnant of [+ATR] spreading, which would have raised both degree 2 and degree 3 vowels, since both sets would have been [-ATR] if the languages historically had a
7VH system. It is not uncommon for sound changes to cause a change from a more expected [ATR] alternation to a less-usual height alternation van der Hulst and van de
Weijer 1995.
7.3.2 Three possible histories of Mara’s seven-vowel languages
