Double Reflexes In North-Western Bantu And Their Implications For The Proto-Bantu Consonant System

A number of languages in the north-westernmost area of the Bantu domain have been claimed to present two different reflexes of originally unitary Proto-Bantu (PB) phonemes. A solution to this surprising situation has been sought in the presence of some assumed phonological conditioning, whereas other authors have proposed to reconstruct new proto-phonemes. The present chapter establishes that for voiced PB phonemes, a tonal conditioning can indeed be found; but for voiceless PB phonemes, the situation is more confused, and specifically there emerges a small but consistent sub-group of reconstructed stems which escape the general “weakening” of the proto-phoneme *t, without any obvious conditioning. The hypothesis is that according to a wave model, those items were not touched by the weakening innovation at the time of its spread.

班图语域最西北端区域的多种语言，被学界证实存在源自单一原始班图语（Proto-Bantu，PB）音位的两类不同反映形式。针对这一令人意外的现象，学界曾尝试通过假定的音系制约条件寻求合理解释，另有学者则提出重构全新的原始音位。本章研究证实，对于浊音原始班图语音位而言，确实存在声调制约条件；但针对清音原始班图语音位，情况则更为复杂，具体而言，出现了一个规模较小但特征稳定的重构词干子类，这类词干未遵循原始音位*t的普遍“弱化”规律，且无明显的制约因素。本章提出的假说认为，依据波式扩散模型（wave model），此类词干在该弱化音变扩散的阶段并未受到该音变的影响。