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This paper presents an overview of the distribution of reflexive-reciprocal syncretism in Eastern Bantu languages spoken in Tanzania. Most Bantu languages encode reflexive and reciprocal constructions by means of two distinct verbal affixes. However, the Tanzanian Eastern Bantu languages under study have developed reflexive-reciprocal syncretism, in which the originally reflexive prefix has developed into a polyfunctional morpheme coding both reflexive and reciprocal constructions, to the detriment of the original reciprocal suffix. In a sample of 79 languages, reflexive-reciprocal syncretism is attested in 27 neighboring languages, thus constituting a clear areal feature. We propose that reflexive-reciprocal syncretism is not a language-internal innovation but was rather adopted from neighboring non-Bantu languages and subsequently spread out to its current distribution. We locate the heart of this contact-induced spread in the Tanzanian Rift Valley, a convergence zone in north-central Tanzania where languages from multiple African language families are spoken and have been in contact for an extensive period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proto-Benue-Congo has been reconstructed both with a simple velar nasal *ŋ and with the velar nasal as part of a *ŋg structure. The loss of the simple velar nasal has been noticed as a feature of Bantu languages but has not been studied in other Bantoid groups. This paper considers the lexemes for which this phoneme has been reconstructed and then examines the subsequent development of the velar nasal in several groups. The results vary from preservation in Ekoid to near absence in Bantu. The phonological loss of velar nasals is not surprising, as parallels demonstrate. Rather the question arises of why certain languages only preserve remnants of the original velar nasal, and a partial answer is connected to suffixation and cluster formation.

This study examines the usage of the Swahili verb -pata ‘get’ as an auxiliary, shedding light on its multifaceted roles. The examination of its structural variation and functional extensions is based on data from different Swahili varieties. Drawing from a broad and versatile body of previous research on Swahili, this study posits the development of -pata from an erstwhile lexical verb to a light verb used in lexicalized constructions and further to an auxiliary. Combined with an infi nitive verb, the auxiliary -pata is shown to convey three different yet interrelated functional concepts: modal possibility, an inchoative aspect and an experiential aspect. In addition, it demonstrates correlations with purpose clauses and (negative) phasal polarity. The description and analysis of the formal, functional and historical characteristics of the acquisitive -pata in Swahili serves as the first study dedicated to this type of linguistic construction in Swahili and in Bantu languages more generally.

The motivation for the current study is based on the existing body of research on variations in the lexical semantic properties of cook verbs, particularly in the manner and result components of meaning across languages. However, there is a notable lack of contributions regarding this subject in Bantu languages, which limits our understanding of their properties in this context. As such, this article examines the lexical semantic properties of cook verbs in Nilamba, a Bantu language spoken in central Tanzania. We employed an experimental approach to gather cook verbs from Nilamba speakers through the use of video clips, images, and real-life events. From the field, we obtained nine cook verbs. Among these, six cook verbs encode the manner component of meaning in a lexeme, while three cook verbs encode the result component of meaning, which are morphologically marked by the short causative -i-. Our findings indicate that cook verbs in Nilamba encode both manner and result meanings. Manner verbs express the resultant state within the predicate modifier, while the resultant state in result verbs is inherently part of the verb itself. Furthermore, manner cook verbs are activity verbs, whereas result verbs involve causation, which engages different means/manner of cooking. So, they are accomplishment verbs.

Based on a recently collected fieldwork corpus, this paper offers an overview of ideophones in Sena, a Bantu language spoken along the Lower Zambezi River in central Mozambique. By closely examining the different features (phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics) of Sena ideophones, this paper aims to identify the language-internal aspects of ideophones. The claim is that Sena ideophones are best treated as a distinctive word class whose members can be used in a variety of syntactic constructions. A crucial aspect of their syntactic properties is their ability to be used as holophrastic predicates.

Whilst there has recently been an upsurge in studies into self-praise on social media, and despite the fact that there exists a vast amount of literature available on speech acts such as requests, apologies and compliments, praise in traditional spoken and written English has largely escaped scholarly attention. However, it seems to form a substantial part of everyday behaviour in various linguacultures, and the Ugandan ones appear to belong to these. This paper aims at describing how praise is performed in Ugandan English. Using data collected for the Uganda component of the International Corpus of English , it examines how praise is performed linguistically, in which genres praise can be found, and which functions it seems to perform in comparison to what is the case in British English data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of the distribution of reflexive-reciprocal syncretism in Eastern Bantu languages spoken in Tanzania. Most Bantu languages encode reflexive and reciprocal constructions by means of two distinct verbal affixes. However, the Tanzanian Eastern Bantu languages under study have developed reflexive-reciprocal syncretism, in which the originally reflexive prefix has developed into a polyfunctional morpheme coding both reflexive and reciprocal constructions, to the detriment of the original reciprocal suffix. In a sample of 79 languages, reflexive-reciprocal syncretism is attested in 27 neighboring languages, thus constituting a clear areal feature. We propose that reflexive-reciprocal syncretism is not a language-internal innovation but was rather adopted from neighboring non-Bantu languages and subsequently spread out to its current distribution. We locate the heart of this contact-induced spread in the Tanzanian Rift Valley, a convergence zone in north-central Tanzania where languages from multiple African language families are spoken and have been in contact for an extensive period.

Mai-Ndombe is one of the southwestern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ecologically, it can be characterised as a transition zone between a moist, broadleaf rainforest ecotone in the north and shrubland/savannah areas in the south. Linguistically, Mai-Ndombe, along with the rest of southwestern Congo all the way down to the border with Angola, is among the least well-surveyed areas of the planet. Within its borders, several different Bantu (Guthrie's zones B, C, and H) varieties are spoken, near the newly identified West-Coastal Bantu homeland, itself a hot spot of phonological diversity unlike any other in the West-Coastal Bantu domain. Phonetic and phonological accounts of its languages are particularly lacking (apart from impressionistic "grey literature" reports which seldom comply with the standards of present-day phonetic and phonological inquiry). This gap is particularly concerning as Mai-Ndombe is also an area of great anthropological diversity, with numerous hunter-gatherer Twa communities living deep in its eastern and northern forests. Their lects, collectively known as Lotwa, are severely endangered, as they face the threats of social stigma and the growing use of national and regional linguae francae. As part of the author's doctoral project (still underway), phonetic data were collected in the area between May and July 2021, specifically in Inongo (the provincial capital) and Nioki. The present contribution is intended as a brief note on the relevant results produced so far, mainly bearing on the analysis of some phenomena of interest in the languages of the region, including Sakata rhotics and labial–velars and the presence of unusual trilling/flapping realisations in Lotwa. The picture yielded by this preliminary exploration is one of striking phonetic and phonological variation, possibly pointing to earlier stages of greater linguistic diversity than previously supposed. It is also tentatively proposed that one of the specific characteristics of the phenomena attested in the present contribution is that they tend to affect more than one language at a time, working rather as areal "phonetic possibilities" than language-bound outcomes of traditional sound change rules; in this sense, it is suggested that in-depth documentation and description can help broaden our understanding of how language contact works in highly multilingual contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Verum focus has long been analysed as part of information structure, being accounted for within a theory of focus as generation of alternatives on a polarity value. Recently, however, this view has been challenged, with some authors arguing for a separation between verum and focus. The empirical debate focuses on two types of strategies: either verum is marked identically to focus (e.g., pitch accent in German, English) or through a dedicated strategy (e.g., dedicated markers in Gitksan, Bura, South Marghi). On the basis of the second type, it has been argued that the link between focus and verum is only superficial, with verum instead arising from a lexical operator VERUM. In this paper, we provide evidence in support of the traditional link between truth marking and focus, using original field data on the morphosyntactic expression of information structure in 11 Bantu (Niger-Congo) languages. By working from function to form, we show that these languages use a variety of grammatical strategies for truth expression, strategies that are used elsewhere in the information structural system for backgrounding. In this way, verum is not directly marked by focal accent but marked indirectly via backgrounding, which we formulate as the Backgrounding and Underspecification Thesis (BUT). On the basis of this Bantu evidence, we add a third type of strategy to the typology, where verum is marked indirectly via backgrounding. We use this updated typology to argue in favour of maintaining a conceptual link between verum, polarity focus, and predicated-centred focus more broadly.

Determiner spreading, the phenomenon whereby adnominal modifiers carry an ‘additional’ determiner, has been studied extensively for a variety of languages, most notably Greek, Semitic, and Scandinavian languages. Interestingly, the same phenomenon occurs in the Bantu language Rukiga. We show how the Rukiga augment is parallel to the Greek determiner in the context of modification, and how it triggers a restrictive reading when present on a larger class of modifiers than familiar so far: relative clauses, adjectives, possessives, and certain quantifiers. Considering its morphosyntactic and interpretational properties, we propose that the variation in the presence versus absence of the augment on modifiers is due to different underlying structures, applying an analysis of determiner spreading in terms of a reduced relative clause structure.

This article offers the first comprehensive study of relative constructions among the members of the Western Serengeti (WS) group, a group of closely related Great Lakes Bantu language varieties spoken in the Mara region in northern Tanzania. The study has both a synchronic and a diachronic angle. First, we offer a systematic description of the various relativization types found in these varieties with regard to the phonological (prosodic) and (morpho-)syntactic traits of both subject and non-subject relativization. Next, we situate our findings within a historical-comparative framework, with particular reference to Van de Velde’s (2021, forthcoming) Bantu Relative Agreement (BRA) Cycle. Linking the source of the main relative marker to the proximal demonstrative, we offer a fine-grained reconstruction of its development into a relativizer. We propose that the WS relative constructions instantiate Stage 1b of the BRA cycle while simultaneously showing remnants of what is either the direct reflex of the relative construction reconstructed for Proto-Bantu (Van de Velde forthcoming) or the final Stage 3b of an earlier cycle. In this endeavor we are able to zoom in to the processes at play at the turning point where an old and a new relative cycle intersect.

This special issue addresses how evidentiality and mirativity are expressed in various Bantu languages. Both the notions of evidentiality and mirativity remain underexamined for the Bantu languages – the following quote is quite typical: “It appears that expressing evidentiality as a verbal affix or clitic is the most common strategy.

Although Bantu languages are not known for having grammaticalized and obligatory systems of evidentiality, research is uncovering more and more evidential contrasts and evidential strategies, as well as expressions of related categories like mirativity. In this article, I describe, with examples from the literature and my own research, two domains in which I believe targeted investigations are likely to uncover additional examples of evidential and mirative meanings. The first domain is quotatives, which very frequently have evidential and mirative functions, but which are largely underdescribed across Bantu. The second domain is tense and aspect, which is somewhat better described, but where little is known about associated evidential functions. I especially highlight cases in which two forms have overlapping denotative temporal or aspectual meanings, and evidential and similar contrasts can arise as a result.

It is cross-linguistically common to find a distinction between “temporary” vs. “permanent” states in copular verbs, e.g., Spanish estar and ser (see Deo et al. 2017). In Mashi [shr] (Bantu, JD53; Maho 2009), a similar temporary-permanent distinction holds not only of the two copular be-verbs in the language, -li (temporary state) and -ba (permanent state), but also of the two possessive have-verbs, -dwiire and -jira; -dwiire indicates temporary possession, while -jira instead indicates permanent possession. This parallelism provides a novel argument in favor of a decompositional approach to possessive verbs (Freeze 1992, Kayne 1993, Harley 1998). The analysis is further supported through patterns of allomorphy where HAVE is realized in its decomposed form, BE + comitative, in Mashi. I analyze the patterns using a Spanning Insertion analysis (Williams 2003, Svenonius 2012, 2016, Merchant 2015).

Tjhauba, spoken in northwestern Botswana, is a regional variety of the Bantu language Kgalagadi. Tjhauba exhibits a number of striking linguistic differences with respect to other, previously described Kgalagadi varieties, some the result of language-internal changes, but mostly due to contact with different surrounding Khoisan and Bantu languages. Making use of newly collected field data, this paper shows that Tjhauba has an extensive inventory of click phonemes, contrasting different click accompaniments and, in the speech of elderly speakers, also different click types. Tracing the sources of Tjhauba click words shows that these originate in different Khoisan languages, but also in the Bantu click language Yeyi. Semantically, click words, but also loanwords that do not contain clicks, cluster in the domain of flora and fauna, particularly species found in or close to water. These linguistic findings also shed light on the history of Tjhauba speakers. The adoption of a large number of click phonemes suggests intensive language contact, as still evidenced by ongoing Tjhauba/Khwe bilingualism. A number of the likely source languages for Tjhauba click words are no longer spoken in the area, suggesting contact situations that are no longer ongoing. Furthermore, clicks occur in loanwords, but unlike in neighbouring Bantu click languages, there is no evidence that clicks were also extended to inherited Tjhauba words. This suggests that the sound symbolic or identity marking functions of clicks as posited for other Bantu click languages do not play a role in Tjhauba.

Within the context of microvariation in Bantu, three processes are examined in Setswana – object marking, inversion constructions and diminutive marking. Setswana morpho-syntactic structures for these constructions present instances that distinguish Setswana from Eastern Bantu languages and yet also cases of similarity with patterns more commonly attested in Eastern rather than Southern Bantu languages. Using a comparative-parametric approach Setswana is shown to pattern with Southern Bantu in its default agreement and diminutive marking patterns while its flexibility in allowing multiple object markers with free ordering is more closely related to Eastern Bantu, suggesting complex historical patterns of contact.

There is no comprehensive history of Africa's philosophy for reasons including colonisation and neo-colonisation that resulted in its philosophy' neglect and under-studying compared to Eastern, Middle-Eastern and Western philosophies. In this article, the timeline of Africa's philosophy has been divided into five stages -- sankofa, tu, shosholoza, Ubuntu and umoja. Sankofa is a stage where less is known, although, by looking at the history of the different groups of Black Africans -- the Bantu, Kush, Nile-Sahara, San, Khoi Khoi, Hadza, Sandawe, Mbenga, Mbuti and Twa -- we learn that they had related values centred around the family, community, society, environment and spirituality, and probably lived in proximity. The tu stage was characterised by the expansion of their communities and new languages that named Africa's philosophy differently but closely. The shosholoza stage involved resisting the colonisation of Africa's philosophy on and off the continent. The fourth stage is Ubuntu, the current stage whe re the noun Ubuntu has become prominent as the name of the philosophy for reasons including the resilience of the Zulu Kingdom from whose Nguni/Ngoni language the noun derives from. The final stage is umoja, the stage of renaissance and African-centredness. At this stage, Ubuntu is becoming the dominant worldview for Africa. From this history, among other things, we learn that Ubuntu did not start recently, Africa is not philosophyless and that Ubuntu cannot be attributed to Bantu people alone but all Black Africa. This history contributes to a better education for Africa where scientists, researchers, teachers, social workers, development workers, even security people, politicians and business people -- become African-centred, all working for an Africa whose knowledge, innovations and capabilities compete with the rest of the world on an equal footing. It is recommended that the history of Africa's philosophy and the philosophy itself be embedded in all levels of 'formal' or 'informal' education and this will be more useful if all stages, from sankofa to umoja are included. Knowledge of Africa's philosophy would make education, research and practice more appropriate to Africa, especially in the fields of social work and development where colonial knowledge, values and practices have been dominant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mai-Ndombe is one of the southwestern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ecologically, it can be characterised as a transition zone between a moist, broadleaf rainforest ecotone in the north and shrubland/savannah areas in the south. Linguistically, Mai-Ndombe, along with the rest of southwestern Congo all the way down to the border with Angola, is among the least well-surveyed areas of the planet. Within its borders, several different Bantu (Guthrie’s zones B, C, and H) varieties are spoken, near the newly identified West-Coastal Bantu homeland, itself a hot spot of phonological diversity unlike any other in the West-Coastal Bantu domain. Phonetic and phonological accounts of its languages are particularly lacking (apart from impressionistic “grey literature” reports which seldom comply with the standards of present-day phonetic and phonological inquiry). This gap is particularly concerning as Mai-Ndombe is also an area of great anthropological diversity, with numerous hunter-gatherer Twa communities living deep in its eastern and northern forests. Their lects, collectively known as Lotwa, are severely endangered, as they face the threats of social stigma and the growing use of national and regional linguae francae. As part of the author’s doctoral project (still underway), phonetic data were collected in the area between May and July 2021, specifically in Inongo (the provincial capital) and Nioki. The present contribution is intended as a brief note on the relevant results produced so far, mainly bearing on the analysis of some phenomena of interest in the languages of the region, including Sakata rhotics and labial–velars and the presence of unusual trilling/flapping realisations in Lotwa. The picture yielded by this preliminary exploration is one of striking phonetic and phonological variation, possibly pointing to earlier stages of greater linguistic diversity than previously supposed. It is also tentatively proposed that one of the specific characteristics of the phenomena attested in the present contribution is that they tend to affect more than one language at a time, working rather as areal “phonetic possibilities” than language-bound outcomes of traditional sound change rules; in this sense, it is suggested that in-depth documentation and description can help broaden our understanding of how language contact works in highly multilingual contexts.

This paper reports a case of NOM/ACC alignment in agreement that results from the relative timing of A- movement and φ-agreement, and not from the position of φ-probes or the sensitivity of agreement to case. The NOM/ACC phenomenon discussed here is object agreement in Ndebele, which can be characterized as the systematic inability of Voice to agree with the highest argument, despite c-commanding it. I argue that this pattern follows from a general property of Bantu languages whereby every φ-probe obligatorily co-occurs with an EPP feature. In Voice, EPP probes before φ, removing the highest argument from the probing domain of φ, which gives rise to the unique status of the highest DP in terms of agreement. I explain why the bleeding of agreement by movement cannot be undone by cyclic expansion of the φ-probe and instead leads to a rigid downward agreement pattern. Finally, I conclude that the pervasive cooccurrence of agreement and movement in Bantu languages is the result of parametric cooccurrence of EPP and φ (Baker, 2003; Collins, 2004), and is not an indication that the two operations are triggered by the same feature, nor that Agree is upward in Bantu.

In this article we offer an overview of the use of modal auxiliary verb constructions in East African Bantu (encompassing languages spoken from eastern Congo in the north-west to northern Mozambique in the south-east; viz. Guthrie zones JD, JE, E, F, G, M, N and P). Modality, here conceptualized as a semantic space comprising different subcategories (or flavors) of possibility and necessity, has traditionally been a neglected category within Bantu linguistics, which has tended to focus instead on the more grammatical(ized) categories of tense, aspect and to a lesser extent mood. Nonetheless, our survey shows that there exists a rich number of different verbs with specialized modal functions in East African Bantu. Moreover, when comparing the variety of modal verbs in East African Bantu and the wider constructions in which they operate, many similar patterns arise. In some cases, different languages make use of cognate verbs for expressing similar modal concepts, in other cases divergent verbs, but with essentially the same source meaning(s), are employed. In addition, both Bantu-internal and Bantu-external contact have played a key role in the formation of several of the languages’ inventories of modal verbs. A typologically significant feature recurrently discovered among the languages surveyed is the tendency of structural manipulations of the same verb base to indicate semantic shift from participant-internal to participant-imposed modal flavors.

In addition to the stem and noun class prefix, the structure of nouns in Bantu languages may contain an augment. This augment typically is a vowel, but some languages show a CV augment. Interestingly, the Bantu language Kinyakyusa shows nouns with a V as well as with a CV prefix, both of which have been analysed as augments (De Blois 1970). In this short paper we clarify the formal and functional properties of the ‘CV augment’ in Kinyakyusa. First we show that it does not behave like the V augment, but is a separate marker that is attached to the noun phrase. Second, we narrow down the previous analyses of the CV marker that describe it as ‘emphatic’ (De Blois 1970, Persohn 2020): On the basis of a range of focus tests, we argue that the CV marker functions as a marker of exhaustivity. This is remarkable, as exhaustive focus is in Bantu languages typically associated with marking in the clause and not on the noun itself.

This paper describes the possible predication strategies in Makhuwa-Enahara and under what circumstances each occurs. Makhuwa-Enahara (Bantu P31E) has three main copular constructions: Predicative Lowering, the invariant copulas ti (affirmative) and kahi (negative), and the verbal copulas ori and okhala. It was previously posited that the choice between predication strategies depended on the syntactic type of the predicate, but further analysis shows that deference is instead given to the semantic type of the predication. The underlying structures of Makhuwa-Enahara are identical for Equation, Predication, and Identification; Specification shows a different structure, and Locative predication yet another. Predicative Lowering and the invariant copula are argued to be different spell-outs of the Pred head, depending on its raised position within the syntactic tree and whether or not the initial element of the predicate is long enough to undergo Predicative Lowering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the production of vocative calls in (Northern) Metropolitan French (MF) and Cameroonian French (CF) as it is spoken by native speakers of a tone language, Basaá. While the results of our Discourse Completion Task confirm previous descriptions of MF, they also further our understanding of the relationship between pragmatics and prosody across different groups of French speakers. MF favors the vocative chant in routine contexts and a rising-falling contour in urgent contexts. In contrast, context has little influence on the choice of contour in CF. A melody consisting of the surface realization of lexical tones is produced in both contexts. Regarding acoustic parameters, context only exerts a significant effect on the loudness of vocative calls (RMS amplitude) and has little effect on their F0 height, F0 range and duration. A target-use of vocative calls in CF thus does not amount to target-like use of the original standard target language, MF. Our results provide novel evidence for the transfer of lexical tones onto the contact variety of an intonation language. They also corroborate previous studies involving the pragmatics-prosody interface: the more marked a prosodic pattern is (here, the vocative chant), the more difficult it is to acquire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Yaws, an infectious dermatosis is one of 17 neglected tropical diseases still present in the world despite the efforts aiming at the eradication of the disease undertaken in 2020. It is mainly found in populations living in poor hygiene conditions with a limited access to water and health care facilities. BaAka Pygmies and Bantu people inhabiting the rural areas of the Central African Republic (CAR) are still affected by yaws on a large scale. Aim: To assess the prevalence of yaws in Central Africa, treatment accessibility, and the need for implementing future health programs. Material and methods: Primary school BaAka Pygmy and Bantu children from the Dzanga Sangha region (CAR) were assessed in the context of yaws prevalence in years 2019-2020. The diagnosis was based on the clinical picture of the typical skin lesions and their location. Serologic tests were not performed. Results: Four hundred and ninety-four Pygmies and 235 Bantu children were examined, of whom 38.7% and 43.0%, respectively, presented primary yaws lesions. The mean age of Pygmy and Bantu children with lesions was 9.1 and 9.7 years old, respectively. In both ethnic groups boys predominated. The most common location of yaws lesions were lower legs, ankles, knees and feet. Conclusions: Yaws, like all other neglected tropical diseases, might become a cosmopolitan skin disease transferred from Africa to Europe and North America by tourists travelling to sub-Saharan destinations in Africa and migrants. The knowledge of tropical skin diseases and ability to make a differential diagnosis might become necessary for each dermatologist in the next 10-20 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the issue of ‘prosodic idiosyncrasies’ as it arises in the Bantu language Makonde [kde]. Recently, Bennett, Harizanov, & Henderson (2018) proposed ‘prosodic smothering’, whereby prosodic requirements of an outer morpheme override (i.e. ‘smother’) prosodic properties of inner morphemes. We extend their analysis to phrase-level phonology in Makonde. Previous description has established that whether a nominal modifier forms a single phonological phrase φ with the noun is an idiosyncratic property, e.g. a [NOUN ADJECTIVE] phrase maps to 2 phonological phrases φ(N) φ(ADJ) while a [NOUN DEMONSTRATIVE] phrase forms a single phonological phrase φ(N DEM). Prosodic smothering is seen in [NOUN ADJ DEM] sequences which form a single φ(N ADJ DEM) phonological phrase, where the ADJ has been ‘entrapped’ and its prosody ‘smothered’. We highlight three contributions which Makonde makes to understanding smothering: (i) smothering targets the lexical head, (ii) smothering is both inward-oriented (a morphological relation) and leftward-oriented (a linear relation), and (iii) a limited amount of outward smothering is parasitic on the presence of inward smothering. From the smothering facts in Makonde, we conclude that prosody is established at two stages: first, prosodic idiosyncrasies apply at spell-out (i.e. the mapping from syntax to phonology), followed by default prosodification which is established within the phonological module itself.

Kejom, the preferred autonym for the language more commonly known as Babanki, is a Central Ring Grassfields Bantu language (ISO 693-3: [bbk]) spoken in the Northwest Regionof Cameroon (Hyman, 1980; Simons and Fennig, 2017; Hammarstr¨om et al., 2017). The language is spoken mainly in two settlements, Kejom Ketinguh and Kejom Keku, also known as Babanki Tungoh and Big Babanki, respectively (Figure 1), but alsoto some extent in diaspora communities outside of Cameroon. Simons and Fennig (2017) state that the number of speakers is increasing; however, the figure of 39,000 speakers they provide likely overestimates the number of fluent speakers in diaspora communities. The two main settlements’ dialects exhibit slight phonetic, phonological, and lexical differences but are mutually intelligible. The variety of Kejom described here is the Kejom Ketinguh variant spoken by the second author.

The purpose of this study is to survey and evaluate the tonal effects of the two Bantu vocalic verb extensions *-i- ‘causative’ and *-ʊ- ‘passive’ in order to determine whether they carried a H in Proto-Bantu (PB).

This paper concentrates on whether systematic variations in pitch, intensity, and duration can be observed as a function of the focused or discourse-given status of a constituent in Kinyarwanda (Guthrie code JD.61), and a relatively recent variety of “New English” in contact with this Bantu language. Kinyarwanda is a tone language, in which the information-structural notion of focus has been reported to be expressed through changes in word order, with focus appearing clause-finally (Kimenyi 1988, Ndayiragije 1999, Ngoboka 2016). In contrast, Standard English is well-known for the prosodic boost associated with narrowly focused words and the prosodic reduction of post-focal items. Crosslinguistically, the prosodic expression of focus and givenness is progressively being considered a marked feature. Zerbian (2015a) predicts that it should not be found in a second language or a contact variety if it is not already present in the first language of a speaker or a group of speakers. Our study finds no evidence that information focus, exhaustive focus, or givenness systematically affect the prosody of Kinyarwanda. We also find no systematic effect of information structure in the variety of English spoken by our Rwandan participants, confirming that this is probably an area of English that is difficult to acquire.

Bantu languages generally have noun-initial DP word order but they typically allow for demonstratives, and in some languages also the quantifier meaning ‘each, every’, to precede the noun. Beyond this, Bantu languages generally allow changing the relative order of the post-nominal modifiers, which leads to subtle (focus-related) changes in meaning. Bantu languages generally do not allow for adjectives, numerals, and possessives to appear before the noun. However, Xitsonga allows such orders and these orders trigger lengthening effects. In this paper, we discuss DP word order alternations in Xitsonga and their effects on prosody in terms of penultimate lengthening. We show that there is a stable, statistically significant effect on length which can be demonstrated experimentally.

Shekgalagadi is an endangered Bantu language of the Sotho cluster spoken in Botswana. While it is known that the language shows extensive regional variation, very little documentation exists of smaller, more remote varieties. This paper provides a first ever description of the northern-most Shekgalagadi variety known as Shetjhauba, spoken along the Okavango panhandle close to the Namibian border. Using original field data, I provide a grammatical sketch of Shetjhauba. First, the segmental phonology of Shetjhauba is described, providing an overview of its phonemic consonants and vowels, as well as a major morphophonological process that occurs in several morphological environments, referred to as “strengthening”. A striking difference between the phonology of Shetjhauba and that of previously described Shekgalagadi varieties is its extensive use of click phonemes. Secondly, the nominal and verbal morphology of Shetjhauba are discussed, giving insights into noun classes, nominal derivation, and various pronouns and agreeing modifiers. Shetjhauba also has an extensive verbal morphology, with various verbal derivational suffixes, and inflectional affixes marking tense, aspect, mood, negation, as well as subject and object.

The interaction of grammatical aspect and lexical aspect has been a topic of interest to linguists for many years, yet only recently has more attention been focused on this topic specifically in relation to Bantu languages. The difficulty of mapping Bantu actional types onto the commonly accepted categorizations has resulted in new frameworks being proposed to take these complex lexicalisations into account. In this paper, we use Croft’s (2012) two-dimensional diagrammatic representations of events to represent the aspectual contour encoded by certain predicates in the South Tanzanian Bantu language Bungu [wun]. We investigate the semantics of the Progressive, Anterior, and Resultative aspects in Bungu, and by identifying the phases within each aspectual contour that are profiled by each of these grammatical aspects, we show that the particular interpretation of each aspect depends on the type of predicate that it modifies. By using Croft’s diagrammatic representations of events to identify the semantic contribution made by different grammatical aspects in Bungu, we illustrate its potential as a descriptive tool.

Abstract Background Copy number variations (CNVs) account for a substantial proportion of inter-individual genomic variation. However, a majority of genomic variation studies have focused on single-nucleotide variations (SNVs), with limited genome-wide analysis of CNVs in large cohorts, especially in populations that are under-represented in genetic studies including people of African descent. Methods We carried out a genome-wide copy number analysis in > 3400 healthy Bantu Africans from Tanzania. Signal intensity data from high density (> 2.5 million probes) genotyping arrays were used for CNV calling with three algorithms including PennCNV, DNAcopy and VanillaICE. Stringent quality metrics and filtering criteria were applied to obtain high confidence CNVs. Results We identified over 400,000 CNVs larger than 1 kilobase (kb), for an average of 120 CNVs (SE = 2.57) per individual. We detected 866 large CNVs (≥ 300 kb), some of which overlapped genomic regions previously associated with multiple congenital anomaly syndromes, including Prader-Willi/Angelman syndrome (Type1) and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. Furthermore, several of the common CNVs seen in our cohort (≥ 5%) overlap genes previously associated with developmental disorders. Conclusions These findings may help refine the phenotypic outcomes and penetrance of variations affecting genes and genomic regions previously implicated in diseases. Our study provides one of the largest datasets of CNVs from individuals of African ancestry, enabling improved clinical evaluation and disease association of CNVs observed in research and clinical studies in African populations.

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In this paper we show that certain consonants have the effect of depressing the tone on adjacent vowels in Malawian CiTonga, a Bantu language spoken mainly in Nkhata Bay. We argue that some of these effects are phonological, changing High vowels to Low. In other cases the effect is not categorical, but gradient, as certain consonants have a greater lowering effect than others on the tone of the adjacent vowel. For these cases we propose the effect is phonetic overall. Still, we demonstrate that in these latter cases where the lowering effect is most pronounced, there are near-neutralization effects, which in some cases can lead to neutralization and homophony in the judgment of native speakers. We make some general typological observations, comparing the set of depressor consonants in CiTonga to other Bantu languages.

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This paper deals with a morphosyntactic phenomenon found in the under-described Bantu language Luguru, spoken in central Tanzania: the verbal marker tsa. This marker encodes shared knowledge or shared reference. The meanings conveyed by the marker stretch from ‘at a specific time’ or ‘at that place’ to ‘as we know’, or even ‘for that reason’. In Mkude’s grammatical description of Luguru from 1974, there is a mention of a marker (zaa) signalling what he calls “recollected reference”, which restricts the event to one specific moment in the past; this marker is believed to have developed into today’s tsa.

This paper describes the interplay of lexical and grammatical aspect with other grammatical phenomena in the interpretation of the aspectual suffix ‑ile (which we analyse as Perfective) in isiNdebele, a Nguni Bantu language spoken in South Africa. Crucial other phenomena include constituency-related factors such as the conjoint-disjoint distinction and (related) penultimate lengthening, along with morphophonological conditions that trigger different forms of ‑ile. These factors appear to interact differently in isiNdebele than they do in closely related Zulu, suggesting two different paths of grammaticalization, which we argue can change the interpretation of markers of grammatical aspect as they interact with lexical aspectual classes.

This paper presents data from Vwanji, an under-documented Bantu language spoken by approximately 28,000 people in southwestern Tanzania. Bantu languages are well known for having multiple degrees of past time reference grammaticalized in their TAM systems, and Vwanji is a good example of such a language, but one with some interesting typological differences from certain general TAM trends in Bantu languages noted in Nurse (2008). Three past TAM forms, in particular, are the focus of the research: P1 /Anterior SM-VB-ile, P2 SM-a-VB-a, and the Near Past Habitual SM-a-VB-aɣa. The analysis of data from a corpus of narrative and non-narrative texts (both written and oral) reveals that these three TAM forms have multiple discourse functions which do not necessarily follow in expected ways from their places in the TAM system as a whole. Comparing the Vwanji findings with those of neighbouring languages suggests some possible directions in which the verb forms in Vwanji may be changing functionally or being lost. The goal of this investigation is to increase understanding of a typologically interesting language which has not been well described and for which there is very little published data. The paper also shows the importance of taking natural discourse data into account when considering TAM functions in a language. Relying on elicited data alone may hide interesting complexities and variation.

This paper accounts for the atypical Imperative verb form found in Manda, a Bantu language spoken along the shores of Lake Nyasa in southern Tanzania. Unlike the vast majority of Bantu languages, Manda lacks a reflex of the so called “morphologically specialized” imperative. Instead, Imperatives (as well as other directives) are expressed with the suffixation of a marker of the form -ayi. Based on the form-meaning variation found both language-internally and in comparative data, this study reconstructs the functional and formal pathways of change leading to the highly unusual situation encountered in today’s Manda. The study shows that the Manda Imperative originates from a construction consisting of a reflex of the pre-final morpheme *-a(n)g-, an imperfective marker originally recruited into the directive domain to add pragmatic overtones of emphasis. However, at some point in time the meaning of this erstwhile emphatic construction became neutralized and conventionalized as the regular imperative, while the marker itself became decategorialized and morphophonologically opaque.

Societies with exposure to preindustrial diets exhibit improved markers of health. Our study used a comprehensive multi-omic approach to reveal that the gut microbiome of the Ju/'hoansi hunter-gatherers, one of the most remote KhoeSan groups, exhibit a higher diversity and richness, with an abundance of microbial species lost in the western population. The Ju/'hoansi microbiome showed enhanced global transcription and enrichment of complex carbohydrate metabolic and energy generation pathways. The Ju/'hoansi also show high abundance of short-chain fatty acids that are associated with health and optimal immune function. In contrast, these pathways and their respective species were found in low abundance or completely absent in Western populations. Amino acid and fatty acid metabolism pathways were observed prevalent in the Western population, associated with biomarkers of chronic inflammation. Our study provides the first in-depth multi-omic characterization of the Ju/'hoansi microbiome, revealing uncharacterized species and functional pathways that are associated with health., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest Statement The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Similarity in facial characteristics between relatives suggests a strong genetic component underlies facial variation. While there have been numerous studies of the genetics of facial abnormalities and, more recently, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of normal facial variation, little is known about the role of genetic structural variation in determining facial shape. In a sample of Bantu African children, we found that only 9% of common copy number variants (CNVs) and 10-kb CNV analysis windows are well tagged by SNPs (r2 ≥ 0.8), indicating that associations with our internally called CNVs were not captured by previous SNP-based GWASs. Here, we present a GWAS and gene set analysis of the relationship between normal facial variation and CNVs in a sample of Bantu African children. We report the top five regions, which had p values ≤ 9.35 × 10−6 and find nominal evidence of independent CNV association (p < 0.05) in three regions previously identified in SNP-based GWASs. The CNV region with strongest association (p = 1.16 × 10−6, 55 losses and seven gains) contains NFATC1, which has been linked to facial morphogenesis and Cherubism, a syndrome involving abnormal lower facial development. Genomic loss in the region is associated with smaller average lower facial depth. Importantly, new loci identified here were not identified in a SNP-based GWAS, suggesting that CNVs are likely involved in determining facial shape variation. Given the plethora of SNP-based GWASs, calling CNVs from existing data may be a relatively inexpensive way to aid in the study of complex traits.

This study sets out to investigate the insubordinated infinitive in the Bantu language Makhuwa-Enahara (P31, northern Mozambique), which is used with feeling predicates that have passive experiencers. The expression of bodily feelings and emotions in Makhuwa serves as a foundation, highlighting the unique formal and interpretational properties of the insubordinated infinitive within the domain of feelings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper analyzes the system of laughter-based interjections (L-INTJs) in Xhosa. By drawing on corpus and fieldwork evidence, the author concludes the following: the systems of L-INTJs consists of five types of constructions built around the segments ha, he, ho, hi, and yha, the satellites te and ti, as well as a number of replicative templates. The pattern hVhVhV with a short vowel is the most productive. Other replicative patterns, patterns involving (extra‑)long vowels, and the pattern tVhV are less productive. Overall, L-INTJs are the canonical members of the interjective category. The presence and range of uses of L-INTJs result from the interjectionalization of laughter-based onomatopoeias or the onomatopoeization of non-laughter-related interjections.

The Romans identified East Africa as Azania. The Chinese as Zezan. The metropolis of Rhapta was indicated to be the capital of Azania. In recent times a controversy emerged as to the location of Azania and Rhapta. A discussion has also occurred regarding the kind of people who settled in Azania. Whereas some scholars agree that the core of Azania was in East Africa modern, the geographical extent of Azania is in question. Archaeological, historical, and linguistic data have been used to suggest Azania extended from the coast of East Africa to the Great Lakes region, central Africa and South Africa. It is also argued that the people of Azania were Bantu speakers who were farming and smelting iron. It is therefore justifiable for the people of the larger region of South Africa to East Africa to name themselves Azanians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]