Search

In instances where verbs that start with vowel sounds and a vowel prefix is attached, the hiatus is repaired through resyllabification, i.e. the manifestation of an initial underlying sound called a glottal catch. This sound fills the onset position of vowel initial verbs in Sepedi, and is responsible for the drastic alternation when the verb comes into contact with a reflexive prefix or an object concord. This article examines the effect of morphophonological realisation on inflected verbal roots with initial vowel sounds in Sepedi. The data collected through documents and semi-structured interviews shows that the glottal catch makes verbs follow the CV syllable pattern. The vowel reflexive prefix which threatens to create a hiatus is repaired through epenthesis by adding a sound to the interior of a word (at the beginning of prosthesis). This repair strategy ensures that the CV syllable structure of Sepedi is maintained. This article provides new data that offers innovative understanding of Sepedi on the concepts such as epenthesis and hiatus, relating to alternations in morphophonological environments using the optimality theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines two aspects of iKalanga phonology: hiatus resolution and /mu/ prefix reduction. Within Prosodic Words, hiatus is repaired through one of four ways: glide formation, secondary articulation, elision, and glide epenthesis. Coalescence occurs across Prosodic Word boundaries in grammaticalised and encliticised forms. /mu/ prefix reduction, which threatens to create complex onsets (NCs), is repaired through resyllabifying the remaining nasal as a separate syllable. It is not blocked by monosyllabic stems and the resultant syllabic nasal does not trigger postnasal hardening, is moraic and is homorganic to the immediately following consonant. These repair strategies, which are quite regular and typical of Bantu languages in general, ensure that the CV syllable structure of iKalanga is maintained. We argue that a single constraint hierarchy is responsible for these seemingly disjointed repair strategies. This paper provides new data that has not been discussed in previous studies, and it is the first study to present a detailed and consolidated formal analysis of repair strategies in iKalanga using Optimality Theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]