The danger of gliding high vowels in Đitammari

Abstract

Previous literature on Ɖitammari wrongly glides high vowels in order to avoid diphthongization (see André Prost (1964, 1973, 1975), Théophile Natta (1978, 1975). In this paper, I take counter examples from the same language, Ɖitammari, an Eastern Gur language spoken in Northern Togo and Benin, to show that, gliding high vowels so as to avoid diphthongization creates ill-formed sequences. I therefore consider three levels as evident for diphthong recognition through the radical underspecification framework.

Keywords: Glide; high vowel; ill-formed sequence; diphthongization; underspecification.