Hiatus resolution strategies in Karanga (Shona)

Abstract

Several languages reported in the literature have at most three hiatus resolution strategies, for example: Igede (Bergman, 1971); Obolo (Faraclas, 1982); and Greek (Haas, 1988). Karanga, a dialect of Shona, has five strategies – coalescence, spreading (epenthesis), glide formation, secondary articulation and elision. The five form a conspiracy; they ensure that hiatus (VV sequences) never surfaces. The challenge is to determine which strategy is going to apply, including the formalisation of the analysis. I assume that in each domain, there is a preferred strategy: coalescence in the Cliticisation Domain; spreading in the Verbal Domain; glide formation, secondary articulation and elision in the Nominal Domain. Glide formation, secondary articulation and elision occur in phonologically conditioned complementary distribution. The approach employed in this article may be extended to other morphologically rich languages, where hiatus resolution strategies can be used as a diagnostic for determining different prosodic boundaries.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2013, 31(1): 1–24