Tone systems in African Romance

Prof. Dr. Kofi Yakpo, The University of Hong Kong

In this talk, I describe and analyze prosodic systems that have emerged from contact between African tone languages and European Romance languages with stress systems. Equatorial Guinean Spanish, for example, features a two-tone system, fixed word tone patterns, tonal minimal pairs, the arbitrary assignment of tone in function words, and tonal processes. Tone systems also characterize many African varieties of French and Romance-lexifier creoles that evolved in Afro-European contact ecologies in Africa and the Americas. I will present a descriptive and theoretical framework for the analysis of such prosodic systems. I also discuss the kinds of linguistic ecologies that have produced such typologically interesting contact outcomes in the African branch of the Romance family. 

Lunedì, 1 novembre 2021, ore 12:15-13:45
nell’ambito della lezione del prof. Gardani “Processi di ‘romanicizzazione'”

Conferenza Zoom:
https://uzh.zoom.us/j/64073953937?pwd=R09JN0p3WWUwSitEczl2cS82TFZFdz09