When two vowels go walking in Bantu: A comparative analysis of vowel hiatus resolution in chiNambya and chiZezuru

Abstract

Vowel hiatus is inadmissible in many languages. ChiNambya and chiZezuru rely on coalescence, glide epenthesis, elision, glide formation and secondary articulation to resolve vowel hiatus. This article presents a comparative analysis of three hiatus-avoidance methods, namely, glide formation, secondary articulation and vowel elision in chiNambya and chiZezuru, using Optimality Theory (hereafter OT). These repair strategies operate within nominals and occur in a phonologically conditioned complementary distribution. Two interlinguistic differences are noticeable: (i) when the first vowel (henceforth V₁) is /i/ and is preceded by a consonant, chiZezuru deletes V₁ regardless of the quality of the preceding consonant because it does not allow palatalised consonants. In contrast, chiNambya, which allows some palatalised consonants, employs secondary articulation with all other consonants except when the preceding consonant is palatal; where V₁ is deleted; and (ii) when V₁ is /u/ and is preceded by a labial consonant and followed by a labial vowel, chiZezuru employs secondary articulation while chiNambya which does not allow labialised labial consonants followed by labial vowels, employs elision. These interlinguistic differences allow for an OT analysis where a factorial typology accounts for the differences.