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ABSTRACT
The shorter a word, the more likely it is to be lexically ambiguous. In the toneless standard orthography of Kabiye, a language of Togo, numerous monosyllabic heterophonic homographs (tonal minimal pairs) and homophonic homographs occur in the imperative and six associated conjugations. This paper presents the complete catalogue of these verbs, and then examines them in natural contexts. It goes on to propose a morphographic spelling in which elided root-final labial consonants are written as superscript silent letters to help the reader identify the lexeme. This spelling is tested against a diacritic tonographic alternative in an oral reading experiment. The results show that those who learnt the morphographic spelling gained more in reading accuracy than those who learnt the tonographic spelling.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 In 2013, the Comité de Langue Nationale Kabiyè changed its name to the Académie Kabiyè. We retain the former name in this article because it was still being used when most of our research was being undertaken.
2 Throughout the paper, the term ‘monosyllabic verb’ is used to refer to CV roots, even though these can optionally be preceded by subject pronouns and modal prefixes which are written joined to the root in the standard orthography.
3 We use the term ‘morphographic’ in this study to describe morphophonological as well as morphological written representations.
4 Since undertaking this research, Toolbox (http://www-01.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software.asp?id=79) has been superseded by Flex (http://www.sil.org/resources/software_fonts/flex, both accessed 6 May 2016).
5 The dictionary tolerates the spelling <ɖɩ> [ɖɪ`-∅] put out! (fire) to represent a dialect variant. This forms a heterophonic homograph with the imperative and bound perfective forms of the verb <ɖɩ> [ɖɪ´-∅] attach! ∼ attached.
6 The meaning here is not Get lost! in the idiomatic English sense of Go away! Rather, the infinitive means to lose oneself. The imperative is semantically unlikely, but we include it for the sake of completeness.
7 A more precise definition of this verb is ‘avoid a certain kind of food, follow a diet’.
8 The capital /A/ indicates that the vowel of this prefix varies according to the rules of vowel harmony.
9 This is one possible gloss for the aorist, but the tense may change depending on the context (here and elsewhere).
10 Dialect variant: <pakasɔ> [pàgásɔ`] (one day) may they pound ∼ avoid!
11 Dialect variant: <pakasɔ> [pàgásɔ´] (one day) may they plant!
12 The ubiquitous downstep that occurs once words are placed in context is beyond the scope of this paper and irrelevant to our argument (here and elsewhere).
13 In addition, [híú] means ten in the Lama canton, but twenty in the neighbouring Lassa canton. This dialect difference is all the more startling when one considers that Lama and Lassa dwellers share the same markets and frequently inter-marry.
14 Or, in some dialects: <pakasɔb> [pà-gá-sɔ`-∅] (one day) may they pound!, <pakasɔm> [pà-gá-sɔ`-∅] (one day) may they avoid!, <pakasɔw> [pà-gá-sɔ´-∅] (one day) may they plant!
15 This element of the design might be considered by some as not characteristic of a true experiment, since participants were not randomly selected from the total population of literate Kabiye speakers.
16 With hindsight, we realise that a scalar measure (number of years) would probably have been more revealing than a binary measure (yes/no) for the Diaspora variable. For this reason, we chose not to attempt to interpret any effect attributed to this variable in the one case where it did appear to have statistical significance.
17 Two recordings were missed from the Control group results for logistical reasons.
18 We hope to improve future experiment designs with the inclusion of a comprehension measure.
19 Graham and van Ginkel (Citation2014) rightly express caution about such comparisons, since they do not take into account differences between languages such as orthographic depth, word length, syllable structure and morphological complexity. More meaningful ways of comparing reading speed between languages with dissimilar structures would be welcome.
20 For both SpeedGains and AccuracyGains, relative gain was calculated as mean gain ÷ pre-test score × 100.
21 For both SpeedGains and AccuracyGains, absolute gain was calculated as mean gain ÷ 14 × 100.
22 Similarly, an anonymous reviewer suggested that a combination of the morphographic and tonographic strategies could be more effective than either strategy by itself. We did not include this possibility in our experiment out of a concern for simplicity of design.
23 The first half of this article is based on parts of the principal author’s PhD thesis undertaken at INALCO, Paris, while living and working in Togo as a member of SIL International in parallel with a wider program of literacy development and advocacy amongst the Kabiye people. A summary of the published version of this paper was presented at the 10th International Workshop on Writing Systems and Literacy, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 12–13 May 2016. The principal author is indebted to David Rowe and Neal Breakey for their help in developing the computerised corpora; to Steven Bird, Bernard Caron, Jean-Pierre Jaffré, Constance Kutsch Lojenga and David Share for illuminating discussions which have helped to shape the end result; to the Académie Kabiyè for the interest they have shown in this research; and to Pidassa Emmanuel, Pidassa Jonas and Pakoubètè Noël, without whose competence as research assistants it would never have been completed.