This project takes up the currently topical issue of the phonology-syntax interface (Inkelas and Zec 1990, Truckenbrodt 1999, Bo koviè 2001, Adger 2002). The study of the phonology-syntax interface is in its infancy and has predominantly been tackled from a syntactic point of view which in turn permeates a production based model of the grammar. This project, in line with proposals made at the word level in my PhD thesis, largely influenced by Government Phonology (Kaye 1989), pursues a perception based model of the grammar where phonology acts as an aid to processing and parsing and hence acts as an instruction to possible syntactic constituents. Currently, phonologists know comparatively little about the range of phenomenon that can be encompassed by rules of this interface compared with what for example is known about word internal phonological rules. The need at the moment is therefore, in conjunction with a perception based model, to advance hypotheses on the basis of data that are, from the language-internal point of view, rich and complex, but are also from the cross-linguistic point of view diverse. Bantu languages in this context provide the essential challenge for the discernment of patterns that can join the so far disjointed bits of information on the phonology-syntax interface to a comprehensible whole. In addition, in as far as the focus remains on the syntax in the study of this interface the results remain largely inconclusive since no counter evidence is provided to challenge existing hypotheses. By highlighting the relation between the phonological and syntactic components of the grammar this project furthers our understanding of the operation of the language faculty as a whole and will be of interest to a wide audience of both theoretical and descriptive linguists.
The following research questions form a core part of the research project. * What are the principal stages in the mapping from phonology to syntax? Do the constituents in the Prosodic Hierarchy have any relevance for Bantu? How do we determine what constituents there are in the phrase? Do factors like focus and topic play a role in prosodic structure formation? Are the prosodic constituents autonomous? What role does the rate of speech have on prosodic boundaries? * How can phonological phrasing be represented in Government Phonology? This will involve critical analysis of the representation of supra-segmental structure in particular intonation, tone and pitch accent of the predominantly tonal Bantu languages. * What is the mapping relation between phonology and syntax in Bantu, assuming some non-phonologically motivated syntactic structure? With the exclusion of a one-to-one mapping, either prosodic constituents match or overlap syntactic constituents, or in addition to the latter two options, may be smaller than the smallest syntactic constituent. The choice of either is crucial for the status of the foot and the syllable as units of the Prosodic Hierarchy. |
