Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Koen Bostoen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

UGent Centre for Bantu Studies, Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Interests: Bantu; historical-comparative linguistics

Dr. Sara Pacchiarotti

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

UGent Centre for Bantu Studies, Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Interests: Bantu; Niger-Congo; Chibchan; historical phonology; language change

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Languages aims at showcasing new and original research on the diachrony and typology of Bantu languages in the broadest possible way. It welcomes historical-comparative and/or typological studies dealing with lexicon, phonology, morphology, syntax, and/or information structure in any subset of Bantu languages, including so-called ‘Wide Bantu’ languages from the Bantu homeland region in the border area of present-day Cameroon and Nigeria. Comparative studies engaging with first-hand data from lesser-known languages are particularly appreciated. The volume is published in English, but sufficiently innovative and well designed studies originally written in French or Portuguese can also be considered for inclusion.

Tentative Completion Schedule
Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 December 2023
Notification of Abstract Acceptance: 15 January 2024
Full Manuscript Deadline: 15 July 2024

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors ([email protected] and/or [email protected]) or the Languages editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors to ensure proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

Prof. Dr. Koen Bostoen
Dr. Sara Pacchiarotti
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Bantu
convergence
divergence
diachrony
genealogical classification
grammaticalization
language contact
nominal morphosyntax
reconstruction
sound change
typology
TAMP
verbal derivation

Published Papers (2 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

17 pages, 4261 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Phonetic and Phonological Research in Mai-Ndombe: A Few Preliminary Notes on Rhotics and Double-Articulations

by Lorenzo Maselli

Languages 2024, 9(3), 114; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9030114 - 21 Mar 2024

Viewed by 687

Abstract

Mai-Ndombe is one of the southwestern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ecologically, it can be characterised as a transition zone between a moist, broadleaf rainforest ecotone in the north and shrubland/savannah areas in the south. Linguistically, Mai-Ndombe, along with the rest of southwestern Congo all the way down to the border with Angola, is among the least well-surveyed areas of the planet. Within its borders, several different Bantu (Guthrie’s zones B, C, and H) varieties are spoken, near the newly identified West-Coastal Bantu homeland, itself a hot spot of phonological diversity unlike any other in the West-Coastal Bantu domain. Phonetic and phonological accounts of its languages are particularly lacking (apart from impressionistic “grey literature” reports which seldom comply with the standards of present-day phonetic and phonological inquiry). This gap is particularly concerning as Mai-Ndombe is also an area of great anthropological diversity, with numerous hunter-gatherer Twa communities living deep in its eastern and northern forests. Their lects, collectively known as Lotwa, are severely endangered, as they face the threats of social stigma and the growing use of national and regional linguae francae. As part of the author’s doctoral project (still underway), phonetic data were collected in the area between May and July 2021, specifically in Inongo (the provincial capital) and Nioki. The present contribution is intended as a brief note on the relevant results produced so far, mainly bearing on the analysis of some phenomena of interest in the languages of the region, including Sakata rhotics and labial–velars and the presence of unusual trilling/flapping realisations in Lotwa. The picture yielded by this preliminary exploration is one of striking phonetic and phonological variation, possibly pointing to earlier stages of greater linguistic diversity than previously supposed. It is also tentatively proposed that one of the specific characteristics of the phenomena attested in the present contribution is that they tend to affect more than one language at a time, working rather as areal “phonetic possibilities” than language-bound outcomes of traditional sound change rules; in this sense, it is suggested that in-depth documentation and description can help broaden our understanding of how language contact works in highly multilingual contexts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Developments on the Diachrony and Typology of Bantu Languages)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

27 pages, 2522 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reflexive Morphology in the Kikongo Language Cluster: Variation and Diachrony

by Sebastian Dom

Languages 2024, 9(3), 113; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9030113 - 20 Mar 2024

Viewed by 923

Abstract

This paper provides a comparative and diachronic account of reflexive morphology in the Kikongo language cluster, a genealogically closely related group of 40+ West Coastal Bantu languages. This study is based on data from 34 grammatical descriptions from 1659 to 2017 and fieldwork data collected in 2012 and 2015. Previous studies have shown that Kikongo languages, despite being closely related to each other, demonstrate extensive phonological and morphological variation. This is also the case for reflexive morphology. First, six different reflexive prefixes are attested in the database. These are, in alphabetical order, di- (with cognate li-), ké-, ki-, ku-, lu- and a vocalic morpheme variably written as i-, ii- or yi-. Second, while most Kikongo languages have one reflexive prefix, some descriptions report the use of two or more different prefix forms in a single language. Languages with multiple reflexive prefixes fall into two groups: one group has different prefixes in free alternation, while the overall verbal construction is claimed to determine which prefix is used in the other group. Following an overview of the formal variation, I discuss the possible origins of the various reflexive prefixes. One hypothesis assumes that the vocalic prefix is inherited from Proto-Kikongo, the most recent common ancestor of the Kikongo languages. A second hypothesis relates the origin of some reflexive prefixes to object indexes of various noun classes, in particular, noun classes 5, 7 and 11. A third hypothesis suggests that in some Kikongo languages, the vocalic reflexive prefix became fused with other pre-stem verbal morphology and developed into ku- and ki-. A fourth hypothesis proposes the development of the reflexive prefix ké- from an auxiliary. These four hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, and I discuss how multiple diachronic scenarios are necessary to account for the full range of variation of reflexive morphology in the Kikongo language cluster. It is proposed that the distribution of di-/li- and ki- is contact-induced through borrowing, both between different Kikongo languages and between Kikongo and non-Kikongo languages. I tentatively reconstruct the vocalic reflexive prefix *i- to Proto-Kikongo. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Developments on the Diachrony and Typology of Bantu Languages)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Recent Developments on the Diachrony and Typology of Bantu Languages

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Keywords

Published Papers (2 papers)

Research

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI