Larry M Hyman
Biographic Data
| ID | 198544 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Larry M Hyman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Larry M |
| FAMILY NAME | Hyman |
| SIGNATURE | HYMAN L M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Berkeley |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7676-6358 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 92 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 306 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 90 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Embedded Topic in French
In Hawkinson and Hyman (1974) four general strategies were illustrated which are used in the encoding and decoding of topical information: 1) word order (topical information usually comes early in the sentence); 2) case (topical information is usually associated with the more animate cases); 3) person (first and second persons are more topical or “topicworthy” than third person human, which is more topicworthy than third person non-human); and 4)…
The Limba verb stem (Thɔnkɔ dialect)
In this article we present a first description of the verb stem in the understudied Thɔnkɔ /t̪ɔ́ŋkɔ́/ dialect of Limba, a Niger-Congo language of Sierra Leone. In successive sections, we describe the phonological and morphological structure of the verb stem, which appears in two forms, stem1 and stem2, where the former is basic and the latter is required in progressive aspect and the imperative. Besides the root and the inflectional ending of ste…
Diminutivization and expressive lateralization in Tiania
In this paper we provide a descriptive account of the interacting morphological, phonological, and lexical factors determining how diminutives are marked in Tiania [etianíá], an understudied variant of the Central Kenya Bantu language Kimeru. As in other languages, diminutivization in Tiania can indicate a decrease in size or quantity or express positive endearment or negative scorn, depending on the noun and the context. We will show that diminu…
Beauty of construction, richness of expression
A History of the Hausa Language is the first book-length historical study of any language of the Chadic branch of Afro-Asiatic. It synthesizes and updates the scholarly output on the topic by Paul Newman, for many decades Hausa’s most productive and influential scholar. In this review article we discuss Newman’s most striking findings on the history of Hausa’s phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon, adding questions and critiques where called…
The Anterior-Passive Portmanteau Suffix in Tiania
In this brief paper we show that the Bantu language Tiania (a variety of Kimeru spoken in Kenya) has a curious gap in the expression of the passive. In the anterior tenses that take an /-eet-ɛ/ inflectional ending, it is not possible to use the otherwise general -w passive suffix (*-eet-w-ɛ). Instead, the inflectional final vowel /-i/ occurs as an anterior-passive “portmanteau”. We decribe and exemplify this gap in the verb system and speculate t…
Deverbal nominalization in Runyankore
In this paper I examine eleven different processes of deverbal nominalization in Runyankore, a Lacustrine Bantu language spoken in Uganda. After establishing both general and Runyankore-specific properties that distinguish nouns from verbs, I test each of these nominalizations against 13 phonological, morphological, and syntactic criteria. Although all eleven nominalization constructions can take the determiner-like initial vowel “augment”, and a…
High tone bumping in Runyankore
In this study I present the unusual properties of a rule of High Tone Bumping (HTB) which occurs in certain languages of the Rutara subgroup of Bantu. By this process, the final H tone of a word or clitic “bumps” a preceding H tone one syllable to the left, e.g. /kaawá=kí/ → kááwa=kí ‘what coffee?’ (as realized utterance-medially). The triggers consist of /H/ CV monosyllables as well as VCV words whose final syllable is /H/. Since these can inter…
Grammatical tone mapping in Ekegusii
A major issue in Bantu morphophonology is how to get the right tones in the right ‘cells’ in the verb paradigm. In many Bantu languages, grammatical tones are assigned to different positions in the verb stem depending on inflectional features of tense, aspect, mood (TAM), polarity and clause type: The same TAM may assign different tones (and different segmental allomorphs) in the affirmative vs. negative and in main vs. relative clauses. Although…
Tone systems
Word Prosody in Lung’Ie
Creole languages have generally not figured prominently in cross-linguistic studies of word-prosodic typology. In this paper, we present a phonological analysis of the prosodic system of Lung’Ie or Principense (ISO 639-3 code: pre), a Portuguese-lexifier creole language spoken in São Tomé and Príncipe. Lung’Ie has produced a unique result of the contact between the two different prosodic systems common in creolization: a stress-accent lexifier an…
Reminiscences of the last 50 years and the way forward
This article is a retrospective and a prospective look at SAL on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. The founding editors and various editors reflect on their experiences
Sub-Saharan Africa
This chapter maps out the tonal, accentual, and intonational properties of sub-Saharan African languages, focusing particularly on Niger-Congo. It distinguishes tone systems by the number of contrastive tone heights and contours and their tonal distributions, as well as grammatical functions of tone. It considers positional prominence effects potentially analysed as word accent and concludes with discussion of both intonational pitch and length m…
Tone Systems
This chapter presents tonal systems in all their variety, including relatively familiar and unfamiliar facets of tone. Among the parameters that can differ among languages with contrastive pitch levels are the number of phonological levels, the domain of tone features, the presence or absence of accentual properties, whether contour tones behave as single units or sequences of levels, and the presence of downstep and other register phenomena. Ton…
Phrase-level Prosodic Smothering in Makonde
This paper focuses on the issue of ‘prosodic idiosyncrasies’ as it arises in the Bantu language Makonde [kde]. Recently, Bennett, Harizanov, & Henderson (2018) proposed ‘prosodic smothering’, whereby prosodic requirements of an outer morpheme override (i.e. ‘smother’) prosodic properties of inner morphemes. We extend their analysis to phrase-level phonology in Makonde. Previous description has established that whether a nominal modifier forms a s…
Phonological Typology
Despite earlier work by Trubetzkoy, Jakobson and Greenberg, phonological typology is often underrepresented in typology textbooks. At the same time, most phonologists do not see a difference between phonological typology and cross-linguistic (formal) phonology. The purpose of this book is to bring together leading scholars to address the issue of phonological typology, both in terms of the unity and the diversity of phonological systems.
What tone teaches us about language
Why underlying representations
Phonology is a rapidly changing and increasingly varied field, having traveled quite some distance from its original structuralist and generative underpinnings. In this overview I address the status of underlying representations (URs) in phonology, which have been rejected by a number of researchers working in different frameworks. After briefly discussing the current state of phonology, I survey the arguments in favor of vs. against URs, conside…
What tone teaches us about language
In 'Tone: Is it different?' (Hyman 2011a), I suggested that 'tone is like segmental phonology in every way-only more so', emphasizing that there are some things that only tone can do. In this presidential address my focus extends beyond phonology, specifically addressing what tone tells us about the integration (vs. compartmentalization) of grammar. I discuss some rather striking examples that demonstrate problems for the strict separation of pho…
Introduction
The Conjoint/Disjoint Alternation in Bantu
This volume brings together descriptions and analyses of the conjoint/disjoint alternation, a typologically significant phenomenon found in many Bantu languages. The chapters provide in-depth documentation, comparative studies and theoretical analyses of the alternation from a range of Bantu languages, showing its crosslinguistic variation in constituent structure, morphology, prosody and information structure.
Does Gokana really have syllables? A postscript
After years of searching for evidence for the syllable in Gokana, I presented a possible argument in Hyman (2011) that the prosodic stem consists at most of two bimoraic syllables. In this note I show that there is an alternative account not involving syllables. Either way, Gokana makes very little reference to syllable structure, if at all
Tonal melodies in the Lulamogi verb
In this paper I describe the tonal melodies of Lulamogi, a small understudied language of the Luganda-Lusoga cluster. Although Lulamogi has lost lexical contrast on verbs, as in most Bantu languages, it has a rich set of verbal melodies that are assigned on the basis of tense, aspect, mood, polarity and clause type (e. g. main vs. relative). Although focus is on the stem tone melodies, other complications arise from preceding prefixes which may s…
Phrasal Construction Tonology
Although it is common for “replacive” tonal patterns to be assigned by word-level morphological constructions, it is far less common for such overriding schemas to be assigned by specific phrase-level syntactic constructions. Kalabari, an Ijo language of Nigeria, does exactly this: Whenever the noun is preceded by a modifier, it loses its tones and receives different “melodies” depending on the constructional word class of the preceding specifier…
On looking into words (and beyond)
On Looking into Words is a wide-ranging volume spanning current research into word structure and morphology, with a focus on historical linguistics and linguistic theory. The papers are offered as a tribute to Stephen R. Anderson, the Dorothy R. Diebold Professor of Linguistics at Yale, who is retiring at the end of the 2016-2017 academic year. The contributors are friends, colleagues, and former students of Professor Anderson, all important cont…
The role of borrowing in the justification of phonological grammars
A theory of phonological weight
Word-prosodic typology
Numerous proposals have been advanced as to how prosodic systems should be typologised. In this paper I distinguish two prototype systems, tone and stress accent, which, unlike systems analysed as 'pitch accent', have two inviolable, definitional properties: (i) obligatoriness (every word has at least one stress accent); (ii) syllable-dependency (the stress-bearing unit is necessarily the syllable). In contrast, the oft-cited criterion of culmina…
How (not) to do phonological typology
Auxiliary focus
This paper examines the different properties of what we have termed "auxiliary focus": the interaction between focus and the semantic features of tense. aspect, mood. and polarity. We argue that auxiliary focus has every property of its counterpart (termed "constituent focus") and that in order to account for focus of any type. we shall have to address the following four parameters: (a) realization of focus (prosodic, morphological. syntactic). (…
Theoretical Aspects of Bantu Tone
1. Semantic/pragmatic conditions on the tonology of the Kongo noun phrase: a diachronic hypothesis Jean Alain Blanchon 2. Optimality domains theory and Bantu tonology: a case study from Isixhosa and Shingazidja Farida Cassimjee and Charles W. Kisseberth 3. Expansion and retraction of high tone domains in Setswana Denis Creissels 4. Tonal domains and depressor consonants in Ikalanga Larry M. Hyman and Joyce T. Mathangwane 5. AUX in Bantu morpholog…
How Concrete Is Phonology
This paper presents evidence for abstract phonology—that is, a phonology that recognizes underlying segments which are not realized phonetically. Two underlying vowel segments /ᴐ/ and /ε/ are posited for Nupe (a Kwa language of Central Nigeria), both of which are realized as [a], therefore merging (‘absolutely neutralizing’) with /a/. Arguments based on pattern congruity, naturalness, and a ‘weak’ form of alternation are brought forth in support …
Directional asymmetries in the morphology and phonology of words, with special reference to Bantu
This article is concerned with two types of word-level asymmetries and their interaction: left-right asymmetries and stem-word asymmetries. Two left-right asymmetries are examined from a wide range of languages, one morphological (the predominance of suffixation over prefixation), one phonological (the preference for anticipatory over perseverative phonology). Since phonological processes are often triggered by features which originate in roots, …
The Niger-Congo Languages
The feature [Grave] in phonological theory
Luganda and the strict layer hypothesis
The ability of a language's syntax to determine the application vs . non-application of postlexical phonological rules has by now been firmly established in a number of languages. Such rules, which apply above the word level, have come especially from the prosodic aspects of phonological structure, e.g. effects of syllabification, stress-accent, duration and tone. Much of the interest in this syntax-phonology interaction has centred around two ge…
A New Approach to Tone in Luganda
Since McCawley 1970, the Luganda tone system has been well known for its property of allowing at most one H[igh] to L[ow] pitch drop per word. To account for this property, the underlying system has been analyzed both in terms of underlying accents of various kinds (e.g. diacritic) and in terms of underlying tone (e.g. H vs. 0). Most accentual proposals, however, fail to account for the fact that THREE marks are necessary to characterize the high…
Prosodic domains in Kukuya
Final vowel shortening in Luganda
A process by which long vowels are shortened in "final position" has been noted by a number of linguists, e.g. Ashton et al [1954], Tucker [1962], Cole [1967], Stevick [1969], Katamba [1974], Clements [1986]. It is generally assumed that this shortening is characteristic of word-ends such that the process can even serve as a criterion for phonological word division. Despite the attention given to final vowel shortening (FVS), the relevant facts h…
Word domains and downstep in Bamileke-Dschang
The theoretical significance of the Bamileke-Dschang tone system has been evident since Tadadjeu (1974) first pointed out the unusual tonal oppositions found in this language. Whereas the majority of languages with tonal downstep permit this entity ( ! ) only between high (or, perhaps more generally, only between non-low) tones, Dschang contrasts H and ! H after both high (H) and low (L) tones and also contrasts L and ! L tones as well. The detai…
A Grammatical Description of the Engenni Language
This thesis presents a systematic description of the grammar of the Engenni language. The first chapter gives a general introduction to the Engenni people and language and describes the linguistic model which is used for the analysis. The phonology of the language including the main features of the tonal system, and the transcription used in the thesis are outlined in Chapter Two. Chapter Three describes the features of the largest unit in the gr…
The natural history of verb-stem reduplication in Bantu
In this study I present a comparative and historical analysis of "frequentative" Bantu verb-stem reduplication, many of whose variants have been described for a number of Eastern and Southern Bantu languages. While some languages have full-stem compounding, where the stem consists of the verb root plus any and all suffixes, others restrict the reduplicant to two syllables. Two questions are addressed: (i) What was the original nature of reduplica…
Where's phonology in typology
As is well known, phonological typology was a central concern to many structuralists (Trubetzkoy 1939, Jakobson 1968, Hockett 1955) and also figured centrally in many treatments of typology in general, e.g., Greenberg (1957, 1978). On the other hand, there has been a tendency for subsequent discussions and textbooks on linguistic typology to underrepresent and even ignore phonology, e.g., Whaley (1997). This is unfortunate not only because phonol…
On the Representation of Tone in Peñoles Mixtec
This paper presents a systematic account of the tone system of Peñoles Mixtec (PM). While /H/ and /L/ tones are unambiguously needed in underlying representations, we argue that the third tone is not /M/ but must rather be underspecified as /∅/. Perhaps the most interesting of the several arguments presented is that strings of /∅/ tone‐bearing units are invisible to a process which deletes the second /L/ of a /L‐∅*‐L/ sequence. We propose that al…
Explorations in dependency phonology
What tone teaches us about language
In 'Tone: Is it different?' (Hyman 2011a), I suggested that 'tone is like segmental phonology in every way-only more so', emphasizing that there are some things that only tone can do. In this presidential address my focus extends beyond phonology, specifically addressing what tone tells us about the integration (vs. compartmentalization) of grammar. I discuss some rather striking examples that demonstrate problems for the strict separation of pho…
Kuki-Thaadow
UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2007) Kuki-Thaadow: An African Tone System in Southeast Asia Larry M. Hyman 1. Introduction Since the publication of Pike (1948), it has often been assumed that tone systems fall into two types: (i) Chinese, Vietnamese, and nearby languages of East and Southeast Asia are said to have “contour tone systems” in which the various combinations of rises and falls function as complex units. (ii) African and most…
Tone
UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2007) • DRAFT prepared for The Handbook of Phonological Theory, 2nd Ed., Blackwell (John Goldsmith, Jason Riggle & Alan Yu, eds) • Comments welcome Tone: Is it Different? Larry M. Hyman University of California, Berkeley Introduction Except for a brief period in the late 1970s and early 1980s, tone has generally fallen outside the central concerns of theoretical phonology. During that period, the concepts …
What is Phonological Typology
UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2014) What is Phonological Typology? Larry M. Hyman University of California, Berkeley Paper presented at the Workshop on Phonological Typology, University of Oxford, Somerville College, August 11-13, 2013 “Whatever typology is, it is on a roll at the moment and likely to continue.” (Nichols 2007: 236) Introduction The purpose of this paper is to address the question of what phonological typology is, can, …
More on post-nasal devoicing
Two kinds of moraic nasal in Ciyao
A problematic issue in a number of Bantu languages concerns the phonological analysis of "preconsonantal nasality", i.e., the question of whether NC entities should be analyzed as single prenasalized consonants or as sequences of nasal + (homorganic) consonant. In this paper, the authors examine two kinds of moraic nasal---one syllabic, one not-in Ciyao, a Bantu language spoken in East Africa. They further demonstrate that there is a third type o…
How Concrete Is Phonology
This paper presents evidence for abstract phonology—that is, a phonology that recognizes underlying segments which are not realized phonetically. Two underlying vowel segments /ᴐ/ and /ε/ are posited for Nupe (a Kwa language of Central Nigeria), both of which are realized as [a], therefore merging (‘absolutely neutralizing’) with /a/. Arguments based on pattern congruity, naturalness, and a ‘weak’ form of alternation are brought forth in support …
The feature [Grave] in phonological theory
Nupe Three Years Later
In this reply to Harms 1973, a critical look is taken at Harms' arguments against ‘abstract phonology’. Particular attention is focused on his unwarranted dismissal of the data from borrowing. In addition, it is argued that considerations of simplicity or economy do not provide any significant insights into the problem at hand. Finally, a modified approach to Nupe palatalization and labialization is outlined
Patricia Carrell, A transformational grammar of Igbo. London
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Phonology
Papers in African Linguistics in Honor of Wm. E. Welmers
A Grammatical Description of the Engenni Language
This thesis presents a systematic description of the grammar of the Engenni language. The first chapter gives a general introduction to the Engenni people and language and describes the linguistic model which is used for the analysis. The phonology of the language including the main features of the tonal system, and the transcription used in the thesis are outlined in Chapter Two. Chapter Three describes the features of the largest unit in the gr…
Aghem Grammatical Structure
Studies in Stress and Accent
The Representation of Nasality in Gokana
L'expansion bantoue
Form and substance in language universals
On the Weightlessness of Syllable Onsets
Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1984)
Studies in Kalenjin Nominal Tonology
Auxiliary focus
This paper examines the different properties of what we have termed "auxiliary focus": the interaction between focus and the semantic features of tense. aspect, mood. and polarity. We argue that auxiliary focus has every property of its counterpart (termed "constituent focus") and that in order to account for focus of any type. we shall have to address the following four parameters: (a) realization of focus (prosodic, morphological. syntactic). (…
A theory of phonological weight
Word domains and downstep in Bamileke-Dschang
The theoretical significance of the Bamileke-Dschang tone system has been evident since Tadadjeu (1974) first pointed out the unusual tonal oppositions found in this language. Whereas the majority of languages with tonal downstep permit this entity ( ! ) only between high (or, perhaps more generally, only between non-low) tones, Dschang contrasts H and ! H after both high (H) and low (L) tones and also contrasts L and ! L tones as well. The detai…
The Accent of Extended Word Structures in Tokyo Standard Japanese
Le systeme tonal du dioula d'Odienne
A Theory of Phonological Weight
With the reissue of this treatise, an instrumental step in the development of both moraic phonology and prosodic morphology becomes available again. This text presents a comprehensive treatment of syllable weight in phonology and of its consequences for weight-related phenomena, proposing that the basic tier consists of weight unit equivalent to the morals of traditional synchronic and diachronic phonology. Turning to the unusual Golana language …
Luganda and the strict layer hypothesis
The ability of a language's syntax to determine the application vs . non-application of postlexical phonological rules has by now been firmly established in a number of languages. Such rules, which apply above the word level, have come especially from the prosodic aspects of phonological structure, e.g. effects of syllabification, stress-accent, duration and tone. Much of the interest in this syntax-phonology interaction has centred around two ge…
Prosodic domains in Kukuya
Underspecification and vowel height transfer in Esimbi
Since the advent of distinctive feature theory, few issues have received as many interpretations as the phonological representation of vowel height. Vowel height features have been denned acoustically and articulatorily, have allowed three, four or five distinct heights, have been unary, binary and n-ary, and have been on a single tier, multiple tiers or in various head-dependency relationships. It is fair to say that there is no consensus on how…
The Languages of Ghana
Syllables and morpheme integrity in Kinande reduplication
Within the expanding framework of non-linear morphology, no wordformation process has sparked more interest than reduplication. Once relegated to a secondary status with a few examples, reduplication has now arrived centre stage as a testing ground for alternative theories of multitiered morphology and phonology. The innovative work of McCarthy (1981) and Marantz (1982) on this subject has laid the groundwork for subsequent formal treatments of r…
Linguistics (70 works) · Philosophy (67 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (58 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (47 works) · Computer Science (39 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (33 works) · History (26 works) · Psychology (25 works) · Mathematics (24 works) · Phonology (21 works)