ASSIGNMENT # 1 This paper is concerned with the reduplication process in two dialects of FeFe Bamileke.

The shape of the reduplicant is CV and the reduplicative vowel has different shapes. It will be argued that the height of the vowel is relevant in reduplication process and reduplication process is done via copying and spreading in this language.

Data: Reduplication process displays different behaviors in Bafang and Petit Diboum dialects of FeFe Bamileke language. In both dialects, if the root has a high vowel, it is automatically copied as illustrated in (1). (1) Root pii sii tuu kuu Bafang pipii sisii tutuu kukuu Petit Diboum pipii sisii tutuu kukuu to profit to spoil to ??? to carve

However; in Bafang dialect if the root has a non-high vowel, the reduplicative vowel is always a high central vowel as in (2). (2) Root pen ko t za th Bafang ppen kko tt zza tth to accept to take to bargain to eat to be severe

On the other hand, in Petit Diboum dialect if the vowel in root is not high then the vowel in reduplication is sensitive to the environment and it has three different shapes. The reduplicative vowel is a high front vowel if the initial consonant and the vowel in the root are both front sounds. For instance, when ten is reduplicated the reduplicant has [i] as in titen because the consonant [t] and the following vowel [e] are both front sounds. More examples are given in (3). (3) Root jen t ten Petit Diboum jijen tit titen to cork to bargain to moan

The reduplicative vowel has the shape of a round high vowel [u] if the initial consonant of the root is either back or a labial and the following vowel is round. In other words, if the root has a round vowel, then this round vowel can transmit its rounding feature to the reduplicative vowel as long
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as the initial consonant of the root is either back such as [k] or labial such as [m] or [p], (4). Therefore, if the root is ko then the reduplicated form of it will be kuko. (4) Root mo kh ph Petit Diboum mumo kukh puph to kill time to be small to be afraid

Lastly, the reduplicative vowel is central high vowel if the initial consonant and the vowel of the root are not compatible in terms of their place feature; like a back consonant with a front vowel or a front consonant with a back vowel, etc. When the root th is reduplicated we get tth due to the fact that [t] in the root is a front sound while [] is a back sound1. (5) Root p en th to Petit Diboum p p en tth tto to commit suicide to go to be severe to punch

Unlike Bafang dialect, in Petit Diboum the root with labialized consonants undergoes the reduplication process as shown in (6). (6) a. b. c. d. e. Root p ii twii pwen kwt jwen
w

Petit Diboum pwipwii twitwii pwupwen kwukwt jwijwen to ???? to nail to howl to attach to buy

If the labialized root has a high vowel, it is automatically copied as in (6a) and (6b). On the other hand, if the root has a non-high vowel then the reduplicated vowel is [u] as in (6c) and (6d). However, (6e) does not conform to this pattern although the root has a non-high vowel [e]. The initial consonant of this root is a glide sound which is front and it seems that the frontness of this sound influences the shape of the reduplicated vowel, which is also a front high sound. Analysis

The reduplicated word kka seems to be a counterexample to this proposal if [a] is considered to be a back sound as [k] is. However, in this language [a] is a central vowel and in fact it is not specified for place feature. Therefore, in kka and zza the root vowel [a] cannot transmit its place feature to the reduplicative vowel since it does not have any place feature.

The data presented so far indicates that the vowel in reduplicant is always high but it differs in terms of its place feature which is sensitive to the consonant and the vowel of the root. I propose that the underlying representation (UR) of the vowel in the reduplicant is the central high vowel [] because when reduplicative copying or spreading is impossible, this vowel appears in the reduplicant by default. Remember that both in Bafang and Petit Diboum, reduplicative copying takes place if the root has a high vowel thus the reduplicative vowel is high front vowel [i] in these forms. When the root has a non-high vowel, reduplicative copying is not possible hence we get the default vowel [] in reduplicant in Bafang. However, in this case in Petit Diboum the reduplicative vowel has three different shapes [i], [u] and [] depending on which consonant is articulated with which vowel in the root; we get [i] in the reduplicant in the environment of coronal CV (part of the root), [u] in the environment of back/labial CV and [] in elsewhere. The occurrence of [i] and [u] implies that coronality and labiality spread into the reduplicative vowel. This supports the proposal that the UR of the vowel in the reduplicant is only specified for height but it is not specified for any place feature, therefore the reduplicative vowel is [i] or [u] when its place feature is filled in by either copying or spreading whereas it is [] if its place feature is not filled in by either copying or spreading operation. In fact, [] is the central high vowel in this language and central vowels are treated phonologically placeless because they do not carry the properties of place features such as labial, coronal and dorsal, and they cannot license their place feature. Therefore, the UR of the vowel in the reduplicant is only specified for height but it is not specified for any place feature automatically implies the placeless central high vowel [i] whose vowel-place node is empty, (7). (7) root C-Pl V-Pl Features and their organization: Lets look at the reduplication process more closely. As proposed here, reduplication in this language is done via copying and spreading. Copying takes place in the case of a high vowel in the root (8). The vowel is totally copied with all its features. (8) [+high]

In the case of a non-high vowel, copying is blocked in Bafang; in other words, the vowel in the root cannot be copied with all of its features therefore the place node of reduplicative vowel is empty as illustrated in (9). (9)

In Petit Diboum, in the case of a non-high vowel reduplication is done via spreading. The reduplicative vowels are still high but their place features are filled in by spreading. Spreading cannot be done randomly yet it exhibits sensitivity to intervening consonants. For instance, spreading of front vowels is blocked by dorsal or labial consonants while spreading of round vowels is blocked by coronal consonants. What this tells us is that spreading is allowed if the intervening consonant is compatible with the spread feature as in (10) and (11) whereas it is blocked when the intervening consonant is incompatible with the spread feature as in (12).
Alternatively, it may be assumed that compatibility of these features triggers the spreading whereas incompatibility does not; both assumptions give us the same result. In (10), the V-place feature of the coronal vowel [] can spread into the reduplicative vowel because the spread feature [coronal] is

compatible with the intervening consonant [t] which is also coronal, thus we get tit. (11) is similar to (10) in that the labial place feature of the vowel [o] can spread into the vowel in reduplicant because the place feature of the intervening consonant is compatible with the spread feature, [labial] hence we get mumo. This spreading can take place in the case of a back consonant because only front consonants block spreading of rounding feature. On the other hand, in (12) spreading cannot take place due to the incompatibility of the spread feature (which is [coronal] in (12a) and [labial] in (12b)) and the intervening consonant (which is [labial] in (12a) and [coronal] in (12b)), therefore in both cases we get the placeless high vowel [] as reduplicative vowel. The reduplication process in (3), (4) and (5) can be represented by (10), (11) and (12), respectively.

In the pattern with labialized roots, reduplication is also done via copying and spreading. As in (8), the vowel in the root is copied with its place features as shown in (13). However, spreading is different in this pattern because the spread feature comes from the V-place node of the consonant but not vowel. The reason for this is that labialized consonant has a secondary place (V-Place) node which is occupied by features of labial vowel and a consonant with a V-place node blocks the spreading of the following vowel thus only the labial V-place feature of the consonant spreads into the reduplicative vowel, (14). However, jwijwen seems to be a counterexample to what proposed in (14) for the reduplicative vowel is not the labial vowel [u] but it is coronal vowel [i], yet this can be accounted for if [j] is a glide. Remember that glides are like vocoids as shown in (15) so in this example the first V-place node of the glide which is [coronal] spreads into the reduplicative vowel (but not the secondary V-place node [labial]). Moreover, spreading is never blocked in this pattern because there is no intervening segment in this case since the V-place feature of consonant spreads, so the default placeless high vowel [] never can emerge as the reduplicative vowel.

Asymmetries: High vowels and central vowels behave asymmetrically in this language. High vowels in the root can be copied with all of their features into the reduplicative because they have matching heights. The property of height prevents intervening consonant to block the copying process. In other words, high vowels do not care intervening segments since they have matching heights. Non-high vowels, on the other hand, do not have matching height so reduplication process is sensitive to the intervening consonant. Central vowels are only specified for their height (high vs. low) but not for place because they are too weak to license their place feature, therefore their place feature is determined by the spread feature or copying.