| Title: | Bantu-Ubangi language contact and the origin of labial-velar stops in Lingombe (Bantu, C41, DRC) |
| Authors: | Koen Bostoen, Jean-Pierre Donzo |
| Publication: | Diachronica, 30 (4), p. 435-468 |
| p-ISSN: | 0176-4225 |
| e-ISSN: | 1569-9714 |
| Publisher: | John Benjamins Publishing Company |
| Place: | Amsterdam |
| Year: | 2013 |
| Abstract: | We examine the origin of labial-velar stops in Lingombe, a language from the northern Bantu borderland. Labial-velar stops are uncommon in Bantu. It is generally believed that they were acquired through contact with neighbouring non-Bantu speakers, in casu Ubangi languages. We show that the introduction of labial-velar stops in Lingombe is indeed a contact-induced change, but one which could not happen through superficial contact. It involved advanced bilingualism, whereby Ubangi speakers left a phonological substrate in the Bantu language to which they shifted. Once adopted, these loan phonemes underwent a further language-internal extension to native vocabulary, a process known as ‘hyperadaptation’. Both conventional sound symbolism and the deliberate attempt to differentiate the speech of one’s own social group were important for the further proliferation of labial-velar stops in Lingombe. This type of conscious analogical sound change is at odds with Neogrammarian principles of regular sound change. |
| Key words: | Ubangi; language shift; language contact; Bantu; deliberate analogical sound change; labial-velar stops; substratum influence; Lingombe |
| Language: | English |
| DOI: | 10.1075/dia.30.4.01bos |
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