Tonologie du mandinka du Pakaawu

Abstract

This article describes the tonal system of Pakaawu Mandinka. This Manding variety is characterized by the importance of syllable weight in the conditioning of tonal phenomena, and by systematic tonal alternations affecting the last syllable of words that differ in important respects from what has been described so far for other Manding varieties, leading to posit that words ending with a light syllable cannot have a basic tonal contour ending with two successive H-toned syllables, and that the possible basic tonal contours of verbal lexemes ending with a heavy syllable are different from those possible for the nominal lexemes having the same syllabic structure.

Keywords

• Mande
• Manding
• Mandinka
• tonal alternations
• syllable weight.