Ikoma Verbal Tone

Abstract

Ikoma is a Bantu language spoken in the Mara Region (Western Tanzania). This paper describes the verbal tone system of Ikoma with the goal of widening our understanding of Bantu tonal grammars. Ikoma verbs do not show lexical tonal contrast, but the tense-aspect-mood system makes extensive use of melodic Hs, i.e. grammatical tones that are assigned according to specific rules to either the verbal stem or the inflectional morphemes of the verb. These melodic Hs, together with segmental formatives, mark tense-aspect-mood forms of Ikoma verbs. Although Ikoma has many tonal features common to other Eastern Bantu languages, some of its assignment rules for melodic Hs could be local innovations.