scholarly journals Feeling the Beat in an African Tone Language: Rhythmic Mapping Between Language and Music

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn H. Franich ◽  
Ange B. Lendja Ngnemzué
Keyword(s):  
Text Setting ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Tone Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Grassfields Bantu ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Stem Position

Text-setting patterns in music have served as a key data source in the development of theories of prosody and rhythm in stress-based languages, but have been explored less from a rhythmic perspective in the realm of tone languages. African tone languages have been especially under-studied in terms of rhythmic patterns in text-setting, likely in large part due to the ill-understood status of metrical structure and prosodic prominence asymmetries in many of these languages. Here, we explore how language is mapped to rhythmic structure in traditional folksongs sung in Medʉmba, a Grassfields Bantu language spoken in Cameroon. We show that, despite complex and varying rhythmic structures within and across songs, correspondences emerge between musical rhythm and linguistic structure at the level of stem position, tone, and prosodic structure. Our results reinforce the notion that metrical prominence asymmetries are present in African tone languages, and that they play an important coordinative role in music and movement.

scholarly journals Uncovering Tonal and Temporal Correlates of Phrasal Prominence in Medʉmba

2019 ◽  
pp. 002383091988799 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Franich
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Relative Timing ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Temporal Alignment ◽  
Tone Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Grassfields Bantu ◽  
Tonal Patterns ◽  
Prosodic Boundaries ◽  
Phonological Phrase

Characterizing prosodic prominence relations in African tone languages is notoriously difficult, as typical acoustic cues to prominence (changes in F0, increases in intensity, etc.) can be difficult to distinguish from those which mark tonal contrasts. The task of establishing prominence is further complicated by the fact that tone, an important cue to syllable prominence and prosodic boundaries cross-linguistically, plays many roles in African languages: tones often signal lexical contrasts, can themselves be morphemes, and can also interact in key ways with prosody. The present study builds on phonological generalizations about tonal patterns in Medʉmba, a Grassfields Bantu language, and uses the speech cycling paradigm to investigate relative timing of syllables varying in phrase-level prominence. Specifically, we investigate timing asymmetries between syllables hypothesized to occur at the edge of a phonological phrase, which carry a high phrase accent, and those in phrase-medial position, which do not. Results indicate significant differences in the temporal alignment of accented versus non-accented syllables, with accented syllables occurring significantly closer to positions established as prominence-attracting in previous speech cycling research. We show that these findings cannot be attributed to differences in tone alone. Findings demonstrate the importance of relative temporal alignment as a correlate of prosodic prominence. Findings also point to increased duration as a phonetic property which distinguishes between syllables bearing phrasal prominence from those which do not.

Stress, Meter, and Text-Setting

2020 ◽  
pp. 656-675
Author(s):  
Paul Kiparsky
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Text Setting ◽  
Abstract Form ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Verbal Art ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
Theory Of Constraint ◽  
Rhythmic Structures

Verse meter organizes prominence-marking categories into isochronous and binary hierarchical rhythmic structures, subject to principles that are rooted in the faculty of language, stylized in verbal art, and manifested in a generalized and more abstract form in music and dance. This chapter outlines a theory of constraint-based generative metrics, and sketches out how it represents metrical structure and derives the typology of metrical systems. It illustrates the analysis of stress-based meters with Shakespeare’s blank verse, and it reviews the typology of quantitative meters with a view to showing that they have rhythmical properties and that they are built from the same foot types that are familiar from the phonological theory of stress. A final section discusses ways in which different musical traditions reconcile conflicts between phonology, verse meter, and musical rhythm in text-setting.

scholarly journals Evidence for Metrical Prominence Asymmetries in Medʉmba

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn H Franich
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Speech Timing ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Grassfields Bantu

Headedness has played a crucial role in the characterization of metrical structure since the earliest proposals for its existence, with definitions of headedness typically relying on the notion of relative syllable prominence: heads are said to bear relatively greater prominence than nonheads. But what counts as prominent for the sake of headedness varies widely across languages, particularly where evidence for stress is weak or absent. The present work seeks to look beyond acoustic evidence for headedness by conceptualizing metrical prominence in terms of its coordinative role in speech timing. Here, we examine timing of metrically-prominent syllables in Medʉmba, a Grassfields Bantu language spoken in Cameroon. Medʉmba has no phonetic evidence of stress, but displays evidence of metrical prominence asymmetries at the word level. We use the speech cycling paradigm (Cummins & Port 1998) to compare results regarding the timing of metrically prominent syllables in Medʉmba with those from previous work on stressed syllables in English and accented syllables in Japanese and Korean, showing that a unified notion of metrical prominence can be applied across languages. 

scholarly journals On the aspectual system of Wushi (Babessi), a Ring Grassfields Bantu language of Cameroon

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-65
Author(s):  
Liliane Hodieb
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Time ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Grassfields Bantu ◽  
Past Tenses

One of the characteristics of Bantu languages, including Grassfields Bantu languages, is their multiple time distinctions. Within the Ring Grassfields group, multiple tenses are also well attested. For example, Aghem has three past and two future tenses (Anderson 1979), Babanki has four past tenses and three future tenses (Akumbu & Fogwe 2012), as well as Lamnso’ (Yuka 2012). Oku has three past tenses and two future tenses (Nforbi 1993) and Babungo has four past and two future tenses (Schaub 1985). These tenses represent different degrees of remoteness in time such as hordienal, immediate, distant, etc. However, in spite of the indisputable lexical unity of Ring Grassfields Bantu languages (Stallcup 1980; Piron 1997), Wushi strikingly stands apart: it does not mark tense morphologically. As a matter of fact, the aspectual system of Wushi is based on five aspects: perfective, imperfective, retrospective or anterior, potential, and the distal or dissociative marker kə̀ that is analyzed in the light of Botne & Kershner (2008). This paper sets out to analyze these verb forms.

Bende

2020 ◽  
pp. 494-506
Author(s):  
Yuko Abe
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Complex Conjugation ◽  
Conjugation System ◽  
Tone Language ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Noun Classes ◽  
Western Tanzania

Bende (Sibhende [síβendé]) is a Bantu language (Niger-Congo phylum) spoken mainly in the Katavi region in western Tanzania, known as F12 in Guthrie’s reference classification. It is sometimes called Tongwe-Bende, since both ethnic groups are closely related linguistically, not to mention their cultural common ground. The number of Bende speakers is estimated to be 41,490 by Language of Tanzania Project (Chuo kikuu cha DSM 2009). Bende is a tone language with ten vowels (five each short and long) and nineteen consonants. Eighteen noun classes are listed for nouns, whereas verbs have rich morphological derivations and a complex conjugation system consisting of twenty-five patterns for simple affirmatives and nineteen patterns for simple negatives.

Melodic Language and Linguistic Melodies: Text Setting in Igbo

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Carter-Ényì ◽  
Quintina Carter-Ényì
Keyword(s):  
Vocal Music ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
National Endowment ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Text Setting ◽  
Field Recordings ◽  
Tone Languages ◽  
Morehouse College ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
19Th And 20Th Century

There are no other sense-altering aspects of culture that equate with language’s effect on aural perception (hearing). Increased sensitivity to pitch is a cognitive characteristic in the 60% of the world’s ethnolinguistic cultures that speak tone languages (Yip 2002). Lexical tone is a pitch contrast akin to the contour of a melody that distinguishes between words. An example is [íké] (high-high, like a repeated note) and [íkè] (high-low, like a falling interval) which forms a minimal pair between the Ìgbò words for strength and buttocks. Being a tone language speaker also impacts ways of musicking, especially singing. This is the case in sub-Saharan Africa, where “language and music are tied, as if by an umbilical cord” (Agawu 2016:113). A favorite tool for evangelism among 19th- and 20th-century European missionaries in West Africa was to translate European hymn texts into the language of the missionized and teach them to sing the translation to the original hymn tune. An example included in the video is “All hail the power of Jesus’ name” which is often sung to the Coronation hymn tune by Oliver Holden (1792). Unfortunately, early missionaries would translate the texts metrically (to preserve the number of syllables) but had no understanding of the necessary tone. Because of the link between lyrics and melody in tone languages, composers of vocal music in tone languages have argued that one should not compose vocal music in isolation from text or vice-versa. In 1974, Laz Ekwueme, a doctoral advisee of Allen Forte, published an article on Ìgbò text setting and harmonization. In addition to parallel harmony, Ekwueme recommends staggering text (as in European polyphony or African call-and-response) and using alliterative sounds (vocables and onomatopoeia) in subordinate voices. Drawing on field recordings gathered in Nigeria from 2011–2020 by the authors, and commentary by Ekwueme and Dr. Christian Onyeji, this SMT-V article studies the phenomenon of “tone-and-tune” in Ìgbò culture. Compositions by Laz Èkwúèmé, Sam Òjúkwū, Christian Ònyéji, Joshua Úzọ̀ígwē Commentary by Laz Èkwúèmé, Christian Ònyéjì Performances by Ogene Uzodinma, Laz Ekwueme Chorale, Agbani-Nguru Ikorodo, Lagos City Chorale, Elizabeth Ime Ònyéjì, University of Lagos Choir, Morehouse College Glee Club Video scores by Ebruphiyor Omodoro Field recordings and interviews are provided by the Africana Digital Ethnography Project (ADEPt), with support from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Fulbright Program, and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

Stress-Timed vs. Syllable-Timed Music? A Comment on Huron and Ollen (2003)

2003 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANIRUDDH D. PATEL ◽  
JOSEPH R. DANIELE
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Method ◽  
Musical Rhythm ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Musical Rhythms ◽  
Linguistic Influences

Linguists have long distinguished between ““stress-timed”” and ““syllable-timed”” languages. Using new methods for comparing rhythm in language and music (A. D. Patel & J. R. Daniele, 2003) and new data on musical rhythm from a range of nations (D. Huron & J. Ollen, 2003), one can begin to address whether stress-timed and syllable-timed languages are associated with distinctive musical rhythms. In conducting such studies, it is important to be aware of historical influences on musical rhythm that might run counter to linguistic influences. An empirical method for studying historical influences is proposed.

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