Prosodic Morphology

Abstract

Studies of Bantu languages like Chichewa have contributed to two core areas of prosodic morphology: minimality and reduplication. The first section of this chapter provides evidence for a disyllabic minimality constraint on Prosodic Words in Chichewa. The next sections turn to nominal and verbal reduplication. The reduplication patterns are illustrated in detail. As they have received some attention in the theoretical literature, issues raised by the reduplication patterns are reviewed, including a discussion of the reduplicative tone patterns. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the disyllabic syndrome in Chichewa.