UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2012) Complementarity and Opacity: [l] ~ [d] in Bantu Larry M. Hyman & Sharon Inkelas University of California, Berkeley Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Chicago, January 6-9, 2000 This paper analyzes a challenging continuum of [l] ~ [d] complementarity in three Bantu languages and documents an apparently unknown type of opacity avoidance. As seen in (1), in many—possibly even most Bantu languages, a liquid [l] or [r] alternates with [d] postnasally: In many Bantu languages a liquid [l] or [r] alternates with [d], e.g. postnasally in Yaka a. b. lu-laki lu-lala lu-luungu laand-a leend-a lok-a ‘tongue’ ‘twig’ ‘peppercorn’ ‘follow’ ‘catch up with’ ‘bewitch’ n-daki n-dala n-duungu n-daand-a n-deend-a n-dok-a ‘tongues’ ‘twigs’ ‘peppercorns’ ‘follow me’ ‘catch up with me’ ‘bewitch me’ (Ruttenberg 1971) (-a = inflectional suffix) (Also common in Bantu: B ~ mb; y ~ nj; ƒ ~ Ng) (1a) shows the alternation in nouns, while (1b) establishes the same l/d relationship in verbs. Much less studied, and particularly relevant for our study, in (2), in some Bantu languages, the occurrence of [d] vs. [l] may also be conditioned by the following vowel (or glide), e.g. before /i/ vs. /e, a, u, o/ in Yaka: a. dil-a ‘cry’ dy-a ‘eat’ = /Li-a/ b. lel-a lal-a lul-a lol-a ‘rock (baby)’ ‘get lost’ ‘blame, scold’ ‘punish’ Thus, in (2a) we see that [d] occurs before the high front vowel /i/ and the glide [y], while (2b) shows an initial [l] before the other four vowels in the language. Besides this complementary distribution within morphemes, Yaka also shows alternations of [l] and [d] when suffixes begin with [i], as in (3). a. baal-a ‘become hard’ b. sik-a suk-a sak-a sek-a sok-a ‘shoot’ ‘come to an end’ ‘fish (with net)’ ‘brush’ ‘pull out from’ c. baad-is-a baad-il-a baad-idi sik-idi suk-idi sak-idi sek-ele sok-ele ‘harden’ (causative) ‘become hard for/at’ (applicative) ‘become hard’ (perfective) (perfective) (perfective) (perfective) (perfective) [with vowel height (perfective) harmony] In (3a), the verb root -baal- becomes baad- when it is followed by causative -is-, applicative -il- or perfective -idi. As seen in (3b) the prefective in realized [idi] when the preceding vowel is /i/, /u/ or /a/. In (3c), however, when the preceding vowel is /e/ or /o/, there is a vowel height harmony and the perfective suffix is realized -ele. In response to this perfect complementarity, a single underlying consonant can be set up, for example, as the underspecified capital /L/ in (4), which, as seen, becomes [d] before the vowel /i/ (and after [n]), but is elsewhere realized as [l]: Yaka underspecified /L/ → (elsewhere) [d] / ___ i (also: / n ___ ) [l] (Only 1 exception out of 3942 entries in CBOLD version of Ruttenberg (1971): ma-deeso ‘beans’)