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Floating quantity in Shilluk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Bert Remijsen  and
Otto Gwado Ayoker
Bert Remijsen*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Otto Gwado Ayoker*
Affiliation:
Shilluk Language Council
*
[b.remijsen@ed.ac.uk]
[ottoayoker@gmail.com]
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Abstract

It is well known that floating tones can associate both within a word and across a word boundary. In relation to floating quantity, however, there is extensive evidence for association within a word, but not across a word boundary. This research report presents evidence for the latter configuration in Shilluk, a West Nilotic language. Shilluk noun forms may end in floating quantity, and this quantity is realized only on following vocalic prefixes, that is, across a word boundary. The investigation includes a descriptive analysis of the phenomenon and a production study based on data from ten Shilluk speakers.

Keywords

floating quantitymoraphonological weightcompensatory lengtheningfusional morphologyprosody

Information

Type
Research Report
Information
Language , Volume 96 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. e135 - e156
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

We thank the speakers who took part in this study: Thon Deng Alibek, Teresa Akic Awanh, Roda Oman Ajubek, Rita Marson Ocway, Ogaac Bol Acyen, Nyayath Kulang Deng, Marko Ayik Arop, Maria Bocay Onak, Daniel Abodhok Apokwach. We are also grateful to SIL South Sudan for sponsoring research visits to South Sudan. Special thanks go to Larry Hyman, who offered many insightful comments in the final stages of the investigation. Earlier versions of this paper were presented as keynote talks at the Annual Meeting on Phonology (University of California, San Diego, 5–7 October 2018) and the 50th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (University of British Columbia, 22–25 May 2019). We gratefully acknowledge the Leverhulme Trust, which supported this research financially through the research grant ‘A descriptive analysis of the Shilluk language’ (RPG-2015-055).

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