Luganda phonology

A notable feature of Luganda phonology is its geminate consonants and distinctions between long and short vowels. Speakers generally consider consonantal gemination and vowel lengthening to be two manifestations of the same effect, which they call simply "doubling" or "stressing".

Unlike some other Bantu languages, there is no tendency in Luganda for penultimate vowels to become long; in fact they are very frequently short, as in the city name Kampala, pronounced káámpálâ, in which the second vowel is short in Luganda.

## Vowels

All five vowels have two forms: long and short. The distinction is phonemic but can occur only in certain positions. After two consonants, the latter being a semivowel, all vowels are long. The quality of a vowel is not affected by its length.

## Consonants

The table below gives the consonant set of Luganda, grouping voiceless and voiced consonants together in a cell where appropriate, in that order.

Apart from /l~r/, /w/ and /j/, all consonants can also be prenasalised (prefixed with a nasal stop). This consonant will be [m], [n], [ɲ] [ɱ] or [ŋ] according to the place of articulation of the consonant which follows, and belongs to the same syllable as that consonant.

## Tone

Luganda is a tonal language, with three tones: high (á), low (à) and falling (â). There are, however, no syllables in Luganda with rising tone [àá], since these automatically become [áá].

Although words like *ekitabo* are theoretically toneless, they are generally subject to a tone-raising rule whereby all but the first mora acquire a high tone. Thus *ekitabo* 'book' is pronounced [e:kítábó] and *ssomero* 'school' is pronounced [ssóméró] (where the long consonant *ss* counts as the first mora). These tones added to toneless words are called 'phrasal tones'. The tone-raising rule also applies to the toneless syllables at the end of words like *eddwâliro* [eddwáalíró] 'hospital' and *túgenda* [túgeendá] 'we are going', provided that there is at least one low-toned mora after the lexical tone. When this happens, the high tones which follow the low tone are slightly lower than the one which precedes it.

However, there are certain contexts, such as when a toneless word is used as the subject of a sentence or before a numeral, when this tone-raising rule does not apply: *Masindi kibúga* 'Masindi is a city'; *ebitabo kkúmi* 'ten books'.

In a sentence, the lexical tones (that is, the high tones of individual words) tend to fall gradually in a series of steps from high to low. For example, in the sentence *kye kibúga ekikúlu mu Ugáńda* 'it is the chief city in Uganda', the lexical high tones of the syllables *bú*, *kú* and *gá* stand out and gradually descend in pitch, the toneless syllables in between being lower. This phenomenon is called 'downdrift'.

However, there are certain types of phrase, notably those in the form 'noun + of + noun', or 'verb + location', where downdrift does not occur, and instead all the syllables in between the two lexical high tones link together into a 'plateau', in which all the vowels have tones of equal height, for example *mu maséréngétá gá Úgáńda* 'in the south of Uganda' or *kírí mú Úgáńda* 'it is in Uganda'. Plateauing also occurs within a word, as in *Kámpálâ* (see above).

A plateau cannot be formed between a lexical tone and a phrasal tone; so in the sentence *kíri mu Bunyóró* 'it is in Bunyoro' there is downdrift, since the tones of *Bunyóró* are phrasal. But a phrasal tone can and frequently does form a plateau with a following high tone of either sort. So in *abántú mú Úgáńda* 'people in Uganda', there is a plateau from the phrasal tone of *tú* to the lexical tone of *gá*, and in *túgendá mú lúgúúdó* 'we are going into the street', there is a plateau from the phrasal tone of *ndá* to the phrasal tone of *dó*. Again there are certain exceptions; for example, there is no plateau before the words *ono* 'this' or *bonnâ* 'all': *muntú onó* 'this person', *abántú bonnâ* 'all the people'.

Prefixes sometimes change the tones in a word. For example, *Baganda* [baɡáánda] 'they are Baganda' has LHHL, but adding the initial vowel *a-* [a] gives *Abaganda* [abaɡáandá] 'Baganda people' with LLHLH. (Here, long vowels are transcribed double ([aa]) rather than with the length mark ([aː]), to allow for tones to be written on each mora.)

Different verb tenses have different tonal patterns. The tones of verbs are made more complicated by the fact that some verbs have a high tone on the first syllable of the root, while others do not, and also by the fact that the sequence HH generally becomes HL by a rule called Meeussen's rule. Thus *asóma* means 'he reads', but when the toneless prefix *a-* 'he/she' is replaced by the high-toned prefix *bá-* 'they', instead of *básóma* it becomes *básomá* 'they read'. The tones of verbs in relative clauses and in negative sentences differ from those in ordinary positive sentences and the addition of an object-marker such as *mu* 'him' adds further complications.

In addition to lexical tones, phrasal tones, and the tonal patterns of tenses, there are also intonational tones in Luganda, for example, tones of questions. One rather unexpected phenomenon for English speakers is that if a yes-no question ends in a toneless word, instead of a rise, there is a sharp drop in pitch, e.g. *lúnó lúgúúdò?* 'is this a road?'.

## Phonotactics

Syllables can take any of the following forms:

* V (only as the first syllable of a word)
* CV
* GV
* NCV
* CSV
* GSV
* NCSV

where V = vowel, C = single consonant (including nasals and semivowels but excluding geminates), G = geminate consonant, N = nasal stop, S = semivowel

The net effect of this is that all Luganda words follow the general pattern of alternating consonant clusters and vowels, beginning with either but always ending in a vowel:

* (V)XVXV...XV

where V = vowel, X = consonant cluster, (V) = optional vowel

This is reflected in the syllabification rule that in writing, words are always hyphenated after a vowel (when breaking a word over two lines). For example, *Emmotoka yange ezze* 'My car has arrived' would be split into syllables as *E‧mmo‧to‧ka ya‧nge e‧zze*.

## Variant pronunciations

The palatal plosives /c/ and /ɟ/ may be realised with some affrication — either as [cç] and [ɟʝ] or as postalveolars /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively.

In speech, word-final vowels are often elided in these conditioning environments:

* Word-final /u/ can be silent after /f/, /fː/, /v/ or /vː/
* Word-final /i/ can be silent after /c/, /cː/, /ɟ/ or /ɟː/

For example, *ekiddugavu* /ecídːuɡavu/ 'black' may be pronounced [ecídːuɡavʷu] or [ecídːuɡavʷ]. Similarly *lwaki* /lwáːci/ 'why' may be pronounced [lwáːci], [lwáːc] or [lwáːtʃ].

Long vowels before prenasalised fricatives (that is, before /nf/, /nv/, /ns/ or /nz/) may be nasalised, and the nasal is then often elided. Additionally, when not elided (for example phrase-initially), the /n/ usually becomes a labiodental in /nf/, /nv/. For example:

* *nfa* /nfa/ 'I'm dying' is pronounced [ɱfʷa]
* *musanvu* /musáːnvu/ 'seven' may be pronounced [musáːɱvʷu], [musãːɱvʷu], [musãːvʷu] or [musãːɱvʷ]
* *tonsaba* /toːnsába/ 'don't ask me' may be pronounced [toːnsába], [tõːsába] or [tõːnsába]

The liquid /l~r/ has two allophones [l] and [r], conditioned by the preceding vowel. It is usually realised as a tap or flap [ɾ] after a front unrounded vowel (*i.e.* after /e/, /eː/, /i/ or /iː/), and as a lateral approximant [l] elsewhere. However, there is considerable variation in this, and using one allophone instead of the other causes no ambiguity. So *lwaki* /lwáːci/ 'why' may also be pronounced [rwáːci], [ɾwáːci], [ɹwáːtʃi] *etc*.

## Alternative analysis

Treating the geminate and prenasalised consonants as separate phonemes yields the expanded consonant set below:

This simplifies the phonotactic rules so that all syllables are of one of three forms:

* V (only as the first syllable of a word)
* CV
* CSV

where V = vowel, C = consonant (including geminate and prenasalised consonants), N = nasal stop, S = semivowel (*i.e.* either /j/ or /w/).

Vowel length is then only distinctive before simple consonants (*i.e.* simple plosives, simple fricatives, simple nasals, approximants and liquids)—not before geminate or nasalised consonants or at the end of a word.

## References

1. ↑ *Luganda Basic Course*, p.105.
2. ↑ *Luganda Basic Course*, p.xiii.
3. ↑ Hyman & Katamba (1993), p.56.
4. ↑ Luganda Pretraining Program, p.82.
5. ↑ Luganda Basic Course, pp.xviii, xix.
6. ↑ Luganda Basic Course, p.105.
7. ↑ Luganda Basic Course, pp.26, 31.
8. ↑ Luganda Basic Course, p.xiii.
9. ↑ Luganda Basic Course, p.xx.
10. ↑ Luganda Pretraining Program, p.94.
11. ↑ Luganda Pretraining Program, p.99.