Syllable-Counting Tone Allomorphy in Bari

Abstract

In this paper, we provide evidence from the Eastern Nilotic language Bari for a so far unattested pattern: suppletive allomorphs of tonal affixes sensitive to the syllable number of the base word (cf. Paster 2005, 2006). We argue that these different allomorphs are added at different strata, the Stem Level or Word Level of Stratal Optimality Theory (Kiparsky 2015, Bermúdez-Otero 2018). Finally, we show that the morphological realization of tonal and segmental exponents for the same categories is dissociated morphologically and undergoes feature discharge independently.