The Phonological Stem in Kinande

S.l., s.a. - 53 p.This paper presents new analyses of four phonological processes in Kinande (Bantu, DRC) – Intonational Tone Assignment (ITA), Lexical Tone Assignment (LTA), Purposive Suffix Affixation (PSA), and Verbal Reduplication (VR) – and argues that they all make crucial reference to a morphoprosodic “PStem” domain which, though derived from the morphosyntactic stem (or “MStem”), systematically excludes MStem-initial vowels (Downing 1999, 2000). In so doing, the paper supports the claim of Inkelas (1989) and Downing (1999) that phonological processes make reference to sub-lexical morphoprosodic domains that are related to, but nevertheless distinct from, the domains of morphosyntax. At the same time, however, the paper argues against the position, advocated by Inkelas and Downing, that phonological processes make reference only to such domains. Since reference to the MStem as well as the PStem is demonstrated to be necessary to the full analyses of LTA and VR, the paper argues for a theory of the morphology-phonology interface in which phonological processes are permitted to refer both to morphoprosodic domains and the morphosyntactic constituents they are derived from.