Downstep and fusion in Namwanga

Namwanga is a Bantu language spoken in the Northern province of Zambia.In this paper I would like to present an overview of Namwanga verbal tonology, specifically focusing on the issue of where downstep occurs and how best to account for it. It will be argued that the surface distribution of downstep can be most insightfully accounted for if one assumes that many of the underlying H's fuse together. Determining which H's fuse and which do not is quite complex and the subject of rigorous examination.

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