Chichewa tones

Chichewa (a Bantu language of Central Africa, also known as Chewa, Nyanja, or Chinyanja) is the main language spoken in south and central Malawi, and to a lesser extent in Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Like most other Bantu languages, it is tonal; that is to say, pitch patterns are an important part of the pronunciation of words. Thus, for example, the word chímanga (High Low Low) 'maize' can easily be distinguished from chinangwá (Low Low High) 'cassava' not only by its consonants but also by its pitch pattern.

Tones (the rises and falls in pitch of the voice) also play an important grammatical role in Chichewa verbs, distinguishing one tense from another or different nuances of meaning within the same tense.

Thirdly, tones play a part in intonation and phrasing. One intonational tone often encountered is a mid-sentence boundary tone, which is a rise in pitch heard on the last syllable before a pause in the middle of the sentence; another is a rising or falling tone heard at the end of some types of questions.

Chichewa tones have been the subject of much scholarly interest in the last few years, mainly for the light they throw on different theories of phonology and phonetics.

General characteristics

Pitch-track of the sentence anádyétsa nyaní nsómba ‘they fed the baboon fish’ recorded by Al Mtenje (from Downing et al. (2004))

Chichewa words are of two kinds, those which have a high tone, such as nsómba fish or chímanga 'maize' (or sometimes two high tones, such as sánapíte 'he didn't go'), and those which are toneless, such as nyama 'meat' or anthu 'people'. When a word has a high tone, the syllable with the tone is pronounced at a higher pitch than the other syllables. (Compare the pitch-track of the words anádyetsa and nsómba in the accompanying illustration.)

Penultimate or antepenultimate tones

In terms of pitch the word nsómba sounds not very different from the English word longer, when pronounced in isolation. The difference between Chichewa and English is that an English word like longer changes its tone according to the way it is used in a sentence;[1] sometimes the first syllable may be lower than the second, or at other times both syllables may be low, whereas in a tonal language the high tone remains high wherever the word is used in a sentence.

Word-final tones

When the tone comes on the last syllable of the word, such as nyaní 'baboon' or chinangwá 'cassava', it is pronounced slightly differently from a tone in other positions. Firstly it is not quite so high; secondly it tends to spread backwards to the previous syllable. (This is shown clearly in the pitch-track of the word nyaní in the illustration.) So in fact nyaní is usually pronounced nyání, and chinangwá is pronounced chinángwá. Sometimes the part of the tone on the penultimate syllable can be heard as a rising tone, especially if it comes at the beginning of a sentence.[2] Before a pause, the final part of the tone may optionally be dropped altogether, leaving just a slightly rising tone on the penultimate syllable.

Occasionally, in the Central Region dialects at least, a final high tone can be pronounced like other high tones, without backwards spreading, for example before a suffix, as in nyaní-yo ‘that baboon’ or in certain contexts (which are not clearly defined by the authors who give these examples) such as nyaní wafa ‘the baboon has died’[3] or goná bwino ‘sleep well’.[4] For other speakers the high tone spreads backwards in these contexts also.

Word ending with triple tone

Sometimes a word in Chichewa will end in three high-toned syllables in a row, for example chákúdyá food or ndíkádyá 'I will go and eat'. (This can arise when a sequence HLH or a sequence HHL becomes HHH, as explained below.) When this happens, the three tones are pronounced as a level 'plateau'. If such a word comes at the end of a sentence, the plateau may still be pronounced; but often the last syllable drops in pitch, so that chákúdyá is pronounced chákúdya.

Toneless words

A toneless word such as nyama 'meat' or Lilongwe '(the city of) Lilongwe' is usually pronounced on a low pitch throughout, something like the word station in the English phrase police-station. Although it has no tone of its own, it may sometimes gain a tone from the context, for example, if it receives an intonational tone, or if it has a suffix, as in nyamá-nso 'meat also'.

Theoretical considerations

Two pitch levels, high and low, conventionally written H and L, are usually considered to be sufficient to describe the tones of Chichewa.[5] From a theoretical point of view, however, it has been argued that Chichewa tones are best thought of not in terms of H and L, but in terms of H and Ø, that is to say, high-toned vs toneless syllables.[6] The reason is that H tones are much more dynamic than L tones and play a large role in tonal phenomena, whereas L-toned syllables are relatively inert.[7] Some authors therefore, instead of referring to ‘high’ and ‘low’ tones, prefer to write in terms of syllables which have a 'high tone' (or simply a ‘tone’) vs those which are 'toneless'.[8]

In most words other than compounds and verbs there is usually just one high tone or none; if there is a single high tone, it is usually heard in one of the last three syllables of the word.[9] This relatively simple type of tonal system has sometimes been referred to in the past as a pitch-accent system;[10] but with increasing knowledge of the variety of the tonal systems of different languages, it has been argued that this term is an over-simplification and should be avoided.[11] Nowadays therefore languages of all types with tones are usually referred to as tonal languages.

In Chichewa itself the high tone is called mngóli wókwéza (‘tone of raising’), and the low tone mngóli wótsítsa (‘tone of lowering’).[12] One author, Kulemeka, adds a third term, mngóli wápákáti ‘middle tone’ to describe the apparent mid-height tone heard on the second syllable of Remote Past tense verbs like anãfa (i.e. ánáafá) ‘he died (temporarily)’.[13] But this idea has not been adopted by most other scholars, who treat this half-height tone as a surface realisation of the high tones before and after it.

Tones are not marked in the standard orthography used in Chichewa books and newspapers, but linguists usually indicate a high tone by writing it with an acute accent, as in the first syllable of nsómba, the Low tones generally being left unmarked.

Works describing Chichewa tones

The earliest work to mark the tones of Chichewa words was the Afro-American scholar Mark Hanna Watkins’ A Grammar of Chichewa (1937). This was a pioneering work in many ways, since not only was it the first work on Chichewa to include tones, but it was also the first grammar of any African language to be written by an American.[14] Among other interesting things about this book is that the informant used by Watkins was the young Kamuzu Banda, who in 1966 was to become the first President of the Republic of Malawi.

Another pioneering work to give information about Chichewa tones was a handbook written for Peace Corps Volunteers, Stevick et al., Chinyanja Basic Course (1965), which gives very detailed information on the tones of sentences, and also indicates intonations.[15] Its successor, Scotton and Orr (1980) Learning Chichewa,[16] is much less detailed, but has some useful remarks on tone. (All three of these works are available on the Internet; but J.K. Louw's Chichewa: A Practical Course (1980), which contained tone markings, is no longer available.)

From 1976 onwards a large number of academic articles by Malawian and Western scholars have been published on different aspects of Chichewa tones. Some discuss Chichewa tones from the point of view of autosegmental phonology, others in terms of optimality theory; others examine tone in focus, reduplicated words, depressor consonants, boundary tones, and other aspects of Chichewa tonality.

Three dictionaries also mark the tones on Chichewa words: these are A Learner’s Chichewa-English, English-Chichewa Dictionary by Botne and Kulemeka (1991), the monolingual Mtanthauziramawu wa Chinyanja/Chichewa (c.2000) produced by the Centre for Language Studies of the University of Malawi (available online),[17] and the Common Bantu On-Line Dictionary (CBOLD) Chichewa Dictionary (2001) formerly published online by the University of California in Berkeley but not currently available.[18]

Some tonal phenomena

In order to understand Chichewa tones, it is necessary first to understand various tonal phenomena that can occur, which are briefly outlined below.

Downdrift

Normally in a Chichewa sentence, unless two high tones come in succession (as for example in the word kwámbíri 'very much'), it is usual for each successive high tone to be a little lower than the preceding one. So for example in the word ndímapíta ‘I usually go’, the tone of ndí is pronounced a little higher than the tone of pí. Thus generally speaking the highest tone in a sentence is the first one. This phenomenon, which is common in many Bantu languages, is known as ‘downdrift’[19] or ‘automatic downstep’.[20]

However, there are several exceptions to this rule. Downdrift does not occur, for example, when a speaker is asking a question,[21] or reciting a list of items with a pause after each one, or sometimes if a word is pronounced on a high pitch for emphasis. There is also no downdrift when two high tones in the sequence HLH are bridged to make HHH (see below).

Plateauing

It sometimes happens that the sequence HLH in Chichewa becomes HHH, making a tonal 'plateau'. This happens especially if a word is compounded with the word á ‘of’. Thus wá + polísi ‘man of the police, policeman’ is pronounced wápólísi and chá + kudyá ‘thing of eating, food’ is pronounced chákúdyá (or before a pause chákúdya). Sometimes a succession of tones is bridged in this way, e.g. gúlewámkúlu (with HLHLHL) ‘masked dancer’ is pronounced gúléwáḿkúlu (HHHHHL) with one long continuous high tone from gú to kú.[22]

Usually the high tones will bridge whenever the succession HLH comes within a word, making HHH. However, there are exceptions, for example, verbs in the Present Habitual tense, such as ndímadyá ‘I usually eat’, are generally pronounced with two distinct high tones, the second a little lower than the first. The high tones in the word nyényezí ‘star’ also usually do not bridge.

Sequences with two or more toneless syllables between the high tones (e.g. HLLH) do not normally make a plateau in Chichewa.

High tone spreading (‘HTS’)

In some dialects a high tone may sometimes spread to the following syllable. So where some speakers say ndináthandiza ‘I helped’, others will say ndináthándiza.[23] Some phoneticians argue that what happens here, in some cases at least, is that the highest part or 'peak' of the tone moves forward, giving the impression that the tone covers two syllables, a process called ‘peak delay’.[24] An illustration of peak delay can be seen clearly in the pitch-track of the word anádyetsa ‘they fed’, here pronounced anádyétsa, in Downing et al. (2004).

In order for HTS to occur, there must be at least 3 syllables following the tone, although not necessarily in the same word.

One very frequent use of spreading, at least in some dialects, is to link together two words (such as verb + object, or verb of motion + destination, or noun + possessive) into a single phrase. In transcriptions one frequently finds phrases such as kuphíká nyama ‘to cook meat’[25] or kusámála mkázi ‘to care for a wife’,[26] chímánga chánga ‘my maize’[27] mikángó iyo ‘those lions’[28] etc. in which the second tone in each phrase is not original but due to spreading. It should be noted, however, that the contexts where spreading occurs vary from one dialect to another.

Tone shifting ('bumping')

Another phenomenon quite common in Chichewa occurs when a word or closely bound phrase ends in HLHL, HHL or LHH. Then in some cases the two high tones may move further apart to make HLLH, HHH, or HLH respectively. This process is known as ‘tone shifting’[29] or ‘bumping’.[30] Typical situations where bumping may take place are phrases consisting of noun + possessive, words containing reduplication, verbs where adjacent syllables both have a high tone, and words to which a suffix is added. But there is no bumping when the first of the two high tones is derived from the word á 'of' (e.g. kwámbíri 'very much' or wápólísi 'policeman'), or when the first tone is on the subject-marker of a verb (e.g. ndímapíta 'I usually go').

There are three kinds of bumping. In the first kind (called ‘non-local bumping’), HLHL changes to HLLH (or with spreading of the high tone HHLH):

In another type of bumping (called ‘local bumping’) LHHL becomes LHHH (where the two tones are joined into a plateau):

At the end of a sentence the final high tone may drop again, reverting the word to a-ná-mú-dya.

The third kind of bumping is found when the addition of the suffix -tú 'really' causes a word-final tone to move back one syllable, so that LHH at the end of a word becomes HLH:

Focus and emphasis

In European languages it is common for a word which is picked out for contrast to be pronounced on a higher pitch than the other words in a sentence, e.g. in the sentence they fed the baboon fish, not the elephant, it is likely that the speaker will draw attention to the word baboon by pronouncing it on a high pitch, while the word fish, which has been mentioned already, will be on a low pitch. This kind of emphasis is known as 'focus'. In tonal languages it appears that this raising or lowering of the pitch to indicate focus is either absent or much less noticeable.[31]

A number of studies have examined how focus is expressed in Chichewa and whether it causes a rise in pitch.[32] One finding was that for most speakers, focus has no effect on pitch. For some speakers, however, it appears that there is a slight rise in pitch if a word with a tone is focussed.[33] A toneless word, when in focus, does not appear to rise in pitch.

A different kind of emphasis is emphasis of degree. To show that something is very small, or very large, or very distant, a Chichewa-speaker will often raise the pitch of his or her voice considerably, breaking the sequence of downdrift. For example, a word such as kwámbíri 'very much' or pang'óno 'a little' is sometimes pronounced with a high pitch. The toneless demonstrative uyo ‘that man’ can also acquire a tone and become úyo! with a high pitch to mean ‘that man over there in the distance’.[34]

Enclitic suffixes

Certain suffixes in Chichewa add a high tone to the last syllable of the word to which they are joined. When added to a toneless word or a word ending in LL, this high tone can easily be heard:

These suffixes are known as enclitics. When an enclitic is combined with word which has penultimate high tone, there is local bumping, and the result is a triple tone:

When added to a word with final high tone, it raises the tone higher (in Central Region dialects, the rising tone on the first syllable of a word like nyŭmbá also disappears):[35]

Not all suffixes are tonally enclitic in this way. For example, when added to nouns, locative suffixes (-ko, -po, -mo) do not add a tone, e.g.:

However, when added to verbs, the same suffixes add an enclitic tone:

Proclitic prefixes

Conversely, certain verb-prefixes or tense-markers transfer their high tone to the first syllable of the verb to which they are added. Prefixes of this kind are called ‘proclitic’.[36] Examples of tenses or other verbal forms with a proclitic prefix are:

A frequent situation in Chichewa is when one of these proclitic verb-prefixes is added to a verb which already has a high-toned prefix such an object-marker (e.g. -mú- ‘him’) or the directional aspect-marker -ká- ‘go and’. In this case, both tones will move to the right.[38] In a four or five-syllable verb the second tone will move to the penultimate, in a three-syllable verb, it will be bumped to the final, in a two-syllable verb it will be bumped to the final with bridging, and in a one-syllable verb the second tone will be dropped by Meeussen’s Rule (see below). Thus:

Meeussen's rule

Meeussen’s Rule is a process in several Bantu languages whereby a sequence HH becomes HL. This is frequent in verbs. An example in Chichewa is the infinitive kú- + goná ‘to sleep’, where the addition of the proclitic kú- would normally be expected to produce ku-góná with two high tones; but by Meeussen’s Rule the second tone is dropped, leaving ku-góna with a high tone on the penultimate only. In the Southern Region, a-ná-mú-thandiza ‘he helped him’ is pronounced a-ná-mu-thandiza, presumably also by Meeussen’s Rule.[39]

Meeussen’s Rule does not apply in every circumstance. For example, a tone derived from spreading is unaffected by it, e.g. ku-góná bwino ‘to sleep well’, where the second tone, having been deleted by Meeussen’s Rule, is replaced by spreading.[40]

Tone of consonants

Just as in English, where in a word like zoo or wood or now the initial voiced consonant has a low pitch compared with the following vowel, the same is true of Chichewa. Thus Trithart marks the tones of initial consonants such as [m], [n], [z], and [dz] in some words as Low.[41]

However, an initial nasal consonant is not always pronounced with a low pitch. After a high tone it can acquire a high tone itself, e.g. wá ḿsodzi ‘of the fisherman’[42] The consonants n and m can also have a high tone when contracted from ndí ‘and’ or high-toned -mú-, e.g. ḿmakhálá kuti? ‘where do you live?’.[43]

In some Southern African Bantu languages such as Zulu a voiced consonant at the beginning of a syllable not only has a low pitch itself, but can also lower the pitch of all or part of the following vowel. Such consonants are known as ‘depressor consonants’. The question of whether Chichewa has depressor consonants was first considered by Trithart (1976) and further by Cibelli (2012). According to data collected by Cibelli, a voiced or nasalised consonant does indeed have a small effect on the tone of a following vowel, making it a semitone or more lower; so that for example the second vowel of ku-gúla ‘to buy’ would have a slightly lower pitch than that of ku-kúla ‘to grow’ or ku-khála ‘to sit’. When the vowel is toneless, the effect is less, but it seems that there is still a slight difference. The effect of depressor consonants in Chichewa, however, is much less noticeable than in Zulu.

Pre-high lowering

When two or more high tones come in successive syllables, they usually merge into a single tone of level height. Sometimes, however, the first of two (or the first two of three) may be pronounced a little lower than the last. One example of this is the Remote Future tense ndí-dzá-thandiza ‘I will help (tomorrow)’, which some speakers pronounce ndi-dzá-thandiza with lowered tone on the first syllable.[44]

Intonational tones

In addition to the ordinary lexical tones which go with individual words, and the grammatical tones of verb tenses, other tones can be heard which show phrasing or indicate a question.

Boundary tones

Quite often, if there is a pause in the middle of sentence, the speaker's voice will rise on the syllable just before the pause. This rising tone is called a boundary tone.[45] A boundary tone is used after the topic of a sentence, at the end of a dependent clause, after items on a list, and so on. A typical sentence where the dependent clause precedes the main clause is the following:

The rising boundary tone is not used when the order is reversed and the dependent clause follows the main clause.[47]

Another kind of tone considered to be a boundary tone, but this time a low one, is the optional fall in the speaker's voice at the end of sentences which causes the final high tone on words like chákúdyá ‘food’ to drop.

Both Kanerva and Stevick also mention a ‘level’ boundary tone, which occurs mid-sentence, but without any rise in pitch.[48]

The tones of questions

Wh-Questions

Questions in Chichewa often add high tones where an ordinary statement has no tone. For example, with the word kuti? ‘where?’, liti ‘when?’, yani ‘who?’ or chiyáni ‘what?’ some people add a tone on the last syllable of the preceding word. This tone does not spread backwards, although it may form a plateau with an antepenultimate tone, as in the 3rd and 4th examples below:

But as Stevick points out, not all speakers do this, and others may say mu-ná-fika liti?[52]

When kuti? ‘which place?’ or liti? ‘which day?’ are preceded by ndi ‘is’, they take a high tone on the first syllable:

It appears that with some speakers the high tone after ndi is heard on the final syllable in forms of this adjective which begin with a vowel; but with other speakers it is heard on the first syllable:[54]

A high tone also goes on the final syllable in ndaní? ‘(it is) who?’ (which is derived from ndi yani?)[55] Before this word and nchiyáni? ‘(is) what?’, since such questions are phrased as a cleft sentence or relative clause, the verb has its relative-clause intonation:

For questions that begin with bwánji? ‘how come?’ the relative-clause intonation of the verb is used (see below).

Yes-no questions

With yes-no questions, intonations vary. The simplest tone is a rising boundary tone on the final syllable:

A more insistent question often has a HL falling boundary tone on the last syllable:[57]

But in other dialects, this fall may begin on the penultimate syllable:

If there is already a penultimate high tone it may simply be raised higher:

Sometimes, however, there is no particular intonational tone and the question has the same intonation as a statement, especially if the question starts with the question-asking word kodí.[60]

Other idiomatic tones

Some speakers add intonational tones also with the word kale ‘already’, making not only the final syllable of kale itself high but also the last syllable of the verb which precedes it:

Other speakers do not add these intonational tones, but pronounce ndavina kale with Low tones. Occasionally a verb which is otherwise low-toned will acquire a high tone in certain idiomatic usages, e.g. ndapitá ‘I'm off’ (said on parting), from the normally toneless pita ‘go’. This can perhaps also be considered a kind of intonational tone.

Lexical tones

Tones of nouns

Comparison with other Bantu languages shows that for the most part the tones of nouns in Chichewa correspond to the tones of their cognates in other Bantu languages, and are therefore likely to be inherited from an earlier stage of Bantu.[63] An exception is that nouns which at an earlier period had HH (such as nsómba ‘fish’, from proto-Bantu *cómbá) have changed in Chichewa to HL by the process known as ‘Meeussen’s Rule’. Two-syllable nouns in Chichewa can therefore have the tones HL, LH, or LL, these three being about equally common, but (if we discount the fact that LH words are often in practice pronounced HH) there are no nouns with the underlying tones HH.

For the most part Chichewa nouns either are toneless or have a single tone, usually on the one of the last three syllables. In the CBOLD Chichewa dictionary,[64] about 36% of Chichewa nouns are toneless, 57% have one tone, and only 7% have more than one tone. Nouns with a tone more than three syllables from the end are virtually all foreign borrowings such as sékondale ‘secondary school’. Thus in the CBOLD dictionary, which is based on Scott and Hetherwick's dictionary published in 1929, when there were few words borrowed from English, there are in fact no nouns ending in HLLL.

The class-prefix of nouns, such as (class 7) chi- in chikóndi ‘love’, or (class 3) m- in mténgo ‘tree’, is usually toneless; however, there are some exceptions such as chímanga ‘maize’. The three nouns díso ‘eye’, dzíno ‘tooth’, and líwu ‘sound or word’ are irregular in that the high tone moves from the prefix to the stem in the plural, making masó, manó, and mawú respectively.[65]

Examples of nouns of different tonal types

Toneless nouns

  • munthu ‘person’
  • mudzi ‘village’
  • mlimi ‘farmer’
  • chinthu ‘thing’
  • moyo ‘life’
  • njira ‘path’
  • dzanja ‘hand’
  • chipatala ‘hospital’
  • mowa ‘beer’
  • mpira ‘ball’
  • mpando ‘chair’
  • ng’ombe ‘cow, ox’
  • magazi ‘blood’
  • magetsi ‘electricity’
  • njala ‘hunger’
  • mkaka ‘milk’
  • nyama ‘animal, meat’
  • mzinda ‘city’
  • msewu ‘road’
  • msonkhano ‘meeting’
  • mayeso ‘exam’
  • Lilongwe ‘Lilongwe’

Nouns with final tone

  • mwaná ‘child’
  • chaká ‘year’
  • nyumbá ‘house’
  • maló ‘place’
  • madzí ‘water’
  • mnyamatá ‘boy’
  • mutú ‘head’
  • mawú ‘word’
  • bwaló ‘open area’
  • masó ‘eyes’
  • Chichewá ‘Chichewa’
  • ulendó ‘journey’
  • ufulú ‘freedom’
  • nyanjá ‘lake’
  • mwalá ‘stone’
  • mundá ‘garden’
  • galú ‘dog’
  • nzerú ‘wisdom’
  • njingá ‘bicycle’
  • Zombá ‘Zomba’

Nouns with penultimate tone

  • ntchíto ‘work’
  • ntháwi ‘time’
  • bóma ‘government’
  • dzíko ‘country’
  • máyi ‘mother, woman’
  • nkháni ‘story’
  • tsíku ‘day’
  • mfúmu ‘chief’
  • ndaláma ‘money’
  • búngwe ‘organisation’
  • bánja ‘family’
  • mwamúna ‘man’
  • vúto ‘problem’
  • mankhwála ‘medicine’
  • nsómba ‘fish’
  • mtíma ‘heart’
  • nyímbo ‘song’
  • mbáli ‘side’
  • mbéwu ‘seed, crop’
  • mpíngo ‘church, congregation’
  • chikóndi ‘love’
  • gúle ‘dance’
  • Maláwi ‘Malawi’
  • mténgo ‘tree’
  • mvúla ‘rain’
  • chitsánzo ‘example’
  • mkángo ‘lion’
  • Bánda ‘Banda’

Nouns with antepenultimate tone

  • msúngwana ‘teenage girl’
  • chímanga ‘maize’
  • mtsíkana ‘girl’
  • námwali ‘initiate’
  • maséwero ‘sport’
  • síng’anga ‘witch-doctor’
  • mbálame ‘bird’
  • mpóngozi ‘mother-in-law’
  • khwángwala ‘crow’
  • búluzi ‘lizard’
  • njénjete ‘house-cricket’
  • mphépete ‘side, edge’

This group is less common than the first three. Many of the words with this tone are loanwords from Portuguese or English such as:

  • kálata ‘letter’
  • nsápato ‘shoe’
  • mbátata ‘sweet potatoes’
  • mákina ‘machine’
  • pépala ‘paper’
  • bótolo ‘bottle’

Nouns with two tones

A small number of words (mostly compounds) have more than one tone. Some are compounded with á ‘of’, which has a high tone, so that wá + ntchíto ‘man of work’ becomes wántchíto ‘worker’ with two tones. In words with the sequence HLH like wá-polísi ‘policeman’ the high tones bridge to make HHH.

  • wántchíto ‘worker’
  • wódwála ‘sick person’
  • zófúnda ‘bedclothes’
  • zóóna ‘truth’
  • Lólémba ‘Monday’
  • Láchíwíri ‘Tuesday’
  • Lówéruka ‘Saturday’
  • wóphúnzira ‘pupil’
  • wápólísi ‘policeman’
  • chákúdyá ‘food’
  • wákúbá ‘thief’

The prefix chi- in some words adds two tones, making LHLLH (or LHHLH) or LHHH:

  • chizólowezí (or chizólówezí) ‘habit, custom’
  • chipwírikití ‘riot’
  • chithúnzithunzí ‘picture’
  • chilákolakó ‘desire’
  • chitsékereró ‘stopper’
  • chiwóngoleró ‘steering-wheel’
  • chivúndikiró ‘lid’
  • chikwángwání ‘banner, sign’
  • chipólówé ‘violence, riot’

The (L)HHH pattern is also found in a few other words:

  • kusíyáná ‘difference’
  • mkámwíní ‘son-in-law’
  • tsábólá ‘pepper’
  • masómphényá ‘vision’

Less common patterns are found in:

  • gálímoto ‘car’
  • nyényezí (also nyényezi) ‘star’
  • bírímánkhwe ‘chameleon’
  • kángachépe ‘small bribe, tip’

Tones of adjectives

Adjectives in Chichewa are usually formed with word á (wá, yá, chá, zá etc. according to noun class) ‘of’, which has a high tone. The high tone tends to spread to the following word. When there is a sequence of HLH, the tones will bridge to make HHH:

Combined with an infinitive, á and ku- usually merge (except usually in monosyllabic verbs) into ó-:

Some people hear a slight dip between the two tones:

Possessive adjectives are also made with á-. As explained in the section on bumping, their tone may change when they follow a noun ending in HL, LH or HH. The adjective wína ‘another, a certain’ has similar tones to wánga. The concords shown below are for noun classes 1 and 2:

  • wánga ‘my’
  • wáke ‘his, her, its’
  • wína ‘another, a certain’
  • ánga ‘my’
  • áke ‘he, her, its’
  • éna ‘others’

The adjective wamba ‘ordinary’, however, is not made with á and has a low tone on both syllables. The first syllable wa in this word does not change with the class of noun.

Pronominal adjectives

The following three adjectives have their own concords and are not formed using á. Here they are shown with the concords of classes 1 and 2:

  • yénse ‘all of’
  • yémwe ‘himself’
  • yékha ‘only’
  • ónse ‘all’
  • ómwe ‘themselves’
  • ókha ‘only’

As with possessives, the high tone of these may shift by bumping after a noun ending in HL or LH or HH:[69] and with these three the high tone also shifts before a demonstrative suffix: yemwé-yo ‘that same one’. zonsé-zi ‘all these’.[70] (In this they differ from wánga and wína, which do not shift the tone with a demonstrative suffix, e.g. anthu éna-wa ‘these other people’.) The tone also shifts in the word álí-yensé ‘each, each and every’, in which áli has the tones of a relative-clause verb.[71]

The following demonstrative adjectives (shown here with the concords for noun classes 1 and 2) usually have a Low tone:[72]

  • uyo ‘that one’
  • uyu ‘this one’
  • uno ‘this one we're in’
  • uja ‘that one you mentioned’
  • uti? ‘which one?’
  • awo ‘those ones’
  • awa ‘these ones’
  • ano ‘these ones we're in’
  • aja ‘those ones you mentioned’
  • ati? ‘which ones?’

The first of these (uyo) can be pronounced úyo! with a high tone if referring to someone a long way away.[73] The tones of uti/ati? are described above in the section on the Tones of Questions.

Tones of numbers

Chichewa has the numbers 1 to 5 and 10 (the numbers zaná ‘100’ and chikwí ‘1000’ exist but are rarely used). They all have penultimate high tone except for -sanu ‘five’, which is toneless. The adjectives meaning ‘how many?’ and ‘several’ also take the number concords and can be considered part of this group. They are here illustrated with the concords for noun classes 1 and 2 (note that khúmi has no concord):

  • munthu mmódzi ‘one person’
  • anthu awíri ‘two people’
  • anthu atátu ‘three people’
  • anthu anáyi ‘four people’
  • anthu asanu ‘five people’
  • anthu khúmi ‘ten people’
  • anthu angáti? ‘how many people?’
  • anthu angápo ‘several people’

It is possible to make other numbers using circumlocutions (e.g. ‘five tens and units five and two’ = 57) but these are not often heard, the usual practice being to use English numbers instead.

Personal pronouns

The first and second person pronouns are toneless, but the third person pronouns have a high tone:[74]

  • ine ‘I’
  • iwe ‘you sg.’
  • iyé ‘he, she’
  • ife ‘we’
  • inu ‘you pl., you (polite)’
  • iwó ‘they, he/she (polite)’

These combine with ndi as follows:

  • ndine ‘I am’
  • ndiyé ‘he is’ (etc.)
  • síndine ‘I am not’
  • síndíyé ‘he is not’

Tones of monosyllables

The following monosyllabic words are commonly used. Some are toneless and others have a high tone:

  • ndi ‘it is, they are’
  • ku ‘in, to, from’
  • pa ‘on, at’
  • mu (m’) ‘in’
  • á (wá, yá, zá, etc.) ‘of’
  • ndí ‘with, and’
  • sí ‘it isn't’
  • kwá ‘for, at the place of’

These words are joined rhythmically to the following word. The high tone of the four that have high tone can spread to the first syllable of the following word, provided it has at least three syllables:[75]

The word pa has a tone when it means ‘of’ following a locative of class 16:

It also has a tone in certain idiomatic expressions such as pá-yekha or pá-yékha ‘on his own’.

Tones of ideophones

The tones of ideophones (expressive words) have also been investigated by linguists.[76] Examples are: bálálábálálá ‘scattering in all directions’ (all syllables very high), lólolo ‘lots and lots’ (with gradually descending tones), bii! ‘very dark or dirty’ (low pitch). It can be seen that the tonal patterns of ideophones do not necessarily conform to the patterns of other words in the language.

Tonal minimal pairs

Sometimes two nouns are distinguished by their tone patterns alone, e.g.

Verbs can also sometimes be distinguished by tone alone:

There is also a distinction between:

However, minimal pairs of this kind which differ in lexical tone are not particularly common.

More significant are minimal pairs in verbs, where a change of tones indicates a change in the tense, or a difference between the same tense used in a main clausde and in a subordinate clause, for example:

The tones of verbs

High and low-toned verbs

Chichewa verbs in their basic form (e.g. gula 'buy', thamangá 'run') are in some cases toneless, in other cases have a high tone on the final syllable. (The view held in Mtenje (1986) that Chichewa also has ‘rising-tone’ verbs has been dropped in his more recent work.)[77] However, unlike the situation with the tonal patterns of nouns, there is no correlation at all between the high-toned verbs in Chichewa and the high-toned verbs in other Bantu languages. The obvious conclusion is that the high tones of verbs are not inherited from an earlier stage of Bantu but have developed independently in Chichewa.[78]

There are three ways in which a verb can have a high tone:

(a) The root of the verb can itself have a high tone, e.g. goná ‘sleep’, thamangá ‘run’.

(b) When a verbal extension is added to a high-toned root, the resulting verb is also usually high-toned, e.g.

(c) Thirdly, a verb with a Low-toned root can become high-toned by the addition of an extension which makes it stative or intensive. For example:

According to Kanerva (1990) and Mchombo (2004), the passive ending -idwa/-edwa also adds a high tone, but this appears to be true only of the Nkhotakota dialect which they describe.[79]

High-toned verb roots are comparatively rare (only about 13% of roots),[80] though when verbs with stative and intensive extensions are added the percentage of high-toned verbs rises. In addition there are a number of verbs, such as peza/pezá ‘find’ which can be pronounced either way. In the monolingual dictionary Mtanthauziramawu wa Chinyanja 2683 verbs are given, with 10% marked as high-toned, and 4% as having either tone. In the Southern Region of Malawi, some speakers do not pronounce the tones of high-toned verbs at all or only sporadically.

Three irregular verbs, -téro ‘do so’, -tére ‘do like this’, and -táni? ‘do what?’, have a tone on the penultimate syllable.

The difference between high and low-toned verbs is often neutralised, if they are used in tenses other than the basic form. For example, if the tonal pattern of a tense places a high tone on the penultimate syllable of a verb, the tone on the final syllable, if any, is dropped; so goná 'sleep' has a high tone on the final, but in ámagóna 'he usually sleeps' the tone is dropped. Similarly, in the subjunctive, where there is usually a high tone on the final syllable of the verb, there is no difference in tone between ndigoné' let me sleep' and ndipité let me go'. However, in tenses where the tonal pattern of the tense does not place a high tone on the penultimate or the final syllable, the difference can be heard. For example, the perfect tense wagoná 'he has slept' has a tone, but wapita 'he has gone' is toneless.

Examples of verbs

Toneless verbs

  • khala ‘sit, live’
  • funa ‘want’
  • ona ‘see’
  • yamba ‘begin’
  • chita ‘do’
  • pita ‘go’
  • dziwa ‘know’
  • fika ‘arrive’
  • gwira ‘take hold of’
  • nena ‘say’
  • tenga ‘take’
  • bwera ‘come’
  • yenda ‘go, walk’
  • lowa ‘enter’
  • thandiza ‘help’
  • vuta ‘be difficult’
  • pereka ‘hand over’
  • gula ‘buy’
  • choka ‘go away’
  • funsa ‘ask’
  • uza ‘tell’
  • lemba ‘write’
  • patsa ‘give (someone)’
  • vala ‘put on (clothes)’
  • ganiza ‘think’
  • panga ‘do, make’
  • imba ‘sing’
  • gulitsa ‘sell’
  • lankhula/yankhula ‘speak’
  • sintha ‘change’
  • oneka ‘seem’
  • kumana ‘meet’
  • tuluka ‘go out’
  • yankha ‘answer’
  • fotokoza ‘explain’
  • seka ‘laugh’

Monosyllabic verbs such as the following are always low-toned:

  • dya ‘eat’
  • mva ‘hear’
  • mwa ‘drink’
  • pha ‘kill’
  • ba ‘steal’
  • tha ‘finish, be able’

High-toned verbs

  • yenerá ‘ought’
  • goná ‘sleep’
  • phunzirá ‘learn’
  • dabwá ‘be surprised’
  • kaná ‘refuse’
  • siyá ‘leave’
  • lepherá ‘fail’
  • kondá ‘love’
  • dandaulá ‘complain’
  • lakwá ‘be in error’
  • tayá ‘throw away’
  • tsalá ‘remain’
  • iwalá ‘forget’
  • thamangá ‘run’
  • topá ‘be tired’
  • bisá ‘hide (something)’
  • bisalá ‘be hidden’
  • vulazá ‘wound’
  • zimá/thimá ‘go out (of fire or lights)’

Verbs with either tone

  • pezá ‘find’
  • pewá ‘avoid’
  • kwiyá ‘be angry’
  • ipá ‘be bad’
  • khotá ‘be bent’
  • namá ‘tell a lie’
  • thokozá ‘thank’
  • sowá ‘miss, be missing’
  • yabwá ‘irritate, make itch’

Stative verbs

Most intransitive verbs with the endings -iká, -eká, -uká, -oká derived from simpler verb-stems are high-toned. But there are some exceptions such as oneka ‘seem’ (cf. ona ‘see’) and tuluka ‘come out’:

  • chitiká ‘happen’ (cf. chita ‘do’)
  • funiká ‘be necessary’ (cf. funa ‘want’)
  • theká ‘be possible’ (cf. tha ‘finish, manage to’)
  • dziwiká ‘be known’ (cf. dziwa ‘know’)
  • mveká ‘be understood’ (cf. mva ‘hear’)
  • onongeká ‘be damaged’ (cf. ononga ‘damage’)
  • vutiká ‘be in difficulty’ (cf. vutitsa ‘cause a problem for’)
  • masuká ‘be at ease’ (cf. masula ‘free’)
  • duká ‘be cut’ (cf. dula ‘cut’)
  • thyoká ‘be broken’ (cf. thyola ‘break’)

Intensive verbs

Intensive verbs with the endings -its(its)a and -ets(ets)a always have a high tone on the final syllable, even when derived from low-toned verbs. A few intensive verbs with the endings -irira or -erera are also high-toned:[81]

  • yang’angitsitsá ‘examine carefully’ (cf. yang’ana ‘look at’)
  • onetsetsá ‘inspect’ (cf. ona ‘see’)
  • mvetsetsá ‘understand well’ (cf. mva ‘hear’)
  • menyetsá ‘beat severely’ (cf. menya ‘hit’)
  • pitirirá ‘go further’ (cf. pita ‘go’)
  • psererá ‘be overcooked’ (cf. psa ‘burn, be ripe’)

Tonal patterns of tenses

The tonal pattern of tenses is one of the most complex aspects of Chichewa tonology. Each different tense has its own tonal pattern, which is superimposed on top of whatever lexical tone the verb-stem itself may have. The tonal patterns, though numerous, are fewer than the number of tenses, so that often the same pattern is shared by three or four different tenses.

The principle of these patterns is that in any particular tense, the same tonal pattern is applied equally to every verb, with minor variations, however long or short. Thus, for example, in most verbs the Present Habitual tense will have a high tone on the initial syllable and another on the penultimate. But if the verb-stem is monosyllabic, the second tone is heard on the final syllable.[82] In the following examples, hyphens have been added for clarity; they are not used in the standard orthography:

The Recent Past Continuous tense (which also uses -ma- as a tense-marker) of the same verbs will have a single high tone on the third syllable:[83]

The Remote Perfect tense of the same verbs (which uses -na- or -da- as a tense-marker) has a high tone on the tense-marker itself:

At least ten tonal patterns in all are used for the main verb tenses (more, if tenses with aspect-markers are included). Some of those which have been noted in the literature are:[85]

Perfect nda-thandiza ‘I have helped’
Imperative thandiza! ‘help!’
Potential ndi-nga-thandize ‘I can help’[86]
‘When’ tense ndi-ka-thandiza ‘when/if I help’[87]
Present Simple / Near Future ndí-thandiza (or ndí-thándiza) ‘I will help’
Remote Perfect ndi-ná-thandiza (or ndi-ná-thándiza) ‘I (have) helped’[88]
Perfect Conditional ndi-kadá-thandiza ‘I would have helped’[89] (-kada- can also be -kana- or -daka-.)
Infinitive ku-thándiza ‘to help’
Present Continuous ndi-ku-thándiza ‘I am helping’
Recent Past Continuous ndi-ma-thándiza ‘I was helping’
Recent Past Simple ndi-na-thándiza ‘I helped (today)’
Polite Imperative ta-thándiza! ‘please help’[90]
Persistive ndi-kada-thandíza ‘I’m still helping’[91]
'Since' tense chi-thandizíre 'since helping'
Subjunctive ndi-thandizé ‘I should help’
Remote Future ndí-dzá-thandiza (or ndi-dzá-thandiza/ndi-dzá-thándiza) ‘I shall help’
-ká-Future ndí-ká-thandiza ‘I shall help (when I get there)’
Present Habitual ndí-ma-thandíza ‘I usually help’
Remote Past ndí-náa-thandíza ‘I (had) helped’ (This tense can also be made with -daa-.)
‘Meanwhile’ Subjunctive ndí-báa-thandíza ‘I should be helping meanwhile’[92]
Remote Past Continuous ndi-nká-thandíza ‘I used to help’
Necessitive ndi-zí-thandíza ‘I should be helping’[93]
Participial Present ndí-kú-thándiza ‘while I am helping’
Participial Perfect ndí-tá-thándiza ‘me having helped, after I helped’[94]

Tones of Negative Tenses

Negative tenses in Chichewa tend to have a different tonal pattern from the corresponding positive ones. For example, the Remote Future tense ndí-dzá-thandiza ‘I shall help’ becomes si-ndi-dza-thandíza ‘I will not help’ when negative. For some tenses (e.g. -nga-, -kada-) different negative patterns are used by different speakers.

Some tenses have more than one possible negative intonation. For example, the Present Simple ndí-thandiza ‘I help / I will help’ makes both sí-ndí-thandiza HHL.... ‘I don't help’ and si-ndi-thandíza ...LHL ‘I won't help’.

The following tonal patterns are found:[95]

Negative Present Simple sí-ndí-thandiza ‘I don’t help’
When the verb is monosyllabic, in the Central Region dialects, the high tone on the subject-marker is omitted:
sí-ndi-dya ‘I don’t eat’
When an object-marker such as -mú- ‘him’ is added there is an additional high tone on the penultimate:[96]
sí-ndí-mu-thandíza ‘I don’t help him’
When the negative Present Simple has future meaning, it has the same tones as the Remote Future tense:
si-ndi-(mu)-thandíza ‘I won’t help (him)’
Negative Perfect sí-ndí-na-thandíze ‘I haven't helped’ or ‘I didn't help’
Negative Present Simple with an object-marker
Negative Perfect Participle ndí-sa-na-thandíze (or ndí-sá-na-) ‘me not yet having helped’[97]
Negative Present Participle ndí-sa-ku-thandíza ‘without my helping’
Negative Present Continuous sí-ndí-ku-thándiza ‘I'm not helping’
Negative Recent Past Continuous sí-ndí-ma-thándiza ‘I wasn’t helping’
Negative Recent Past Simple sí-ndí-na-thándiza ‘I didn't help’ (rarely used)[98]
Negative Present Habitual sí-ndí-má-thandiza ‘I never help’
Negative Perfect Conditional sí-ndí-kadá-thandiza ‘I would not have helped’
Negative Future si-ndi-thandíza or si-ndi-dza-thandíza ‘I will not help’
Negative Infinitive ku-sa-thandíza ‘not to help’
Negative Subjunctive ndi-sa-thandíze ‘I shouldn’t help’[100]
Incompletive si-ndi-na-thandíze ‘I haven't helped yet’
(With monosyllabic stems the tone goes on -na-: s-a-ná-dye 'he hasn't eaten yet')
Negative Potential si-ndi-ngá-thandíze ‘I can't help’ (also sí-ndi-nga-thandíze)[101]
Negative Infinitive with -ma- ku-sa-má-thandíza ‘to be never helping’
Negative Remote Past Continuous sí-ndí-nká-thandíza ‘I didn't use to help’
Negative Present Habitual with OM sí-ndí-má-mu-thandíza ‘I never help him’

Dependent clause intonation

Certain tenses have a different tonal pattern when used in certain kinds of dependent clauses. Stevick calls this intonation the ‘relative mood’ of the verb,[102] since it is frequently used in relative clauses; however, it is also used in a range of other dependent clauses. Mchombo[103] gives the following example of the use of this intonation in a relative clause:

How it is made

The dependent-clause intonation generally has two high tones, one on the initial syllable and another on the penultimate. High tones between these two are suppressed. The first high tone may spread. When the tones are HLHL, some dialects have bumping; for example, ndí-na-gúla ‘(which) I bought’ can become ndí-ná-gulá.[104]

But when the tense has a proclitic prefix the second high tone comes on the syllable after the tense-marker. There is usually bridging of the two tones:[106]

If the verb has only one syllable, the second high tone is dropped:

Subjunctive verbs also acquire a high tone on the initial syllable, but the second tone remains on the final:

If the verb tense already has a high tone on the initial syllable, such as the Present Simple, Present Habitual, and Remote Future, there is no change. Negative tenses, such as s-a-na-thandíze ‘he hasn't helped yet’ are also unaltered when used in dependent clauses. The toneless -ka- tense, although dependent, also does not use the dependent intonation.

Where it is used

The type of clauses using this second tonal pattern include relative clauses, some types of conditional clauses, cleft sentences, some kinds of indirect questions, and adverbial clauses of time, place, manner, and concession. However, clauses following kutí ‘that’ or ngati when it has the meaning ‘as if’ use the normal intonation.

This intonation has been noted most often for its use in relative clauses, both those with and without a relative pronoun. In the following example watha ‘it has ended’ becomes wátha ‘which has ended’:

Cleft sentences such as the following are a kind of relative clause, and so wakhala ‘he has sat down/ he is sitting’ becomes wákhálá ‘who has sat/ who is sitting’:

The dependent clause intonation is also used in conditional clauses, except those with the toneless -ka- tense. An example can be observed in the following proverb, where the dependent verb has a different intonation HLLHL from the main verb LLHLL:

It is also used in conditional clauses after ngati ‘if’, including indirect questions:

The dependent intonation is frequent in adverbial clauses of time such as:

It is also used after ngakhále ‘although’:

Participial tenses also all use the dependent intonation:

Tones of -li (‘am’, ‘are’, ‘is’)

As well as the word ndi ‘is/are’ used for identity (e.g. ‘he is a teacher’) Chichewa has another verb -li ‘am, are, is’ used for position or temporary state (e.g. ‘he is well’, ‘he is in Lilongwe’). The tones of this are irregular in that in the Present Simple, there is no tone on the subject-marker.[112] For the Remote Past, both á-naa-lí and a-ná-li[113] can be heard, apparently without difference of meaning. In the dependent Applied Present (-lili), used in clauses of manner, the two tones bridge:

Present a-li ‘he is, they are’
Recent Past a-na-lí ‘he was (just now)’
Remote Past á-náa-lí or a-ná-li ‘he was’
Persistive a-kada-lí (or a-ka-lí) ‘he is still’
Present á-li ‘when he is/was’
Persistive á-kada-lí ‘when he is/was still’[114]
Applied Present momwé á-lílí ‘the way that he is’

The dependent-clause form of the Persistive tense is frequently heard in the phrase pá-kada-lí pano ‘at the present time’ (literally, ‘it still being now’).

Aspect and object-markers

A verb such as a-ku-séwera ‘they are playing’, consisting of subject-marker (a- = ‘he/she/they’), tense-marker -kú-, and the verb-stem sewera ‘play’, can be made more complex by the addition of various other elements, called aspect-markers, which are placed between the tense-marker and the verb-stem. For example:

Altogether there are four aspect-markers, -má- ‘ever, usually, always’, -ká- ‘go and’, -dzá- ‘in future’, and -ngo- ‘just’, which are always added in that order, though not usually all at once. These infixes add extra high tones to the verb. In the above example, the tense-marker -kú- and the aspect-marker -ngo- ‘just’ are proclitic, so place their high tone after themselves; the suffix -kó ‘there’ is enclitic when added to verbs, so its high tone moves to the final vowel of the verb; and -ká- ‘go and’ has its own tone. The main rules describing the tones added by aspect-markers are described below.

-má-

The aspect-marker -má- ‘always, ever, generally’ usually adds two high tones, one on -má- itself and one on the penultimate syllable. For example, when added to the ‘when’ tense, which has the toneless tense-marker -ka- (not to be confused with the aspect-marker -ká-):

However, when -má- is added to the Present Simple to make the Present Habitual, the tone on -má- is lost:

It is also lost in negative future tenses:

On the other hand, in the negative Present Habitual, the tone on -má- is retained while the penultimate tone is lost, unless there is an object-marker:

-má- can also be used as a tense-marker itself to make the Recent Past Continuous tense, in which case its high tone is proclitic, with no second tone on the penultimate, both in the positive and the negative:

-ká- and -dzá-

The aspect-markers -ká- ‘go to’ and -dzá- ‘in future’ or ‘come to’ both usually have a high tone, which sometimes spreads:[117]

However the high tone is lost in the Imperative, where there is a tone on the final syllable only:

It is also lost in the negative Future tenses, the negative infinitive, and in the negative Subjunctive, which have a single tone on the penultimate vowel:

But in the positive Subjunctive -ká- and -dzá- retain their tone, while in addition the high tone which is usually found on the final vowel of the Subjunctive moves to the penultimate:

-ngo-

The aspect-marker -ngo- ‘just’ has a proclitic tone, that is to say, the syllable which follows it always has a tone. In toneless tenses, the syllables before it are toneless:

In all other tenses, -ngo- also has a high tone in front of itself:

If -ngo- is added to the infinitive or to a proclitic tense such as the Present Continuous, the tense-marker keeps its high tone and is no longer proclitic. The infix -ngo- itself never has a high tone:

Object-marker

Between the aspect-markers and the verb stem, it is possible to add an object-marker such as -mú- ‘him/her/it’. When it is added to a toneless tense, such as the Perfect, it has a high tone:[121]

However, in most other tenses, the object-marker loses its tone. This is so in the Present Habitual and most negative tenses:

If the verb-stem in monosyllabic, normally a penultimate tone would go on the final (e.g. ndí-ma-dyá 'I usually eat'); but when an object-marker is added, the tone goes on the object-marker instead:

When used with the remote perfect tense-marker -ná-, the tone is also lost in southern dialects.[125] In dialects with high tone spreading, the object-marker has a high tone, but it is thought that this tone is due to spreading, as it does not spread further to the following syllable, unlike the tone of -ká-:[126]

With monosyllabic verbs-stems, the high tone of -mú- is retained and undergoes bumping, but that of -ká- does not bump:[127]

In an Imperative or positive Subjunctive verb the high tone of the object-marker becomes proclitic and is heard on the syllable which follows:[128]

If the verb has two syllables, the tone on the final is dropped by Meeussen’s Rule:

If the verb is monosyllabic, the tone remains on -mú-, and the high tone of the final vowel is dropped:

The effect of adding an object-marker to a verb with a proclitic tense-marker has already been discussed above in the section on Proclitic Prefixes. Thus for example the infinitive ku-thándiza ‘to help’ becomes ku-mú-thandizá ‘to help him’, and so forth. (The same changes take place if -ká- or -dzá- is added instead of -mú-.)

Reflexive-marker

The reflexive-marker -dzí- in most dialects has exactly the same tones as object-markers such as -mú-, but for some speakers in parts of the Central Region there is also an extra tone on the penultimate or final syllable.[130]

Reduplicated words

Reduplicated words are those in which an element is repeated, such as chipolopolo ‘bullet’. These have been extensively studied in the literature.[131]

In nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, ordinary reduplication can be distinguished from emphatic reduplication, since the tones differ, as is shown below (note that hyphens have been added here for clarity, but are not used in the standard orthography of Chichewa).

Ordinary reduplication

The following types of ordinary reduplication are found :

LL + LL becomes LLLL (i.e. there is no additional tone):

HL + HL becomes HLLH (or HHLH), by ‘bumping’:

LH + LH becomes LHLL (i.e. the second tone is dropped)

When a threesyllable element is repeated, there is no special change:

Emphatic reduplication

In the emphatic reduplication on the other hand, the first type has an added tone. Thus:

LL + LL becomes LLHL (i.e. there is an additional high tone on the second element):

LH + LH is also different when emphatic, becoming LHHH (or in the Southern Region HHHH):

However, HL + HL when emphatic has the same tones as the nonemphatic form:

Reduplication in verbs

A high tone following a proclitic tensemarker does not repeat when the verb is reduplicated:[133]

However, a final or penultimate tone will usually repeat (unless the verb has only two syllables, in which case the middle tone may be suppressed):[134]

Reduplication in ideophones

Ideophones (expressive words) have slightly different types of reduplication. Moto (1999) mentions the following types:

All High:

All low:

High on the first syllable only:

References

  1. ↑ cf. Cruttenden (1986), p.13.
  2. ↑ E.g. Downing & Pompino-Marschall (2013), pitchtrack (17).
  3. ↑ Moto (1983), p.206.
  4. ↑ Mtenje (1986), p.206; Stevick et al. (1965), p.20.
  5. ↑ Mchombo (2004), p.11.
  6. ↑ Myers (1998).
  7. ↑ Hyman (2000).
  8. ↑ e.g. Kanerva (1990); cf. Mtenje (1976), pp.212f.
  9. ↑ Kanerva (1990), pp.12-14.
  10. ↑ Clark (1988), pp.51ff.
  11. ↑ Hyman (2009).
  12. ↑ Mtanthauziramawu wa Chinyanja (c.2000), p.vi.
  13. ↑ Kulemeka (2002), p.15.
  14. ↑ Watkins (1937).
  15. ↑ Stevick, Earl et al. (1965) Chinyanja Basic Course
  16. ↑ Scotton & Orr (1980) Learning Chichewa.
  17. ↑ Mtanthauziramawu wa Chinyanja (c.2000); Kishindo (2001), pp.277-79; Kamwendo (1999).
  18. ↑ Mtenje (2001).
  19. ↑ Myers (1996); see also Myers (1999a).
  20. ↑ Yip (2002), p.148.
  21. ↑ Myers (1996). pp.36ff.
  22. ↑ cf. Stevick et al. (1965), p.194.
  23. ↑ Cf. Mtenje (1986), p.240 vs. Mtenje (1987), p.173.
  24. ↑ Myers (1999b).
  25. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.59; Mchombo (2004), p.22.
  26. ↑ Moto (1983), p.207.
  27. ↑ Moto (1983), p.204.
  28. ↑ Mchombo (2004), p.24.
  29. ↑ Kanerva (1990), pp.151-215.
  30. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999a), p.100.
  31. ↑ Cruttenden (1986), pp.10ff; Downing (2008).
  32. ↑ Kanerva (1990); Myers (1996); Downing (2004); Downing (2008).
  33. ↑ Downing & Pompino-Marschall (2005).
  34. ↑ Kulemeka (2002), p. 91.
  35. ↑ Moto (1983).
  36. ↑ Mchombo (2004), p.17.
  37. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.111.
  38. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999a), p.102.
  39. ↑ Mtenje (1986), p.240.
  40. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999a), p.104.
  41. ↑ Trithart (1976), p.267.
  42. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.71, 66, 70; cf. Stevick p.111.
  43. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.83.
  44. ↑ Mtenje (1987), p.173 vs. Kanerva (1990), p.21.
  45. ↑ Myers (1996), pp.29-60.
  46. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.147.
  47. ↑ Kanerva (1990), pp.138ff.
  48. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.138; Stevick et al. (1965), p.21.
  49. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.201.
  50. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.15.
  51. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.31.
  52. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.26.
  53. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.12.
  54. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), pp.254-6.
  55. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.268.
  56. ↑ cf. Myers (1996), p.35; Hullquist, C.G. (1988) Simply Chichewa, p.145.
  57. ↑ Downing (2008), p.61; cf. Hullquist, C.G. (1988) Simply Chichewa, p.145.
  58. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.34, 48, 53, 54.
  59. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), pp.225, 19.
  60. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), pp.42, 47, 75, 119.
  61. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.176.
  62. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.15.
  63. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999b), p.121.
  64. ↑ Mtenje (2001).
  65. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.39.
  66. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.119.
  67. ↑ Stevick et al. (1976), p.176.
  68. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.155, cf. p.101-2, 214.
  69. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.175.
  70. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), pp.69, 101.
  71. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.177.
  72. ↑ Stevick et al. (1986), pp.248-9.
  73. ↑ Kulemeka (2002), p.91.
  74. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p. 163, 165.
  75. ↑ Moto (1983), pp.204f.
  76. ↑ Moto (1999).
  77. ↑ Mtenje (1986), pp.169, 206f.
  78. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999b), p.122f.
  79. ↑ Kanerva (1990), pp.16-17; see Hyman & Mtenje (1999b), p.127.
  80. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999b), p.124.
  81. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999b), p.135.
  82. ↑ Mtenje (1986), pp.203-4.
  83. ↑ Mtenje (1986), pp.203-4.
  84. ↑ Mtenje (1986), p.195; (1987), p.173.
  85. ↑ See especially Mtenje (1987).
  86. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965) p.89.
  87. ↑ Kanerva (1990) p.24.
  88. ↑ This tense can also be made with -dá-.
  89. ↑ Watkins (1937), p.84.
  90. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.111.
  91. ↑ Watkins (1937), p.100.
  92. ↑ Mchombo (2004), p.32; Mtenje (1987) p.194.
  93. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.22.
  94. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.22.
  95. ↑ Mtenje (1986), p.244ff; Kanerva (1990), p.23.
  96. ↑ cf. Stevick et al. (1965), p.124, p.243.
  97. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.146.
  98. ↑ Mtenje (1987), p.183.
  99. ↑ Mtenje (1965), p.245.
  100. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.222.
  101. ↑ Stevick at al. (1965), p.198.
  102. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.147.
  103. ↑ Mchombo (2004), pp.17-18.
  104. ↑ Downing & Mtenje (2011), p.9; Stevick et al. (1965), p. 148.
  105. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.196.
  106. ↑ But cf. Stevick (1965), p.159.
  107. ↑ Scotton & Orr vol 2 p.87.
  108. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.168.
  109. ↑ Chakanza, J.C. (2000). Wisdom of the People: 2000 Chinyanja Proverbs. CLAIM Blantyre (Malawi) p.241.
  110. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.291.
  111. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.287.
  112. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.1.
  113. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.156.
  114. ↑ Watkins (1937), p.100.
  115. ↑ Mtenje (1986), p.245.
  116. ↑ Mtenje (1986), p.246.
  117. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999a), p.104.
  118. ↑ Kanerva (1990) p.44 (with pausal form).
  119. ↑ Mtenje (1986), p.274.
  120. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999a), p.101.
  121. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.24.
  122. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.197.
  123. ↑ Stevick at al. (1965), p.264.
  124. ↑ Kanerva (1990), p.33.
  125. ↑ Mtenje (1986), pp.240-41.
  126. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999a), p.104.
  127. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999a), p.126.
  128. ↑ Mtenje (1995), p.7; Stevick et al. (1965), p.222.
  129. ↑ Mtenje (1995), p.23; Kanerva (1990), p.44.
  130. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999a), pp.103, 127.
  131. ↑ Mtenje (1988); Kanerva (1990), pp.37, 49-54; Hyman & Mtenje (1999a), pp.107-124; Myers & Carleton (1996); Moto (1999).
  132. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.66.
  133. ↑ Hyman & Mtenje (1999a), pp.107114.
  134. ↑ Stevick et al. (1965), p.301.

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