This is a project to produce a phonological analysis of vowel length, tone, accent, and intonation in Luganda, a Bantu language, and to integrate this analysis into a theory of how syntax and phonology can interact in the grammar of a language. The alternative hypotheses of direct syntactic conditioning of phonological rules versus indirect conditioning mediated by syntactically-established phonological domains will be considered in a book-length treatment of Luganda prosody. Luganda is an African language in which tone functions quite differently from the way it does in better-studied situations such as Japanese. This project investigates current issues in phonological theory as it applies to the prosodic nature of language.
