Syncope and the drive towards minimization in Colloquial Bamana

Abstract

Data from two varieties of Bamana, a Mande language spoken in West Africa, illustrate that permissible syllable shapes vary between the two types. A comparison of Classic Bamana spoken in Segou, Mali and that spoken by a younger cohort of individuals in the Malian capital, Bamako, reveals that the latter variety is synchronically developing complex CCV and CVC syllable shapes, whereas the classical variety permits only maximal CV syllables. We posit that the development of these syllable shapes represents an overall drive towards word minimization in this variety of the language. This study formalizes minimization in Colloquial Bamana in an optimality theoretic framework and illustrates the support that these developing processes in Bamana provide for the Split Margin Approach to the syllable, developed in Baertsch (2002). Preferential deletion patterns, the role of phonotactics in driving these patterns, and other processes interacting with and/or preventing syncope from occurring are also explored.