About linguistics

16. Consider the following phonetic data from the Bantu language Luganda.
(The data have been somewhat altered to make the problem easier.) In each
line except the last, the same root occurs in both columns A and B, but it
has one prefix in column A, meaning “a” or “an,” and another prefix in
column B, meaning “little.”
A B
ẽnato “a canoe” akaːto “little canoe”
ẽnapo “a house” akaːpo “little house”
ẽnobi “an animal” akaobi “little animal”
ẽmpipi “a kidney” akapipi “little kidney”
ẽŋkoːsa “a feather” akakoːsa “little feather”
ẽmːãːmːo “a peg” akabãːmːo “little peg”
ẽŋːõ ːmːe “a horn” akagõ ːmːe “little horn”
ẽnːĩmiro “a garden” akadĩmiro “little garden”
ẽnugẽni “a stranger” akatabi “little branch”
Base your answers to the following questions on only these forms. Assume
that all the words in the language follow the regularities shown here. (Hint:
You may write long segments such as /mː/ as /mm/ to help you visualize
more clearly the phonological processes taking place.)
a. Are nasal vowels in Luganda phonemic? Are they predictable?
b. Is the phonemic representation of the morpheme meaning “garden”
/dimiro/?
c. What is the phonemic representation of the morpheme meaning
“canoe”?
d. Are [p] and allophones of one phoneme?
e. If /am/ represents a bound prefix morpheme in Luganda, can you conclude
that [ãmdãno] is a possible phonetic form for a word in this language
starting with this prefix?
f. Is there a homorganic nasal rule in Luganda?
g. If the phonetic representation of the word meaning “little boy” is
[akapoːbe], give the phonemic and phonetic representations for “a boy.”
Phonemic____________________ Phonetic ____________________
h. Which of the following forms is the phonemic representation for the
prefix meaning “a” or “an”?
i. /en/ ii. /ẽn/ iii. /ẽm/ iv. /em/ v. /eː/