Skype talk on “Pattern borrowing and hybridisation in Mubi”

Joseph Lovestrand has sent the following invitation to another Skype Talk:

The Chadic Languages & Cultures group, run by Cameroonian linguists, is meeting online Saturday 20 November, 9 AM, Cameroon time (UTC+1). All are welcome to join the discussion (in French and English)!

Chadic Languages & Cultures
Saturday, 20 November, 2021
9 AM (Cameroon time, UTC+1)
Join via Skype: https://join.skype.com/YTdz8ale1BIF

Pattern borrowing and hybridisation in Mubi
Lameen Souag (CNRS)

The plural system of Mubi (East Chadic, Afroasiatic) stands out cross-linguistically within Chadic and worldwide for its extensive use of pattern morphology, fixing the output’s vowel qualities and shape while preserving the input’s consonants. This paper demonstrates that some elements of this system are reconstructible at least for East Chadic B and probably go back to earlier stages of Afroasiatic, while others reflect the influence of Chadian Arabic, the regional lingua franca. The process of influence, however, turns out to involve not just straightforward pattern morpheme borrowing (exemplified here by the iambic pattern BaCaaDiFe), but also the reshaping of inherited patterns. The most frequent quadriliteral plural pattern, BuCooDuF, reflects Arabic influence in its shape – mediated by a change in mapping directionality – but Chadic inheritance in its distribution. This result supports the hypothesis that pattern morphology is more easily transferred between related languages.