Special theme: Historical Bantu Linguistics
Held at the Department of African Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
The Fourth International Conference on Bantu Languages brought together specialists in all aspects of the study of Bantu languages.
New: Presentations of the conference as downloads
Invited speakers:
- Koen Bostoen
- Jeff Good
- Thilo C. Schadeberg
- Pius Tamanji
Conference Program
Besides the general sessions, two workshops were organised in conjunction
with the conference:
Workshop 1: Bantu and its closest relatives
Organized by Jean-Marie Hombert and Larry Hyman
The purpose of this workshop was to examine the origin and evolution of
Bantu linguistic specificities especially with regards to corresponding
features in closely related linguistic groups of languages. Five main themes
were covered (phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, classification) with
one main paper for each theme followed by one or two discussants per
paper.
Workshop2: Tone and Intonation in Bantu
Organized by Sophie Manus and Cédric Patin
While tone and intonation were for a long time considered separate
research topics, their relationship has recently received more attention
(Hyman & Monaka 2008, Michaud 2008, Zerbian et al. 2009).
This workshop aimed to address, among many others, the following
questions: is it (always) necessary to make a distinction between tonal and
non-tonal intonation? How do lexical tones and intonational tones interact?
Do intonational tones share the properties of lexical tones (e.g. the ability to
shift, to spread)?
