Hiatus Resolution in the Ndau Cliticisation Domain

Abstract

This article examines hiatus resolution in the cliticisation domain. Specifically the article examines hiatus in Ndau procliticization. The Ndau cliticisation domain resolves and tolerates hiatus in some specific contexts. The article argues that hiatus is resolved in adverbial and possessive proclitics-host boundary, but it is tolerated in copulative ndí and its allomorphs-boundary. The major findings of this study are that vowel coalescence is used to resolve hiatus in the cliticisation domain. Coalescence is the preferred strategy across a Prosodic Word boundary, precisely across a host-clitic boundary (Postlexical Level), and it involves the elision of V with the preservation of the feature [open] that is passed onto the following vowel. Using the tenets of Optimality Theory, hiatus is tolerated in procliticization when V2 is a vowel of a host of a copulative proclitic /ndì-/ and its allomorphs because Realize Morpheme outranks ONSET.

Keywords: cliticisation, copulative affix, coalescence, hiatus, procliticisation