Phonologically Conditioned Allomorphy in the Bamanankan Past Tense Morpheme /ra/

Abstract

This study examines the allomorphic variation of the past tense morpheme /-ra/ in Bamanankan, a Mande language of the Niger-Congo family spoken predominantly in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire. The primary objective of the study is to identify the range of past tense allomorphs in Bamanankan and to determine the phonological conditions governing their distribution. The data were collected through a mixed-method approach combining native speaker elicitation with corpus-based analysis, ensuring both controlled and naturally occurring linguistic evidence. A dataset consisting of 100 verbs was analyzed to assess the interaction between segmental phonology and past tense marking. The findings indicate that the Bamanankan past tense morpheme displays three distinct allomorphs: -ra, -na, and -la. The selection of these allomorphs is shown to be systematically conditioned by the phonological properties of the preceding segment. Specifically, -na occurs following nasal sounds, while -la appears after certain consonants, including r, t, w, c, and l. In contrast, -ra is realized after consonants such as s, b, f, y, j, g, and k. Furthermore, -ra can be considered the default or underlying form of the past tense morpheme due to its broader distribution and higher frequency across phonological environments. These results contribute to the description of Bamanankan morphophonology and offer insights into phonologically conditioned allomorphy within Mande languages more generally.