<p>ATR, advanced tongue root, is a phonological feature among vowels. As vowels assimilate to share the same value of that feature, they display ATR harmony. This is a common phenomenon among many African languages. ATR harmony is examined in this paper as manifested across morpheme boundaries wihin nouns in a Surmic language of Ethiopia called Bale. The data presented was collected at a workshop on ATR harmony held by SIL International in Mizan Teferi, Ethiopia, 2009. The vowel system in Bale displays a nine vowel inventory with a feature dominance of [+ATR] vowels which spread their feature both leftward and rightward to recessive [–ATR] vowels. The [+ATR] dominance is also present as a floating feature without any phonological material. The vowel /a/ is analysed as a neutral vowel, co-occuring with both [+ATR] and [–ATR] vowels within roots.</p>

Esta dissertação propõe-se estudar, em contextos específicos, o fenômeno da polidez lingüística em sheng. Para atingir esse objetivo abordaremos, inicialmente, as teorias sobre polidez lingüística dentro do panorama da sociopragmática, apresentando tanto as teorias mais tradicionais, surgidas nos anos 70, quanto as mais recentes, todas desenvolvidas principalmente em países anglófonos. Em seguida, traçaremos um perfil da situação lingüística do Quênia e trataremos especificamente do sheng em Nairóbi. Finalmente, serão descritas as expressões em sheng utilizadas nas situações de abertura e fechamento de conversações, agradecimentos, pedidos de desculpas e outras que potencialmente podem ser avaliadas como polidas. Essa análise permitirá verificar se, mesmo em uma situação social de extrema exclusão, como a vivida pela comunidade de Mukuru, em Nairóbi, onde a mera questão de sobrevivência torna-se uma luta diária, os indivíduos da comunidade lingüística que hoje \"constrói\" esse novo código lingüístico, estariam preocupados em estabelecer regras de conduta para situações de interação que se refletiriam em seu discurso, e se essas regras seriam formas de \"polidez lingüística\" ou formas de \"comportamento político\", como proposto por Richard Watts. / This dissertation aims to analyze, in specific contexts, the linguistic politeness phenomenon in sheng. In order to fulfill this goal, we will initially approach the theories on linguistic politeness within the scope of socio pragmatics, presenting the more traditional theories, which appeared in the 1970s, as well as the more recent ones, all developed mainly in Anglophone countries. Then we will outline Kenya\'s linguistic situation, focusing mostly on sheng in Nairobi. Finally, we will describe sheng idioms that are used in conversational openings and closings, in acts of returning thanks and apologies, and other actions that might be potentially considered as polite. This analysis will allow us to observe if the individuals from the linguistic community that \"constructs\" today this linguistic code, even living in a situation of extreme exclusion such as the one experienced by the Makuru community in Nairobi, where mere subsistence is itself a daily struggle, are concerned about establishing rules of conduct for interaction situations that would reflect in their discourse, and if these rules would be forms of \"linguistic politeness\" or forms of \"political behavior\", as it is assumed by Richard Watts.

Esta dissertação propõe-se estudar, em contextos específicos, o fenômeno da polidez lingüística em sheng. Para atingir esse objetivo abordaremos, inicialmente, as teorias sobre polidez lingüística dentro do panorama da sociopragmática, apresentando tanto as teorias mais tradicionais, surgidas nos anos 70, quanto as mais recentes, todas desenvolvidas principalmente em países anglófonos. Em seguida, traçaremos um perfil da situação lingüística do Quênia e trataremos especificamente do sheng em Nairóbi. Finalmente, serão descritas as expressões em sheng utilizadas nas situações de abertura e fechamento de conversações, agradecimentos, pedidos de desculpas e outras que potencialmente podem ser avaliadas como polidas. Essa análise permitirá verificar se, mesmo em uma situação social de extrema exclusão, como a vivida pela comunidade de Mukuru, em Nairóbi, onde a mera questão de sobrevivência torna-se uma luta diária, os indivíduos da comunidade lingüística que hoje \"constrói\" esse novo código lingüístico, estariam preocupados em estabelecer regras de conduta para situações de interação que se refletiriam em seu discurso, e se essas regras seriam formas de \"polidez lingüística\" ou formas de \"comportamento político\", como proposto por Richard Watts. / This dissertation aims to analyze, in specific contexts, the linguistic politeness phenomenon in sheng. In order to fulfill this goal, we will initially approach the theories on linguistic politeness within the scope of socio pragmatics, presenting the more traditional theories, which appeared in the 1970s, as well as the more recent ones, all developed mainly in Anglophone countries. Then we will outline Kenya\'s linguistic situation, focusing mostly on sheng in Nairobi. Finally, we will describe sheng idioms that are used in conversational openings and closings, in acts of returning thanks and apologies, and other actions that might be potentially considered as polite. This analysis will allow us to observe if the individuals from the linguistic community that \"constructs\" today this linguistic code, even living in a situation of extreme exclusion such as the one experienced by the Makuru community in Nairobi, where mere subsistence is itself a daily struggle, are concerned about establishing rules of conduct for interaction situations that would reflect in their discourse, and if these rules would be forms of \"linguistic politeness\" or forms of \"political behavior\", as it is assumed by Richard Watts.

Cette thèse est une description des marqueurs verbaux de lètὲɣὲ (téké) langue bantu parlée au Gabon (B71a). Les marqueurs verbaux étudiés sont : le préfixe verbal (marque d’accord), le marqueur de négation kâ…ŋí, les particules énonciatives mâ et mí et la finale verbale. De nombreux linguistes bantouistes considèrent ce domaine d’étude (marqueurs verbaux) comme étant complexe, c’est le cas de Guarisma (2000). Le nombre de marqueurs verbaux en est une des raisons de cette complexité. Il est difficile d’assigner un rôle à certains morphèmes. Elle s’inscrit dans le cadre Théorique des Opérations Prédicatives et Enonciatives (TOPE), élaboré par Culioli et ses collaborateurs, voir Culioli (1990,1999a). L’étude de ces morphèmes montre que chacun marque une opération linguistique spécifique. / This thesis is a description of verbal markers in lètὲɣὲ (Téké), a Bantu language spoken in Gabon (B 71a). The verbal markers studied are: the verbal prefix (mark of agreement), the negation marker kâ ... ŋí, the enunciating particles mâ and mí and the verbal final. Many Bantuist linguists consider this field of study (verbal markers) to be complex, as is the case with Guarisma (2000). The number of verbal markers is one of the reasons for this complexity. This work is conducted within the framework of the Theory of the Predicative and Enunciative Operations developed by Culioli (1990) and his collaborators. The enunciative study of these elements shows that each of them marks a specific linguistic operation.

ATR, advanced tongue root, is a phonological feature among vowels. As vowels assimilate to share the same value of that feature, they display ATR harmony. This is a common phenomenon among many African languages. ATR harmony is examined in this paper as manifested across morpheme boundaries wihin nouns in a Surmic language of Ethiopia called Bale. The data presented was collected at a workshop on ATR harmony held by SIL International in Mizan Teferi, Ethiopia, 2009. The vowel system in Bale displays a nine vowel inventory with a feature dominance of [+ATR] vowels which spread their feature both leftward and rightward to recessive [–ATR] vowels. The [+ATR] dominance is also present as a floating feature without any phonological material. The vowel /a/ is analysed as a neutral vowel, co-occuring with both [+ATR] and [–ATR] vowels within roots.

La présente thèse propose une étude comparative des langues bantu A80 (aussi appelées « makaa-njem »). Celle-ci répond à un double objectif : proposer une synthèse des connaissances linguistiques (et des disciplines connexes) sur les langues du groupe A80, en apportant des données et analyses nouvelles pour le bekwel du Gabon, d’une part et présenter les résultats d’une étude comparative sur deux niveaux – synchronique et diachronique – d’autre part. La comparaison prend en compte huit langues A80 : le shiwa, le kwasio, le bekol, le makaa, le konzime, le njem, le bekwel et le mpiemo. Cette étude comparative adopte en premier lieu une perspective synchronique (correspondances « horizontales ») pour ensuite aborder les données sous un angle diachronique (correspondances « verticales », reconstructions et réflexes). Elle porte sur la phonologie et plus marginalement sur la morphologie nominale et verbale. L’étude se base également sur un lexique de 1029 cognats établis à partir de données de premières mains pour le bekwel et de données issues de la littérature spécialisée pour les autres langues. Les données ont été traitées à l’aide des outils du site du projet RefLex. La première partie de la thèse constitue une synthèse globale des connaissances sur les langues A80 et sur le bekwel en particulier. La deuxième partie présente le corpus (modalités de constitution, puis nature, provenance et traitement des données) et une série d’esquisses phonologiques (et morphologiques) synthétiques pour les huit langues élaborées sur la base des données collectées et/ou rassemblées. La troisième et dernière partie présente les résultats de l’étude comparative. Celle-ci met en lumière les processus morphologiques et phonologiques qui ont façonné les langues du groupe makaa-njem au cours de leur évolution. Au niveau morphologique, on relève une simplification du système des classes nominales (due à l’intégration de plusieurs anciens préfixes aux bases démultipliant le nombre de préfixe zéro), de nombreux cas de reclassement, le rôle d’anciens préfixes nasals dans le dévoisement des occlusives en initiale de base nominale ainsi que l’émergence de mi-voisées en bekwel. Au niveau de la phonologie, on observe une tendance au monosyllabisme plus ou moins avancé selon les langues. Celle-ci s’explique par l’étude diachronique qui met en évidence que les langues A80 ont souvent subi la chute de la voyelle finale (V2) ou parfois même de la syllabe finale. La voyelle initialement en V2 est généralement maintenue d’une manière ou d’une autre par des anticipations qui peuvent prendre plusieurs formes : diphtongaisons, séquences V11-V12 (parfois avec dévocalisation de V11), nouveaux timbres par coalescence, etc. Enfin, la conclusion de la thèse récapitule les principaux résultats concernant la morphologie, la phonologie et le lexique, et montre comment ces résultats pourront être utiles pour l’analyse et la description (futures) des langues A80. / This thesis presents a comparative study of the Bantu languages of the A80 group (also known as Makaa-Njem). The goal of the thesis is two-fold: (i) offer a synthesis of the state of knowledge in linguistics (and related disciplines) about the languages of the Bantu A80 group by adding new data and analysis for the Bekwel language of Gabon ; (ii) present the results of a comparative study at the synchronic and diachronic levels. The comparative study includes eight A80 languages: Shiwa, Kwasio, Bekol, Makaa, Konzime, Njem, Bekwel and Mpiemo. The study adopts in the first place a synchronic perspective ("horizontal" correspondences) then approaches the same data from a diachronic point of view ("vertical" correspondences, reconstructions and reflexes), focusing mainly on phonology, and to a lesser extent, on nominal and verbal morphology. It is based on a 1029 cognate lexicon established on the basis of first-hand data for Bekwel and published data for the other languages. Data was processed using the online tools of the RefLex project.The first part of the thesis establishes a general summary of the knowledge on the Bantu A80 languages and on Bekwel in particular. The second part presents the corpus (gathering methods then nature of the data, sources and processing) and a series of concise phonological (and morphological) sketches for all eight languages constituted on the basis of the collected and/or compiled data. The third and final part presents the results of the comparative study. It brings into light the morphological and phonological processes that have shaped the languages of the Makaa-Njem group through their evolution. At the morphological level, it reveals a process of simplification of the noun class system (due to the assimilation of old prefixes into the stems leading to an increase in the number of zero prefixes), numerous cases of re-classification and the role of old nasal prefixes in occlusive devoicing stem initially as well as the mergence of semi-voiced consonants in Bekwel. At the phonological level, a tendency to monosyllabicity can be observed, at a greater or lesser extent depending on the language. This finds an explanation in the diachronic analysis that shows that the languages of the A80 group often were subject to final vowel dropping (V2), in some cases even the whole final syllable. The vowel originally in V2 is generally preserved thanks to anticipations of various types: emergence of diphthongs, V11-V12 sequences (sometimes including devocalization of V11), new vowel quality by fusion, etc. Finally, the conclusion of the thesis summarizes the main results with regards to morphology, phonology and the lexicon, illustrating how these results will be useful for (future) analyses and descriptions of languages of the A80 group.