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1. The role of music in documenting phonological grammar: Two case studies from West Africa

   https://doi.org/10.3765/amp.v7i0.4493  

   McPherson, Laura (June 2019, Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology)

   Though the study of metrics and poetic verse has long informed phonological theory, studies of musical adaptation remain on the fringe of linguistic theory. In this paper, I argue that musical adaptation provides a unique window in speakers’ knowledge of their phonological system, which can provide crucial evidence for phonological theory. I draw on two case studies from my fieldwork in West Africa: tonal textsetting of sung folk music in Tommo So (Dogon, Mali) and the balafon surrogate language in Seenku (Mande, Burkina Faso). I show how results of these studies provide evidence for different levels of phonological grammar, the phonetics-phonology interface, and incomplete application of grammatical tone. Further, the case of the balafon surrogate language shows how studying music can be a valuable tool in language documentation and phonological description. Finally, preliminary study of Seenku tonal textsetting suggests important differences in the level of phonological encoding in vocal music vs. instrumental surrogate speech. 

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2. Akan tone encoding across musical modalities

   https://doi.org/10.32473/sal.52.1and2.133067  

   McPherson, Laura; Obiri-Yeboah, Michael (April 2024, Studies in African Linguistics)

   Musical surrogate languages like talking drums remain understudied in the linguistics literature, despite their close connection with the phonetics and phonology of the spoken language. African surrogate languages tend to be based on tone, making them a unique angle for studying a language’s tonal system. This paper looks at the encoding of Akan tone in three instrumental surrogate languages: the atumpan drums, the seperewa harp, and the abɛntia horn trumpet. Each instrument presents different organological constraints that could shape how the tone system is transposed to musical form. Drawing on novel data elicited with musicians in Ghana, we show that all three systems are built on a two-tone foundation mirroring the Akan tone system, but with subtle differences in the treatment of downstep and intonational effects like phrase-final lowering and lax question intonation. 

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3. Musical surrogate languages in the documentation of complex tone: the case of the Sambla balafon

   https://doi.org/10.21437/TAL.2018-13  

   McPherson, Laura (June 2018, Proceedings of Tonal Aspects of Language 2018)

   In documenting an undescribed language, tone can pose a significant challenge. In practically no other aspect of the phonology can such a small set of categories show such an overlapping range of pronunciation, especially in level-tone languages where f0 slope offers fewer clues to category. This paper demonstrates the unexpected tool offered by musical surrogate languages in the documentation of these tone systems. It draws on the case study of the Sambla balafon, a resonator xylophone played by many ethnicities in Burkina Faso and neighboring West African countries. The language of the Sambla people, Seenku (Northwestern Mande, Samogo), has a highly complex tonal system, whose four contrastive levels and multiple contour tones are encoded musically in the notes of the balafon, allowing musicians to communicate with each other and with spectators without ever opening their mouths. I show how the balafon data have shed light on a number of tonal contrasts and phenomena and raised questions about levels of the grammar and their mental representations. 

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4. Feeling the Beat in an African Tone Language: Rhythmic Mapping Between Language and Music

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.653747  

   Franich, Kathryn H.; Lendja Ngnemzué, Ange B. (June 2021, Frontiers in communication)

   McPherson, Laura; Winter, Yoad (Ed.)

   Text-setting patterns in music have served as a key data source in the development of theories of prosody and rhythm in stress-based languages, but have been explored less from a rhythmic perspective in the realm of tone languages. African tone languages have been especially under-studied in terms of rhythmic patterns in text-setting, likely in large part due to the ill-understood status of metrical structure and prosodic prominence asymmetries in many of these languages. Here, we explore how language is mapped to rhythmic structure in traditional folksongs sung in Medʉmba, a Grassfields Bantu language spoken in Cameroon. We show that, despite complex and varying rhythmic structures within and across songs, correspondences emerge between musical rhythm and linguistic structure at the level of stem position, tone, and prosodic structure. Our results reinforce the notion that metrical prominence asymmetries are present in African tone languages, and that they play an important coordinative role in music and movement. 

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5. The talking balafon of the Sambla: Grammatical principles and documentary implications

   https://doi.org/10.1353/anl.2019.0006  

   McPherson, Laura (October 2019, Anthropological linguistics)

   This article makes the case for linguists to take part in the study of musical surrogate languages, where linguistic form is transposed onto music. It draws on the case study of the Sambla balafon, a West African resonator xylophone. Seenku (Northwestern Mande, Samogo), the language of the Sambla people, has a highly complex tonal system, whose four contrastive levels and multiple contour tones are encoded musically in the notes of the balafon, allowing musicians to communicate without ever opening their mouths. I analyze the grammar of the surrogate language and demonstrate its use in both phonological analysis and language documentation. 

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