Fidèle Mpiranya
Lecturer
Classics 311
1010 E. 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Office: (773) 702-8528
fmpiranya@uchicago.edu
My teaching interests are language classes in Swahili and Bantu linguistics. My research is on phonology and morphosyntax of Bantu languages in a historical and comparative perspective, or focusing on individual languages, especially Kinyarwanda and Kiswahili. The theoretical framework I use is based on Martinet's functional theory and Optimality Theory. Some of my collaborative studies in phonology use experimental methods as well.
Education
- PhD in Linguistics, Université Lyon 3, 1996
Recent Papers and Publications
- "Tone in Kinyarwanda and Kirundi: remarks on negative verbal forms". Paper presented
at "Tones and Features: A Symposium to Honor Nick Clements", Paris June 18-19, 2009
(with John Goldsmith). - "An articulatory view of Kinyarwanda's sibilant harmony", in Phonology, vol. 25, pp.499-
535 (with Rachel Walker and Dani Byrd). - "An articulatory view of Kinyarwanda’s sibilant harmony", to appear in Phonology (with Rachel Walker and Dani Byrd).
- "On context-driven agreement and selective vowel height harmony in Bantu". Paper presented at The 43rd Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, May 3-5, 2007.
- "On triggers and opacity in coronal harmony", in Proceedings of Berkeley Linguistic Society 2005 (with Rachel Walker).
- "Kinyarwanda sibilant harmony and coronal opacity". Paper presented at the annual meeting of GLOW, Geneva, Switzerland; March 29th, 2005 - April 2nd, 2005 (with Rachel Walker).
- "Renforcement de l'initiale et dépression prosodique: Evolution vocalique dans quelques langues bantu du Nord-Ouest", in Linguistique Africaine, 23, pp.123-170, Paris. 2003.
- "Spirantisation et fusion vocalique en bantu: essai d'interprétation fonctionnelle", in Linguistique Africaine n°18. pp.51-77, 1997.
- Perspective fonctionnelle en linguistique comparée des langues bantu. C.E.L, Lyon; distributed by Editions Klincksieck, Paris. 1998.
- Swahili phonology reconsidered in a diachronical perspective. East African Languages and Dialects, Vol.4. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. 1995.