Dschang Syllable Structure

Dschang is one of about ten Bamileke languages,1 spoken by over 300,000 people in Cameroon (Grimes 1988). The considerable interest in the language has focussed almost solely on tone, stemming from work by Hyman & Tadadjeu (1976). However, the language is also interesting for its syllable structure. The purpose of this chapter is to give a detailed description of the syllable in Dschang and show how syllable structure aids the understanding of a diverse range of diachronic, phonotactic and morphophonemic evidence. A striking property of Dschang syllables is aspiration, which can accompany most segments (including voiced stops) and which, I shall argue, does not occupy a position in the syllable onset. Aspiration behaves in a curious way in the morphophonology of the language, as illustrated in (1). As an aid to the reader, verb roots have been underlined.2