The Phonology and Morphology of Kimatuumbi

The book is written from the theoretical perspective of lexical phonology and clearly reflects years of care, in depth and accurate elicitation ... the book succeeds in its goals of presenting a wealth of data and a consistent analysis of that data ... The book is valuable in numerous ways. It illustrates the need for accurate and exhaustive elicitation. It demonstrates the need for in depth analysis as a basis for orthography development. It is an excellent example of a full phonological write-up in a current theory. It is a source of insights into Bantu linguistics. It challenges some of the claims of lexical phonology. * Ron Moe, Notes on Liguistics No. 77 *
The book is very well written and presents an excellent example of a thorough description of a Bantu language, aspects of which are discussed in fascinating detail and with obvious competence. No less impressive is the manner in which the author blends description with theory by showing how details of the language provide insight into current theoretical issues. The Phonology and Morphology of Kimatuumbi offers a thorough and welcome description of Kimatuumbi phonology and should serve as a good model for the description of other Bantu languages. * Al D. Mtenje, University of Malawi, Anthropological Linguistics, 39 No.1, 1997 *
To Odden's credit, he is scrupulously conscientious in mentioning exceptional patterns in the data as well as regular patterns that remain exceptions to his analysis. He certainly fulfils his own goal of providing sufficient data, clearly enough presented, 'to allow interesting new questions arising from changes in theoretical perspective to be answered empirically' ... this book is, from beginning to end, filled with data and analyses that phonologists working in many areas and with a variety of background are bound to find stimulating and useful ... an admirable achievement and makes an important contribution to our knowledge of phonological systems. * Laura J. Downing, University of British Columbia, Phonology, Vol 13 - 1996 *
it makes an important contribution by presenting a wealth of mostly new data in a modern linguistic framework on a member of an underdescribed language family ... it contains a satisfyingly abundant amount of data illustrating the phonological processes discussed ... he is scrupulously conscientious in mentioning exceptional patterns in the data as well as regular patterns that remain exceptions to his analysis ... this book is, from beginning to end, filled with data and analyses that phonologists working in many areas and with a variety of backgrounds are bound to find stimulating and useful ... the book is an admirable achievement and makes an important contribution to our knowledge of phonological systems * Laura J. Downing, University of British Columbia, Phonology 13 (1996) *
a landmark in Bantu studies ... I enthusiastically recommend this work to any serious Bantu linguist and to anyone interested in the complex questions of tonology and tonal morphology. * Gerard Philippson, Journal of Linguistics *