Silent Consonants B and P in Marghi (Madagali Dialect) . Evidence of Parallelism and morphophonemic Rule /b, p/ -> zero C_(46 original Data Points)
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper presents first systematic documentation of silent consonants B and P in Marghi (Madagali dialect), a Central Chadic language spoken in Adamawa State, Nigeria. Based on 46 original data points (36 P + 10 B) collected from native elders in Madagali LGA (2026), this study identifies two previously undocumented phonological rules: /p/ -> zero / __C and /b/ -> zero / __C occurring both word-initially and word-medially. The data reveals complete parallelism between B and P and provides morphological evidence: Ptul [tul] 'King' -> Tuptul [tutl] 'Kings'. It also documents homophones such as Pchu [chu] 'wash' vs 'Monkey' and Psu [su] 'Sent' vs 'Sweet beer'. This fills major gap left by Hoffmann (1963), Ndahi (2013) and previous lexicon work. First to document medial silence and B/P parallelism as morphophonemic rule.
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7224415713