Exceptions to Hiatus Resolution in Mushunguli (Somali Chizigula)

Mushunguli (Somali Chizigula, Kizigua; ISO [xma]) is an endangered, under-described Bantu language spoken in the Lower Jubba River area of Somalia and in U.S. diaspora communities. This chapter presents a set of exceptions to hiatus resolution in Mushunguli. Hiatus is usually resolved in one of three ways: glide formation, whereby prevocalic high vowels i,u become glides j,w; fusion, whereby the low central vowel a fuses with the following vowel; and deletion, whereby sequences of identical vowels are reduced to a single short vowel. A set of high vowel-initial stems resolve hiatus normally in contexts where glide formation and deletion are expected, but fail to do so in contexts where fusion is expected. A clear, concise derivational analysis of these data is presented, with the aim of offering a useful benchmark for future research into hiatus resolution and phonological exceptionality.