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Tommo So
Tombo-So
Pronunciation	/tɔ̀mmɔ̀ sɔ̀ɔ́/
Native to	Mali
Region	Région de Mopti
Ethnicity	America
Native speakers	40,000-60,000 (2013)
Language family	Niger-Congo Dogon Tommo So
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dto
Map of Mali
Coordinates: 14°20′N 3°25′W

Tommo So is a language spoken in the eastern part of Mali's Mopti Region. It is placed under the Dogon language family, which itself is contained under the larger Niger-Congo language family. As with many other Dogon languages, the name "Tommo So" consists of an ethnicity or location followed by the word for "language."

There are approximately 60,000 speakers of Tommo So in the world. Of the twelve Dogon languages, it is the second-most common. It is classed as a 6a (vigorous) language under Ethnologue's language status classifications—the language is "used for face-to-face communication by all generations and the situation is sustainable." Children are still acquiring Tommo So as their first language. Bambara and French (Mali's lingua franca and national language) are common second languages for Tommo So speakers, with the former being common among those that have spent time in other areas of Mali, and the latter being used to communicate in the classroom or with foreigners.

Phonology

Vowels

Tommo So contains 17 vowel phonemes. There are seven basic vowels spanning four vowel heights and three vowel backnesses. Vowel differences between words are reflected across all vowels—minimal pairs will have identical vowel contrasts in different positions. For example, the language contains the minimal pair [àná]/[ɛnɛ], but not [ànɛ] or [ɛná].

Basic Vowel Sounds

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
High-mid	e		o
Low-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Low	a

Besides the 7 basic vowels, Tommo So's vowel inventory includes their long counterparts and 3 nasalized long vowels. The placement of vowels in words does not affect their length—long vowels tend to be about 138ms long, and short vowels tend to be about 67ms long. The nasalized vowels /iːⁿ/ and /uːⁿ/ are present in the language but occur infrequently and irregularly, and are not considered phonemic.

Full Vowel Inventory

Short	Long	Nasalized
i	iː / ii
e	eː / ee
ɛ	ɛː / ɛɛ	ɛːn / ɛɛn
a	aː / aa	aːn / aan
ɔ	ɔː / ɔɔ	ɔːn / ɔɔn
o	oː / oo
u	uː / uu

Consonants

Tommo So contains 17 consonants. There are 5 places and 6 manners of articulation. Consonant length is contrastive—for example, [dɛ̀nnɛ́] and [dɛ̀nɛ́] are considered to be different words.

Consonant Inventory

	Bilabial		Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
Plosive	p	b	t	d		k	g
Nasal	m		n		ɲ	ɳ
Fricative			s					h
Approximant	w				j
Tap			ɾ
Lateral approximant			l

The consonant inventory includes the alveolo-palatal affricate [dʑ]—the consonant [ʑ] does not appear by itself, and is not included in the consonant chart. There are a few other consonants sounds that occur in consonant speech (such as [ʔ] and [tɕ]). However, these sounds occur only in ideophones, and are not considered part of Tommo So's consonant inventory.

Syllabic structure

There are eight syllable types in Tommo So: (C)V, (C)Vː (C)VR, (C)VC, N, NCV, NCVː, and CVV. N represents a nasal consonant, and R represents a sonorant. A (C)VC syllable must be followed by an onset identical to this coda. Some examples of these syllable structures are provided below.

Template	Example	Translation
V	ɛ̀.nɛ́	'goat'
Vː	íí	'house'
CV	gì.nɛ́	'child'
CVː	nàá	'cow'
VR	ém	'milk'
CVR	nǎm	'sun'
CVC	sɔ́b.bc̀	'dry sowing'
N	ɲ́.yɛ́	'eat'
NCV	à.ndá	'udder'
NCVː	gà.mbáá	'some'
CVV	dɔ̀ɛ̀	'he arrived'

Tone

Tone is significant both lexically and gramatically. Tommo So contains two tones, high (H) and low (L). Based off of an analysis of recorded words, the distribution and placement of H and L tones seem to be governed by a set of patterns that are relatively unpredictable for nouns, numerals, and adjectives, and predictable for verbs.

Lexical Tone

Almost all syllables have an associated H or L tone, and every stem must contain at least one H tone. Although tones are contrastive, there are very few minimal pairs that are only tonally distinctive. A few examples are listed below.

Tonal Minimal Pairs

/L/ tone		/LH/ tone
náá	'mother'	nàá	'cow'
ííyé	'today'	ììyé	'honey'
ííyɛ́	'grave'	ììyɛ́	'moon'
dámmá	'village'	dàmmá	'hoe'
ísé	'empty'	ìsé	'dog'

Although stems must contain tones, some elements (such as plural markers and postpositions) do not have a specific tone—their tone is derived from the tones of the stems around them.

Grammatical Tone

Tommo So, like other Dogon languages, uses tonal overlays. A stem's tones are overwritten by a pre-determined tone overlay depending on the context in which the stem appears. Verb phrases' tones are replaced based on inflectional morphology, and only affect the verb stem. As an example, main clauses' affirmative imperfect overlay is {HL}, and their negative imperfect overlay is {L}. Relative clauses' affirmative imperfect overlay does not change tones, and their negative imperfect overlay is {L}. Given the noun stem [jɔ̀bɔ́] ('run') of the /LH/ tone class, conjugation would result in the following.

Conjugation of [jɔ̀bɔ́] ('run')

		Main clause	Relative clause
Imperfective	Affirmative {HL}	jɔ́bɔ̀-dɛ̀	jɔ̀bɔ́-dɛ
	Negative {L}	jɔ̀b-éélè	jɔ̀b-éélè

Noun phrases' tones are replaced based on the relationship between words in the noun phrase, and can affect multiple words. Although verb phrase tonal overlays are strictly defined for all verbs, noun phrase tonal overlays are dependent on the object in the noun phrase being possessed or not.

Morphology

Tommo So is an agglutinative language. Words in the language are formed by stringing morphemes together, all of which tend to have only one singular meaning. In general, when these morphemes are attached to each other, they retain their original form and meaning within the new word. Tommo So's morphology contains affixation, clitics, reduplication, and compounding.

Affixation

As an agglutinative language, the affixation of morphemes plays a major role in Tommo So's morphology. Almost all of the language's bound morphemes are used as suffixes—prefixes are only seen in the form of reduplication, when used for deadjectival nominalization.

Tommo So contains five verbal derivational suffixes, listed below.

Purpose	Suffix
factitive	-ndɛ́
reversive	-ílɛ́
transitive	-írɛ́
mediopassive	-íyɛ́
causative	-mɔ́

Example 1

yɛ̀

see

'see'

→

yɛ̀-ndɛ́

see-FACT

'watch'

Example 2

dɛ̀bɛ́

(get stuck)

'get stuck'

→

dɛ̀b-ílɛ́

(get stuck)-REV

'get unstuck'

Example 3

pɛ́ndɛ́

(make tight)

'make tight'

→

pɛ́nd-íyɛ́

(make tight)-MP

'get crowded'

There are some cases in which the 'reversive' suffix -ílɛ́ does not seem to contain a reversive meaning. For example, the word yàmá means 'be ruined', but the word 'yàm-ílɛ́' means 'ruin.' Some derivational suffixes just happen to carry "no discernable meaning at all."

Tommo So does not contain much nominal morphology—the only two meaningful suffix types that attach to nouns are those that implement a human/non-human system and the diminutive -ý. In the case below, íí is an allomorph.

Example 1

yàá-m=mbe

female-HUM.PL=PL

'women'

Example 2
ɛ́njɛ́	íí
chicken	DIM
'chick'

Clitics

There are a few clitics in Tommo So, including a plural marker =mbe and a definite marker =gɛ (an example showing both is given below). Clitics are always attached to the end of an entire noun phrase rather than the noun itself.

Plural (noun)

yàá-m=mbe

female-HUM.PL=PL

'women'

→

Plural (noun phrase)
yàà-m	kómmó=gɛ=mbe
female-HUM.PL	skinny=def=PL
'the skinny women'

In general, clitics are always attached to the end of a stem, and never the beginning.

Reduplication

Reduplication is used for different purposes in Tommo So's morphology. The first is deadjectival nominalization, and the second is adjectival distribution.

Deadjectival nominalization

The process of nominalizing an adjective requires for the adjective stem to be reduplicated, either in part or in whole. At minimum, the first syllable is reduplicated. However, in the case of multisyllabic adjectives, up to the entire word can be reduplicated. A tone shift also occurs during this process. Regardless of how much of the original word is duplicated, the resultant noun has the same meaning.

Adjective stem	Noun	Translation of noun
kúnɔ́	kù~kùnɔ́ kùnù~kùnɔ́	'thickness'
wánnu	wà~wànnu wànnù~wànnu	'width'
kábárá	kà~kàbàrá kàbà~kàbàrá kàbàrà~kàbàrá	'flatness'

Adjectival distribution

The reduplication of an adjective is used to distribute its meaning across a given number of objects.

Example 1
Gìnè	ɛ̀su~ɛ̀sù	néé-go=sɛ-m.
house	pretty~pretty	two-ADV=have-1SG
'I have two very pretty houses.'

Example 2
Jàà	ɛ́lɛ́lu~ɛ̀lɛ̀lù	néé-go	ɲ̀y-ɛ̀-m.
meal	sweet~sweet	two-ADV	eat-PFV.L-1SG
'I ate two good meals.'

Compounding

There are two types of compounding in Tommo So: nominal compounding and adjectival compounding (also known as bahuvrihi compounding).

Nominal compounding

About a third of the known lexicon of Tommo So consists of nominal compounds, of which most are right-headed. Some examples of nominal compounds are provided below.

Example 1
nɛ̀m	táá
salt	door
'slab of salt'

Example 2
bòmbòm	yòògú
candy	sap
'chewing gum'

Example 3
hɔ̀ɔ̀làl	bàŋáá
trust	owner
'trustworthiness'

Bahuvrihi compounding

Bahuvrihi compounding in Tommo So occurs when a complex noun is created by attaching an adjective to the end of a noun.

Example 1
ǹdɛ̀	áŋá	wɛ̂y
person	mouth	light
'gossipy person'

Example 2
àn-nà-y	dɔ́lɔ́	póò
male-HUM.SG-DIM	testicle	fat
'boy with large testicles'

Syntax

Basic word order

Tommo So's basic word order is subject-object-verb (SOV). Examples of this are shown below.

Example 1
Mòòmíyó	mí=ɲ̀	támbá-gú=sɛ.
scorpion	1SG.PRO=OBJ	strike-ppl=have
'The scorpion is striking me.'

Example 2
Mí	áí=ɲ́	màŋgóró	ób-aa=be-m.
1SG.PRO	friend=OBJ	mango	give-PFV=be.PST-1SG
'I gave my friend a mango.'

Head-complement pairs

The language is mostly head final—in the examples below, the head is in bold text.

Determiner/NP

bóóló=gɛ

thread=DEF

'the thread'

Possessee/possessor
Árámátá	[sɔ̀w yàà]
Ramata	blanket=DEF
'Ramata's blanket'

Adjective(comparative)/standard
ɛ̀nɛ́=gɛ=diyɛ	ɛ̀sú
goat=DEF=than	pretty
prettier than the goat'