Nominal Tone in isiNdebele

IsiNdebele is a Nguni Bantu language spoken in South Africa. While the tone systems of many other Nguni languages are well described and analysed, this paper presents the first description of the isiNdebele nominal tone system. The isiNdebele tone system is typical of Bantu languages in that Low tones are the default tones, added after phonological rules have been applied, and only High tones undergo any phonological rules. It is well known in the literature of Nguni languages that H tone spread/shift targets the antepenultimate and penultimate syllables, but isiNdebele differs from other Nguni languages in that the H tone spreading/shifting target is one syllable further, that is, the penultimate and the final syllable.