ABSTRACT

Vwanji (Bantu G66, Tanzania) has a seven-vowel system with contrastive length and predictable stress on the antepenultimate mora of the word. The consonant inventory includes prenasalised consonants, syllabic nasals and aspirated nasals. Morphophonological processes include asymmetric cross-height vowel harmony, vowel copying and vowel coalescence. The language has 20 noun classes (1, 1a, 2–18 and 20) and six series of pronouns. Nouns and certain other word classes may have an augment. Three levels of past tense and two levels of future tense are distinguished. Aspectual distinctions include anterior, persistive and habitual. Future tenses are marked as either certain or uncertain.