The prosodic and intonational mapping of complex sentences in Luo

This paper presents the intonational mapping of complex sentences in Luo by analyzing the prosodic cues of sentences with subordinate clauses. The study involved an analysis of 168 tokens. The analysis was done using Praat software version 6.0–6.1 to examine pitch contours and identify intonational cues as stipulated in the Autosegmental-Metrical Theory. Results indicate that, to a large extent, there is a direct alignment between syntactic and prosodic structures in Luo complex sentences. These are determined by prosodic edge tones that match syntactic boundaries. The identified prosodic cues are pitch reset and boundary L% at the left and right edges, respectively, with significant differences between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. Coordinated clauses are also marked by a prosodic pause and pitch reset, aligning with the prosodic recursiveness. Some clauses exhibit global effects such as pitch range expansion and compression. This is noted in restrictive and adverbial clauses. Contrary to other clause types, argument clauses do not exhibit tonal breaks or recursive prosodic effects, suggesting a lack of isomorphism. This challenges the idea that syntactic and prosodic phrases straightforwardly map onto each other. Thus, the paper enhances our understanding of Luo intonation and its contribution to linguistic theory.