APPENDIX O TO CHAPTER 5
PART OF A LEARNER'S SYNOPSIS OF KIRUNDI STRUCTURE
(with Raymond Setukuru)
The Thai synopsis (Appendix M) was written in 1970-71, and the Swahili synopsis (Appendix N) was first drafted in 1967. The Kirundi synopsis, of which this appendix contains a part, was written still earlier, in 1963, as an unexpected consequence of a decision to try to teach students to use tone in speaking the language. Kirundi tones are not numerous, but the tone on any given syllable, particularly in the verb forms, changes in ways that are both puzzling to the foreigner and grammatically significant to native speakers. A series of individual grammar notes, distributed among the 30 units of the course, simply would not have been effective.
What is reproduced below is the grammatical section of the synopsis. Vowels, consonants and tones are treated in other sections. These materials illustrate a physical arrangement of examples which is different from that used in Swahili synopsis (pp. 272 ff.), and also show how a synopsis can deal with a type of structural problem which tends to elude the student because tone is not as real for him as vowels and consonants are.
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