SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics Vol.15 (2007): 33-48 On Recent Trends in Phonology: Vowel Sequences in Bantu Languages Al Mtenje University of Malawi, amtenje@sdnp.org.mw 1. Introduction The study of vowel sequences and their interaction with syllable structure in the phonology of Bantu languages has been a subject of considerable theoretical discussion. There are cross-linguistic variations on when and how such sequences are separated in order to yield preferred syllable patterns but the most common repair strategies are through epenthesis, glide formation, coalescence and deletion. One of the most challenging cases to explain is when, within one and the same language, vowel sequences are tolerated in one domain but disallowed in another. There have been various theoretical positions over the decades in the analysis of this kind of phenomenon but the articulation of Optimality Theory (OT) (cf. Prince & Smolensky 1993, McCarthy 2004, Kager 1999, Archangeli & Langendoen 1997 among others) has provided new theoretical insights into how complex facts involving vowel sequences can be accounted for. This paper discusses data from three Malawian Bantu languages namely, Cindali, Citonga and Cinyika in relation to syllabification, vowel deletion and consonant insertion and observes that while in the majority of cases, vowel sequences are eliminated through vowel deletion and consonant epenthesis to ensure that syllables generally begin with full onsets, there are instances when contiguous vowels are tolerated within the same language, which is paradoxical. It is then argued that these facts can easily be accounted for in OT by exploiting the notion of Cophonologies and variations in constraint rankings in the spirit of Downing (2003), Inkelas (1998), Orgun (1997), Inkelas & Zoll (2005) and others. The paper thus provides further supporting evidence from Bantu languages for the explanatory power of Cophonologies in Optimality Theory. 2. Reduplication in Cindali and Cinyika Cindali and Cinyika are very closely related Bantu languages which are spoken in Chitipa district in northern Malawi and have been classified by Guthrie as M20. Due to their similarity, they have sometimes been regarded as dialects of the same language. Verbal reduplication in these languages, like in many other Bantu languages, indicates repetition and intensity of action. Reduplicated verb stems therefore carry the additional meaning of reflecting action which is repeated, frequent or intensive. Mtenje (2006) has shown that verbal reduplication in these languages essentially involves suffixing a copy of the verb stem (i.e. a verb root and its derivational suffixes, if they are available, and the final vowel) to the Base as shown in (1) below. (1) Verb stem reduplication (identical forms are used in both Cindali and Cinyika). Cindali and Cinyika send-a  senda-senda ‘take’ pan-a  pana-pana ‘kick’ dumul-a  dumula-dumula ‘cut’ womb-a  womba-womba ‘do’