As is typical of African languages, there is little published material on Kimatuumbi, a Bantu language spoken in Tanzania. Apart from Professor Odden's own theoretically-oriented papers the only existing primary description of the language is Krumm's Grundriss einer Grammatik des Kimatubi (1912) which lacks any discussion of two of the most interesting and complex phonological properties of the language - vowel length and tone.

The descriptive account of these properties and of rule interaction in Kimatuumbi phonology bears on a number of important theoretical issues including theories of interaction between phonology and syntax, lexical phonology, the geometric representation of vowel features, and the theory of prosodic representations. This study both broadens our understanding of the structure of African languages and provides data which are crucial for resolving certain questions in contemporary phonology theory.