Nominal Morphology

Nominal Morphology

Nouns can be divided into patterns (classes/genders?).

Gloss	Noun (sg.)	Sg. article	Noun (pl.)	Pl. article
Person	o-kiin	ohɛ	0-ʋiin	ʋɛ
Gorilla	a-kooŋg	alɛ	a-kooŋg	akɛ
Elephant	0-faɲiik	fɛ	a-paɲiik	akɛ
Elephant	0-faɲiik	fɛ	0-paɲiik	kɛ
Lake	a-mbɛɛl	alɛ	0-pɛɛl	kɛ
Bull	0-ɴɢooχ	nɛ	0-qooχ	kɛ
Turtle	0-xomb	lɛ	a-qomb	akɛ
Butterfly	o-fiiɗ	olɛ	xa-piiɗ	axɛ
Cat	0-muus	nɛ	0-muus	kɛ
Leg	o-ɟaf	olɛ	a-caf	akɛ
Cat (AUG)	ga-muus	alɛ	ga-muus	akɛ
Cat (DIM)	o-muus		fo-muus

Negation of a noun is indicated by the free morphology word [ɟɛgɛ]. It's unclear if this element can function verbally or if it can only negate nouns.

Diminutives

Gloss	Singular Noun	Diminutive of SN	Plural Noun	Diminutive of PN	Notes
drum	famb	ombamboŋga	apamb
field	qool	oɴɢooloŋga
sugar	suukar	ɲɟuukar	suukar		did not elicit dim. of pl.

Augmentatives

Gloss	Singular Noun	Augmentative of SN	Plural Noun	Augmentative of PN	Notes
cat	muus	gamuusala

Word/clitic status of "articles"

The "articles" discussed above are apparently not suffixal, as one might assume, making them either independent (and mobile) words or clitics (which attach to the right edge of a DP?).

For instance, note that the agreement for the article in haˈƥɛk ˈsuuˌkaraˌhɛ 'the pieces of sugar (sugarcubes)' matches that of haˈƥɛkaˌhɛ 'the pieces', rather than the agreement seen in ˈsuuˌkarfɛ 'the sugar': the article agrees with haˈƥɛk despite not being immediately adjacent to it.

It is also unclear at this point precisely what semantic function they serve. Some specifying and/or deictic function seems to be involved.