Nominal Morphology
Nominal Morphology
Nouns can be divided into patterns (classes/genders?).
| Gloss | Noun (sg.) | Sg. article | Noun (pl.) | Pl. article | generalizations for membership |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woman | o-tɛʋ | oχɛ | 0-rɛʋ | ʋɛ | humans only |
| Gorilla | a-kooŋg | alɛ | a-kooŋg | akɛ | |
| Elephant | 0-faɲiik | fɛ | a-paɲiik | akɛ | |
| Elephant | 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 | |
| Woman (AUG) | ga-ndɛʋ | alɛ | ga-ndɛʋ | akɛ | entirely and only augmentative-marked |
| Woman (DIM) | o-ndɛʋ | oŋgɛ | fo-ndɛʋ | akɛ/nɛ | entirely and only diminutive-marked |
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 | ombamb oŋga | apamb | distal "article" oŋga | |||
| field | qool | oɴɢool oŋga | distal "article" oŋga | ||||
| 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.
Stem-initial segment mutation
See also Inflectional Verbal Morphology for similar processes in verb stems.
Nouns of certain noun classes exhibit a stem-initial segment alternation between their singular and plural forms that runs on two parallel "tracks". Only initial consonants that can mutate actually do mutate; some never appear to mutate (e.g. /j/, /m/, /n/).
The non-implosive "track":
- (sg) continuants --> (pl) voiceless oral stop, non-implosive
- (sg) prenasalized stop --> (pl) voiceless oral stop, non-implosive
- (sg) voiced stop --> (pl) voiceless oral stop, non-implosive
The implosive "track":
- (sg) voiced implosive stop --> (pl) voiceless implosive stop
The human noun class presents a major exception to this pattern, and a very unusual one at that: the "tracks" still apply, but in reverse. Nearly all attested mutations hold to this pattern, but there is no evidence yet for the expected alternation: (sg) voiceless stop --> (pl) prenasalized stop.
Reversed non-implosive "track" for the human class:
- (sg) non-continuants --> (pl) continuants.
- [hypothetical: (sg) voiceless stop --> (pl) prenasalized stop]
- (sg) voiceless oral stop, non-implosive --> (pl) voiced oral stop, non-implosive
Reversed implosive "track" for the human class:
- (sg) voiceless implosive stop --> (pl) voiced implosive stop
Diminutives/augmentatives (here "affectives") also exhibit initial segment mutations relative to the non-affective noun category. Further generalizations await.
