Nominal Modifiers

Adjectival modifiers agree with the nouns they modify in two ways: in terms of the noun class determiner and the appropriate consonant mutation. With diminutive and augmentative forms of nouns the noun class changes, and the adjective agreement follows on the basis of the new class. The following is a table sampling nouns across all noun classes and the ways in which they are modified, where the last two items on the list represent diminutive and augmentative noun classes.

Sg.Pl Class	Example (sg)	English	Example (pl)	English
ox.w	okiin opaax oxe	the good person	wiin faax we	the good people
ox.w	otew omosu (o)xe	the beautiful woman	rew mosu we	the beautiful women
al.ak	aɗing aciig ale	the tall fence	aɗing aciig ake	the tall fences
l.k	leer leru le	the bright light	leer leru ke	the bright lights
l.ak	ruul magnu le	the fat pig	atuul amagnu ke	the fat pigs
ol.xax	ojaf odum ole	the painful leg	acaf adum ake	the painful legs
ol.xax	oɓox ofuuxu (o)le	the angry dog	xaƥox xapuuxu xe	the angry dogs
f.ak	fañiik fambarʄu fe	the ugly elephant	apañiik aparʄu ke	the ugly elephants
	fañiik mbarʄu fe	the ugly elephant	apañiik aparʄu ke	the ugly elephants
n.k	pis ñofu ne	the fast horse	pis ñofu ke	the fast horses
ng.n	ondew onqoƈu (o)nge	the thin little woman	fondew fonqoƈu ne	the thin little women
gal.gak	gandew anqoƈu ale	the thin big woman	gandew anqoƈu ake	the thin big women

The adjective agrees for number in the form of initial consonant alternation for some adjectives for which this is possible (e.g, it is not possible with mosu ‘beautiful’ but possible with farʄu ‘ugly’). Whether or not an adjective which has the ability to undergo this alternation actually does so seems to be dependend on the noun class of the noun it modifies, as the items in (4) show with the adjective xoƈu ‘thin’:

otew oqoƈu oxe	the thin woman	rew xoƈu we	the thin women
ofiɗ oxoƈu ole	the thin butterfly	xapiɗ xaqoƈu (a)xe	the thin butterflies
nqoox nqoƈu ne	the thin bull	qoox qoƈu ke	the thin bulls

Above, each noun belongs to a different class, and in each case the adjective stem-initial consonant engages in a different alternation pattern: q-x, x-x, and nq-q. The initial consonant on the adjective, then, is first conditioned by the noun class of the noun it modifies, determining its singula form, and then undergoes an additional mutation from singular to plural forms.

Noun Class	Gloss	Noun Class CM	Number CM
ox.w	woman	x --> q	q --> x
ol.xax	butterfly	no change	x --> q
n.k	bull	x --> nq	q --> q

From the table above, we see that the noun class can predict what kind CM an adjective will undergo. For instance, the adjective faax ‘good’ undergoes a noun class CM in okiin opaax oxe involving a similar despirantization (f-p) as occurs for the adjective xoƈu in otew oqoƈu we (x-q), and the nouns in both of these phrases are from the person class. In a change from singular to plural for this class, there is a reversal (p-f and q-x, for faak and xoƈu, respectively). Similarly, in the l-x noun class, the adjective xoƈu undegoes no CM when ‘butterfly’ is modified, and farʄu and fuuxu ‘angry’ also undego no CM when modifying onan ‘rumor’ and obox ‘dog’, respectively. But they all become despirantized in the change from singular to plural: x-q, f-p and f-p, respectively.

One clear exception to the agreement pattern whereby agreement occurs by the FV of the noun is in the f-k noun class, e.g. fañiik 'elephant'. In this class, the agreeing initial morpheme is fa whereas it should technically be Ø, since f is part of the root itself and not a classifier. We see that this happens with ataaya as well, even though the initial consonant is different. It is unclear why this noun class behaves differently. More noun-adjective elicitations are needed for more nouns in this class to see if this agreement phenomenon is ubiquitous in the class, or if we just hit upon a couple of exceptions.

From these examples, it is clear that adjective morphophonology is dependent upon noun class morphophonology.

--Oana 04:43, 17 May 2013 (UTC)