Noun stem types Nominal morphology

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2.1.2 Noun stem types

The previous section focused on the shapes and varieties of nominal prefixes, but this section looks more thoroughly at nominal stem types. Noun examples to this point have primarily had bisyllabic CVCV stems. As we will see in §2.3, consonants can be either singleton segments or complex clusters in which the consonant is prenasalized, palatalized or labialized. Non-final stem vowels can also be phonemically long, which creates a large number of CVVCV stems see §3.3 for more on vowel length. Monosyllabic noun stems are also common approximately seventy examples out of 800 nouns. The nouns in 15 below show examples of monosyllabic stems from each noun class. 38 15 Monosyllabic noun stems DDDD 8, 8, 9 D D D D . = = D D D D , , 8 = = 9 +D +D +D +D 8 ́ 8 ́ . - 9 2 8 8 . . 0D 3 0D 3 0D 3 0D 3 E . E 8 E 8 F E F 2 D 3 D 3 D 3 D 3 E ; 9 8, E 8, 9 D D D D . - 9 D D D D , , One point to note concerns the class 5 prefix e i- when it occurs with a monosyllabic stem. As shown above, the prefix lengthens to [e ii-] in these words, possibly in fulfillment of a constraint, specific to class 5, on the minimal number of moras required in a word for example, see Kutsch Lojenga 2007. Trisyllabic and greater stems are also well attested approximately 125 examples in my data. A sample of these are in 16 below. 39 16 Larger noun stems DDDD 8 8 . , , 2 2 D D D D 8 8 F= F= - D D D D 8 8 2 , , . 2 +D +D +D +D 8 9 8 ,,8 8 ,,8 . 0D 3 0D 3 0D 3 0D 3 8 E 8 E E - D 3 D 3 D 3 D 3 6 E 1 6 E - 2 D D D D - ́ 2 Note that these longer stems are likely morphologically complex, since monomorphemic Bantu stems are typically only bisyllabic. Because of time constraints, three-syllable and greater stems are not a major topic of this thesis. In particular, I do not explore vowel distributions with these longer stem types. We can, however, note that vowel harmony patterns in prefixes are indentical to those found in shorter stems. In all cases, prefix alternations are dependent on the first vowel of the stem, without regard to later vowels.

2.2 Verbal morphology