Noun class prefixes Nominal morphology

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2.1.1 Noun class prefixes

As expected in Bantu languages, Ikoma has a fairly typical set of noun classes. Noun class NC prefixes and augment vowels also known as “pre-prefixes” are obligatory for all nouns, with the exception of classes 1a2a and 910, which are described more below. 20 Canonical bisyllabic noun stems are the most common, resulting in a large number of nouns with the shape V-CV-CVCV which are composed of an augment vowel, followed by a CV shaped noun class prefix, followed by a CVCV noun stem. The nouns in 8 below include at least one example from each noun class, organized according to canonical singular and plural noun class pairings following Katamba 2003. 8 Noun classes ++++ , - . , - . 0000 1 , 22 3333 1 , 22 0000 4 3333 4 ́ - 3333 ́ - , - . 0000 , - . - - 6 2 . , - . 3333 , - . 20 It is unclear whether or not the [a] of class 9 and 9a is an augment or if it is better analyzed as a class prefix. Since this issue is orthogonal to the topics under discussion here, for simplicity, I will treat both an- and a- as prefixes and assume that classes 9 and 10 do not have an augment. 31 Note that class 1a is the only class which does not have a noun class prefix. Its plural, class 2a, is also unusual. It does not have an augment, its prefix vowel is always long, and it is the only NC prefix with a high tone. All other augment and prefix vowels are toneless see §2.4. Classes 910 and 9a10a are also interesting. 21 The only difference between 910 and their 9a10a counterparts is the presence of the nasal consonant see also the discussion of prenasalization in §2.3.1. Classes 9a and 10a lack the nasal. When present, the nasal always assimilates to the place of articulation of the following consonant. When the nasal is absent, if the noun stem is only one or two syllables, the class 10a plural prefix is sometimes noticeably lengthened, possibly in an effort to preserve the mora of the nasal. This prefix lengthening is not contrastive and is not written in this thesis. A similar phenomenon occurs with the class 5 prefix [e i-], which is often pronounced longer before one- and two-mora stems than before stems with three or more moras. The degree of lengthening of these prefixes has not yet been a topic of research. Until further research is carried out, I transcribe these words as follows. Class 5 prefix lengthening is written before monosyllabic noun stems only, since the lengthening in these words is very clear. However, the lengthening before bisyllabic stems is less clear, and it is not written. Vowel length issues are discussed further in §3.3 below. As shown in 8 above, class 15 is used for a small number of nouns, but it is also used as the infinitive prefix on verbs. The only difference is that the augment occurs only 21 The vowels of class 910 prefixes are interesting to compare with the other Mara languages. Nata is the only other language variety found to have [a] in these prefixes. Other Mara languages such as Isenye, Ngoreme, Zanaki, Simbiti and Ikizu have various alternations between the front vowels [ e i] in classes 9 and 10. 32 on the nominal forms, but not on the infinitives. The infinitive, which is the citation form of Ikoma verbs, is discussed more in §2.2.1. In the examples above, augment vowels are separated from the noun class prefixes for the sake of clarity, but throughout the remainder of this thesis only morpheme breaks between prefixes and noun stems are shown. Augment vowels are always predictable and depend on the noun class. For example, classes 2, 6, 12, and 16 have low-vowel prefixes and always have the augment [a]. Classes 1, 3, 11, 14 and 15 have back-vowel prefixes, and they always have the augment [o]. Classes 4, 5, 7, 8, and 19 have front-vowel prefixes, and they always have the augment [e]. We can make the generalization that these three augment vowels are always a copy of the underlying vowel of the noun class prefix. Many NC prefix vowels alternate depending on the first vowel of the stem, but augment vowels never alternate. Prefix vowel alternations are quite unusual and are discussed in depth in §5.1. Many noun class prefixes have several surface forms resulting from consonant processes and vowel harmony. Prefix vowels may also undergo glide formation before vowel-initial stems. Concerning consonants, alternations between [k] and [ ] in classes 7, 12 and 15 are conditioned by Dahl’s Law, a process of voicing dissimilation discussed in §2.3.4 below. Class 7 is a good example of the number of surface alternations of prefixes which are possible in just one class. Examples of all six possible surface forms for the class 7 prefix eke- are in 9 below. 33 9 Surface forms of class 7 prefix eke- 7 8 19 ́ - -: ; 9 -7 8 ́ = 9 .7 8; ; 8 Examples in a have the prefix vowel [e], whereas the prefixes in b have alternated to [i] as a result of vowel harmony. 22 Prefixes in c have undergone palatalization before the vowel-initial stems. The first and second examples in sets a, b and c each differ in consonant voicing as a result of Dahl’s Law. Classes 12 and 19 are the singular and plural diminutive classes, and any noun stem can be moved into these classes to create the meaning of something very small. Similarly, noun stems can be moved into class 20, which is an augmentative class. This adds the semantic component of largeness and can sometimes be pejorative as well. When nouns are moved into any of these three classes, their original noun class prefixes are completely replaced. This is exemplified in 10 below, which repeats some of the nouns from 8 above. 10 Augmentative and Diminutive Classes ++++ , - . , - . , - . 0000 , - . 3333 , - . 22 Prefix vowel harmony involves an alternation from underlying mid-vowels to high-vowels preceding [- ATR] stem vowels. This is a previously unattested type of vowel harmony, but it is the clear pattern in Ikoma. See Chapter 5 for more examples and discussion, including an OT account and possible perceptual explanations of this unusual pattern. 34 Each of the nouns in 10 have the same stem [túmbe]. Its normal noun class is 78, but in its diminutive form, it takes the class 12 prefix [a a-] in the singular and 19 [ehe-] in the plural. Similarly, its augmentative form in class 20 takes the prefix [o o-]. There is not a usual plural augmentative class, though Ikoma speakers have mentioned that classes 5 and 6 can be used for singular and plural augmentative classes. Note the absence of Proto-Bantu classes 13, 17 and 21-23. Class 13 is a common diminutive plural class, but it does not occur in Ikoma. Instead, Ikoma uses class 19 for the diminutive plural. Classes 21-23 are far less common in general, so their absence in Ikoma is not surprising. There are three common locative classes in Bantu languages 16, 17 and 18, but classes 16 and 18 are the only clearly attested locative classes in Ikoma. The example for class 16 in 8 above aha í o ‘place’ is the only noun found which uses this class as a normal noun class prefix. Otherwise, class 16 is used only for locative agreement prefixes for demonstratives and for the locative verbal suffix [–ho]. Ikoma does not use the class 17 locative prefix, despite the fact that surrounding Mara languages do use it. Instead, locative prefixes are almost exclusively from class 18, which carries the meaning of either ‘inside of’ or ‘in the area of’ the noun. Examples are in 11 below. 11 Class 18 locatives ? . ? . ? . ? . A A A A B B , - . , - B1 . 1 B8; 8; As seen in these examples, the original NC prefix remains, but the augment vowel is deleted when the locative prefix is added. Note that I consider [mo=] to be a clitic, not a 35 true prefix, primarily because it does not undergo the expected vowel harmony patterns, even when it is directly adjacent to stems. This is discussed further below. In addition to the class 18 locative, there are two other locative clitics of unknown historical origin. The locatives [o=] and [a=] have very restricted usage. It is possible to speculate that [o=] is a reflex of PB class 17 and that [a=] is a reflex of class 16, which have been reconstructed as ko- and pa-, respectively, by Guthrie 1971. The locative [a=] occurs frequently but has only ever been seen in combination with three specific lexemes, all from class 34. These are in 12 below. 12 [a=] locative examples ? . ? . ? . ? . C . C . C . C . A A A A B D B ́ - .8 ́ B = = The occurrences with ‘field’ and ‘back’ are common, and [a=mo-té] has been observed only once. As with the [mo=] locative, the augment vowel elides when the [a=] locative is present. The locative [o=] also has restricted usage. It is used only with people, especially with class 1a2a kinship terms, creating the meaning of going ‘to the place of’ someone, i.e. to someone’s home. Some examples are presented in 13, all from class 1a. 13 [o=] locative examples ? . ? . ? . ? . C . C . C . C . A A A A B B 8 8 B; ; B 8 8 36 Each of these nouns can also take the class 18 locative [mo=], as in [mo=taata], but the meaning would then be ‘inside father’s room’ with emphasis on the meaning of ‘inside.’ We might expect the mid vowels of the locatives [mo=] and [o=] to harmonize with following nouns as other mid-vowel prefixes do. They do not, however, have height-changing alternations to [mu=] or [u=], even when they are immediately adjacent to a prefix-less [-ATR] noun root. The examples above of [o=taata] and [o= ooko] exemplify this well, since the first has a [-ATR] root and the second a [+ATR] root. As is discussed further in §5.1, we would expect these prefix vowels to alternate to [u] before [ a] in the stem, but that is not the case with locatives. Additional examples in 14 show this pattern with nouns from class 9 with the class 18 locative [mo=]. 14 Non-alternating locative vowels ? . ? . ? . ? . C . C . C . C . A A A A B8 ́ 8 ́ B 8 ́ - 8 8 ́ B= 8 4 = 8 As seen above, even when [mo=] directly precedes a noun stem, the [-ATR] vowels in ‘heart’ and ‘basket’ do not trigger vowel alternations. That the locatives do not alternate is taken as evidence that they are clitics or even separate words, but not prefixes. 23 For this reason, they will not be discussed further in the discussion of prefix vowel harmony in Chapter 5 below. 23 Note that they are also different than other nominal prefixes since they do not replace the original prefix as we saw with the augmentative and diminutive prefixes. Instead, the locative prefixes only replace the augment. 37

2.1.2 Noun stem types