The nominal phrase 76 The prepositional phrase 137 The clause 148

vi CONTENTS

2.5. Stress

25 2.6. Vowel sequences 25

2.7. Phonotactics

27 2.8. Morphophonemics 32

2.8.1. -um- allomorphy

32 2.8.2. Nasal accretion 35

2.8.3. Possessive suffix -ndo-do

36 2.8.4. Allomorphy of -Ci and -Cao 36

2.9. Adaptation of loanwords

37

3. Words and word classes 41

3.1. Words, affixes, clitics

41 3.1.1. Words 41

3.1.2. Affixes

42 3.1.3. Inflection and derivation 42

3.1.4. Clitics and cliticization

42 3.2. Word classes 43

3.3. Individual discussion of word classes

44 3.3.1. Noun 44

3.3.2. Verb

45 3.3.3. Pronoun 47

3.3.4. Numeral

47 3.3.5. Quantifier 47

3.3.6. Adverb

47 3.3.7. Preposition 47

3.3.8. Conjunction

47 3.3.9. Particle 48

3.3.10. Interjection

48 3.4. Word-class changes and double membership 48

3.5. Conclusion

49

4. Verbal inflection 50

4.1. Subject inflection

50 4.2. Agreement 52

4.3. The three verb classes

52 4.4. Membership of the three verb classes 54

4.5. Realis and irrealis

57 4.6. The definiteness shift 59

4.6.1. Definition and illustration

59 4.6.2. Derived transitivity and the definiteness shift 63

4.6.3. Exceptions to the definiteness shift

65 4.7. Minor verb class changes 66

4.8. Direct and indirect object inflection

67 4.8.1. Direct object inflection 69

4.8.2. Indirect object inflection

70 4.8.3. The missing first person inclusive 71

4.8.4. The form -kaeta

72 4.9. Inflection and derived constructions 73

5. The nominal phrase 76

5.1. Internal structure of the nominal phrase

76 CONTENTS vii 5.2. The noun 77 5.2.1. The common noun 77

5.2.2. Internal structure of the complex noun

78 5.2.3. Proper nouns 79

5.3. Personal pronoun

81 5.3.1. Usage 82

5.3.2. Derivation

83 5.3.3. Reduced pronouns 84

5.3.4. Pronoun as head of NP: modifiers

84 5.4. Possession 85 5.4.1. Possessive suffixes 86 5.4.2. Possessive constructions with and without linker 86

5.5. Demonstrative pronoun

89 5.5.1. Forms 89

5.5.2. Locative usage

89 5.5.3. Temporal usage 91

5.5.4. Anaphoric usage

91 5.5.5. The referential demonstratives 92

5.5.6. Other usages of the referential demonstratives

96 5.5.7. Combinations of demonstratives 97

5.5.8. Derivations of demonstratives

100 5.6. Particles 102

5.6.1. The article o

102 5.6.2. Usage of o 102

5.6.3. Co-occurrence restrictions of o

104 5.6.4. Variation in usage 106

5.6.5. The particle ndo

108 5.7. The measure phrase 109

5.7.1. The numeral

110 5.7.2. Derivations on numeral bases 113 5.7.3. Derivations on measure phrase bases 115 5.7.4. Classifiers 116

5.7.5. Measure nouns

118 5.7.6. Quantifiers 120

5.7.7. Quantification

123 5.8. Clausal heads of NP 126

5.8.1. Relative clause as head of NP

126 5.8.2. Simple verbal clause as head of NP 127

5.9. Attributes

128 5.9.1. Types of attributes 128

5.9.2. Descriptive attributes

130 5.10. Combinations and restrictions of modifiers 133 5.11. Variation and marked orders 135

6. The prepositional phrase 137

6.1. Local prepositions

137 6.1.1. The preposition we 137

6.1.2. The preposition te

138 6.1.3. The preposition ne 139

6.2. Non-local prepositions

141 6.2.1. The preposition bhe 141

6.2.2. The preposition so

143 6.2.3. The preposition ampa 144

6.2.4. The preposition peda

145 viii CONTENTS

6.3. Complex prepositions

146

7. The clause 148

7.1. Intransitive clauses

148 7.1.1. Bare intransitive clauses 149

7.1.2. Unmarked order: VS

150 7.1.3. SV order: syntactic factors 151

7.1.4. SV order: pragmatic factors

153 7.2. Existential clauses 158

7.2.1. Existential clauses with naando

159 7.2.2. Existential clauses with bhe 160

7.3. Transitive clauses

161 7.3.1. Unmarked order: SVO 162

7.3.2. Zero objects

163 7.3.3. Object agreement 164

7.3.4. Object focus

165 7.4. Experiential clauses 169

7.5. Copular clauses

169 7.6. Equative clauses 170

7.7. Exclamatory clauses

172 7.8. Fronting 174

7.9. Indirect object extensions

175 7.9.1. Full indirect objects 175

7.9.2. Oblique indirect objects

177 7.9.3. IO pronominal suffix 179

7.9.4. Preverbal IO and DO

180 7.10. Temporal, locative and manner periphery 181 7.10.1. Temporal periphery 182

7.10.2. Locative periphery

184 7.10.3. Manner periphery 185 7.10.4. Combination of peripheries 187 7.11. Adverbs 187 7.11.1. Adjuncts 187

7.11.2. Disjuncts

189 7.12. Other peripheral elements 190 7.12.1. Vocatives 190

7.12.2. Interjections

191 7.12.3. Ideophones 194

8. Clausal modifications 195