In many atlantic languages the initial consonant of the noun takes alternates according to the noun class prefix with which it occurs. A few languages hadbeen previously eliminated from the sample because the noun classes in question were missing or highly deviant from the usual bantu classes. Bantu languages, a group of some 500 languages belonging to the bantoid subgroup of the benuecongo branch of the nigercongo language family. The singular form of a noun belongs to a different noun class than the plural form of that. Pluralizing nouns across agglutinating bantu languages acl. Semantic classification and chichewa derived nouns thokozani kunkeyani. Introduction studies of the noun in bantu languages have traditionally concentrated on the morphology of the noun with its elaborate class.
Just as gender accord is required in many indoeuropean languages e. Semantic classification and chichewa derived nouns. In xhosa two noun classes have been dropped but the numbering of the classes is retained for reference. However, in tikar, as is also true in the case of many of the gur languages, there are what welmers 1973. In languages without inflectional noun classes, nouns may still be extensively categorized by independent particles called noun classifiers. The degree of semantic motivation for noun classes varies from language to language. Introduction studies of the noun in bantu languages have traditionally concentrated on the morphology of the noun with its elaborate class system and the underlying semantic strands. These noun prefixes have, for ease of analysis, been divided into classes with numbers by historical bantu linguists and represent an internationally accepted numbering system. Bantu languages use different combinations of the approximately 24 different protobantu noun classes.
While no single language is known to express all of them, most of them have at least 10 noun classes. Table 1 summarizes a basic semantic grid common to bantu noun class systems spitulnik 1989. Proto bantu had 19 classes, most of which have been conserved in its descendant languages, though some classes have been lost in a number of them. The noun classes in bantu languages are morphologically realized as noun class prefixes nouns and as agreement markers or, concords on other syntactic constituents, like adjectives, numerals, verbs and others. Swahili has noun classes which also rely on subject noun agreement. Swahili nouns are, like those in other bantu languages, noted for a system of semantically based classing, which affects not only nouns but also their modifiers adjectives, numbers, demonstratives and verbs. Lastly, the fact that swahili language has five vowels a,e,i,o,u just like many. All nouns are assigned to a noun class, where the number of noun classes varies between 12 and 20. Introduction nouns of bantu languages are classified grammatically according to prefixes whether overt or null, and the concordial agreement associated with them. Ha is a d60 bantu language spoken in western tanzania, closely related to rundi and. Although noun classes are not easy to grasp they reveal the beauty and depth of the language like nothing else. The olusuba noun class system science publishing group. First, nouns are grouped into more than ten marked noun classes. The most common way of deriving a locative from a nonlocative noun in the bantu languages is by means of the noun class markers of class 16, 17 or 18, which have been reconstructed for protobantu as pa class 16, ku class 17 and mu class 18 maho 1999, meussen 1967.
Bantu languages use different combinations of the approximately 24 different proto bantu noun classes. The xhosa language, as all the bantu languages, is structured. Kiswahilis vowel harmony there are 9 noun classes in kiswahili. It has been observed that noun classes can also be semantically classified. Noun classification, definiteness, number, possession. Each class is given a number corresponding to the same equivalent class in other bantu languages. The xhosa language, as all the bantu languages, is structured around the noun. Protobantu had 19 classes, most of which have been conserved in its descendant languages, though some classes have been lost in a number of them. The language with the highest number of documented noun classes is ganda, which utilizes 21 of the 24 noun classes.
Each noun class has both a singular and a plural form, to make 18 total. A noun class system is a grammatical system that some languages use to overtly categorize nouns. To keep it simple, i have divided them into 9 groups. Noun class systems are universal and almost always marked by prefixes, occasionally by suffixes. Originally, bantu languages had over 20 noun categories.
Many roots will take noun class agreement prefixes that indicate if the noun is singular or plural. Ha is a typical bantu language with a noun class system and fairly complex verbal morphology, both inflectionally and derivationally. In the hypothetically reconstructed bantu parent language there are 23 noun classes. Document resume ed 395 504 fl 023 845 author stanley. Some scholars have proposed other forms, especially for cl. A look at the grassfields borderland blasius achiritaboh university of buea, cameroon abstract as is well known, bantu nouns typically consist of a stem each with an overt or covert prefix arranged in classes of singular and plural pairs called genders. The typological characteristics of the bantu languages most relevant for this chapter are their noun class system and extensive noun class agreement. The investigation will be done with reference to aspects such as the following. Suba language being a bantu language has a noun class system typical of the other bantu languages and because the language has hardly.
This ranges all the way to zero, which is the case in komo d23, whose noun class system has faded out over time. Like most bantu languages, setswana contains many noun classes. The noun class system classifies nouns into a number of noun classes, as signalled by prefixal morphemes also known as noun prefixes. In the bantu languages the noun classes are expressed by prefixes, and in the bantoid languages, by prefixes, suffixes, or confixes.
Bantu noun class systems can be roughly characterized in the following typological terms. Pdf nigercongo noun class studies free download pdf. Forms and functions of noun modifying clauses in bantu. Bantu noun class systems in comparative and diachronic perspective scholars of bantu languages have long posited a common protobantu pb source from which modernday bantu languages have evolved. Typically, bantu languages have somewhere between ten and twenty noun classes, which are overtly marked on the noun. Noun classes are paired up in seven major double class genders, and one minor double class gender. There are five principal factors in bantu languages which contribute to ambiguous analysis of word tbrms. The noun class systems in the bantu languages is characterized by, among other things, the existence of a number of noun classes which pair into singular. The languages represent 52 of the 83 groups listed by bryan 1059.
The elimination of number from an intralinguistic analysis of kiswahili gender and noun classes and its implications for class classification in bantu. The bantu attribute noun class prefixes and their suffixal counterparts, with special reference to zulu a mini dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree magister artium. The bantu languages are spoken in a very large area, including most of africa from southern cameroon eastward to kenya and southward to the southernmost tip of the continent. Like many other languages of their region see good et al. Isizulu course work in the department of african languages at the university of pretoria by linkie mohlala supervisor. The protoforms of the prefixes of classes 910 in bantu languages have invariably been represented as nnmeeussen 1967. Noun classes article about noun classes by the free. For instance, the kiswahili noun kitabu book is composed of a noun prefix ki and a nominal root tabu.
A comparative study of bantu noun classes institutionen. Languages in the bantu language family have on average 1220 noun classes, determined by number and gender. Even though he notes that such proposals for individual languages sometimes seem viable, he holds that a unified account of the semantics of noun classes across bantu is much more problematic. The most prominent grammatical characteristic of bantu languages is the extensive use of affixes see sotho grammar and ganda noun classes for detailed discussions of these affixes. While english doesnt really have noun classes other than singluar and plural, french could be said to contain four noun classes masculine singular, masculine plural, feminine singular, feminine plural which each have their own agreements for adjectives etc. As the source of bantu languages is generally argued to be in southwest adamawa, new data on bantu and related languages is important to the.
A noun prefix tells us what type of noun it is, and it tells us. The chapter furthermore shows how bantu languages, despite their shared basic svo word order, noun classes and extensive verbal morphology, display a remarkable variation in the conditions determining agreement relations and word order. The structure of the bantu noun phrase researchgate. Johnston later went on to produce an extensive study of bantu and semi bantu pointing out these connections without clarifying the implications for genetic relationships or. New developments in the classification of bantu languages.
He noted that in senari, for example, there are three singular and three plural noun classes, with regular singularplural. The noun class system of chufie bafanji sil international. In changana, each noun things, animals, abstracts etc. The forms of the mprefixes of 84 bantu languages were obtained. The synchronic evidence is drawn primarily from the southern bantu languages sesotho and setswana, and. In languages without inflectional noun classes, nouns may still be extensively. The bantu attribute noun class prefixes and their suffixal. There are over 20 noun classes, although most languages use fewer nurse and. How far can we get in a proposal for bantu nominal syntax when we apply. The tonal system of ha has been analyzed as a pitchaccent system harjula 2004. Swahili noun classes noun classes ngeli za kiswahili nouns in kiswahili are grouped into various noun classes because of two main reasons. Bantu language article about bantu language by the free.
Forms and functions of noun modifying clauses in bantu languages 22. Each noun belongs to a class, and each language may have several numbered classes, somewhat like grammatical gender in european languages. Classes 110 and 12 were paired, the first member of the pair was for singular nouns, the second for plural nouns. West mrican languages exhibited noun class features analogous to those classified as bantu johnston 1886. What is a noun class sil glossary of linguistic terms. The acquisition of bantu languages katherine demuth brown. Lastly, the fact that swahili language has five vowels a,e,i,o,u just like many other bantu languages qualifies it to be a bantu language. First, noun classes tend to be realized as grammatical morphemes rather than independent lexical items. Pdf noun classes in sari, a beboid language wide bantu.
Bantu noun class systems in comparative and diachronic perspective scholars of bantu languages have long posited a common proto bantu pb source from which modernday bantu languages have evolved. These divisions are based on grammatical agreement in a sentence brought about by subject noun agreement. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the attributive noun classes, as well as their suffixal counterparts, firstly in bantu, and secondly in zulu. In this study, it is just looked at briefly what elements can. Disambiguation of morphological analysis in bantu languages. Noun classes in bantu languages constitute an example of a semantically opaque system. This section briefly outlines the challenges inherent in trying to model bantu noun classes. Noun classes are similar in concept to grammatical gender in many european languages, as the noun class determines how other words are inflected in concordance with the noun. The various bantu languages have different numbers of noun classes. Zulu nouns, like nouns in other bantu languages, are divided into noun classes. List of bantu noun classes with reconstructed protobantu prefixes in french ehrets compilation of classifications by klieman, bastin, himself, and others pp 20409, ucla. Nouns are put into noun classes categories based on their prefixes. Derived nominals in these languages have agglutinative noun class morphology that allows us to test predictions made by the n analysis of gender. According to him, the only generalizations that hold across bantu are the fact that the 12 gender denotes.
In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. Pluralization for runyankore and isizulu, members of the bantu language family. When noun class is expressed on other parts of speech in addition to nouns and pronouns, the language is said to have grammatical gender. All nouns comprise a stem and one of a set of singular and plural. The main characteristic of changana are the noun classes which are common for all bantu languages. According to carl meinhof, the bantu languages have a total of 22 noun classes called nominal classes this notion was introduced by w.
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