In the bantu languages the noun classes are expressed by prefixes, and in the bantoid languages, by prefixes, suffixes, or confixes. 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. List of bantu noun classes with reconstructed protobantu prefixes in french ehrets compilation of classifications by klieman, bastin, himself, and others pp 20409, ucla. The typological characteristics of the bantu languages most relevant for this chapter are their noun class system and extensive noun class agreement. This paper investigates whether lemon can be used to model these characteristics to create multilingual ontologies with bantu languages terms. Classes 56 for objects that come in pairs or larger groups. According to carl meinhof, the bantu languages have a total of 22 noun classes called nominal classes this notion was introduced by w. New developments in the classification of bantu languages. This is emblematic for all bantu languages that have between 10 and 23 noun classes, depending on the language. 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. 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. Jouni maho, a comparative study of bantu noun classes orientalia et africana gothoburgensia. For example, if your language has noun classes, you will tell us about its noun class system when we get to that topic during the semester. 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.
A discussion of lexical comparison, sound correspondences and noun classes contributes to an understanding of how these varieties fit into the kavangosouthwest bantu language group established by anita pfouts 2003. Is lemon su cient for building multilingual ontologies for. 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. Languages in the bantu language family have on average 1220 noun classes, determined by number and gender. They have historically lost all the classes above class 17.
There are over 20 noun classes, although most languages use fewer nurse and. This paper uses historicalcomparative approaches in combination with quantitative methods to analyse data from a survey of varieties of the bantu languages herero and kuvale spoken by ethnically. Groups or categories into which nouns are divided in bantu languages. In languages without inflectional noun classes, nouns may still be extensively categorized by. The acquisition of bantu languages katherine demuth brown. Jouni maho a comparative study of bantu noun classes. In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. In the hypothetically reconstructed bantu parent language there are 23 noun classes. The forms of the mprefixes of 84 bantu languages were obtained.
For example, protobantu class 10 contains plurals of class 9 nouns and class 11 nouns, while class 6 contains plurals of class 5 nouns and class 15 nouns. All nouns comprise a stem and one of a set of singular and plural. Basics for a grammar engine to verbalize logical theories in isizulu c. The language isizulu is the largest in south africa by num. By the end of the semester you will have a good understanding of the grammar of the language you choose. However, in tikar, as is also true in the case of many of the gur languages, there are what welmers 1973. The noun classes are numbered and usually come in pairs in which the odd. Since noun classification is not universal, it has received little attention from. Noun classes article about noun classes by the free dictionary. The various bantu languages have different numbers of noun classes. Basics for a grammar engine to verbalize logical theories. Patterns and developments in the marking of diminutives in. 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.
The bantu language with the largest total number of speakers is swahili. Kitharaka has only seventeen noun classes ranging from class 1 to class 17. Twelve bantu languages are spoken by more than five million people, including rundi, rwanda, shona, xhosa, and zulu. Homework assignments there will be five homework assignments over the course of the semester.
Bantu online resources, jacky maniacky, 7 july 2007, including. In descriptions of bantu languages, a noun class is a set of nominal forms not. Adjectives, be verbs, and determiners in manyika shona. Bantu languages generally form their noun phrases using agreement concords drawn from the referential noun class and inflectional prefixes for tense. Classes 16 to 18 are locative classes and 21 carries an augmentative or respectful meaning.
Noun classes may be coded as affixes, or as separate. Bantu languages all share a system of noun classes. Originally, bantu languages had over 20 noun categories. He noted that in senari, for example, there are three singular and three plural noun classes, with regular singularplural. Manyika is a dialect of shona, a bantu language spoken in zimbabwe and mozambique. Pdf noun classes in sari, a beboid language wide bantu. Basics for a grammar engine to verbalize logical theories in. See swahili for the semantic motivations for an elaborate nounclass system. A note on bantu extensions and syntactic word formation. A noun class system is a grammatical system that some languages use to overtly categorize nouns. New developments in the classification of bantu languages and.
Introduction the phenomenon of noun classes, including what is usually referred to as grammatical gender, is widespread in some language families, absent in others. A polyplural noun class is a plural class for more than one singular class. Nc clusters, which are usually one of the only two consonantal clusters in bantu languages, have some interesting phonological properties. Nc clusters can arise by combining the prefix nfor classes 9. Schadeberg 1992, voeltz 1971 especially when conjuncts are from different noun classes, i show that there is ample evidence to the contrary, and that the subject marker used is dependent on several factors, including. Nouns receive prefixal marking to indicate the noun class to which they belong. All nouns are assigned to a noun class, where the number of noun classes varies between 12 and 20. Distinguish and form singular and plural forms of nouns in 12 noun classes master the following vocabulary. Introduction verb stems in bantu languages may include a number of derivational suffixes called extensions that express various functions, such as causative, applicative, reciprocal or passive. Although noun classes are not easy to grasp they reveal the beauty and depth of the language like nothing else. Bantu languages, noun prefix, noun classes 910, nasal retention.
Document resume ed 395 504 fl 023 845 author stanleythorne. Bantu language article about bantu language by the free. A comparison of five speech varieties of southwestern angola. Unit objectives by the end of this unit, you should be able to. Classes 34 for plants, trees and natural phenomena. Reconstructions of the noun classes in bantu have posited between nineteen and twenty three classes for the family. The degree of semantic motivation for noun classes varies from language to language. Pluralization for runyankore and isizulu, members of the bantu language family. Noun classes article about noun classes by the free. What is a noun class sil glossary of linguistic terms. Bantu online resources, jacky maniacky, 7 july 2007, including list of bantu noun classes with reconstructed protobantu prefixes in french ehrets compilation of classifications by klieman, bastin, himself, and others pp 20409, ucla.
Diminutives in bantu are thought to have been historically expressed as part of the noun class system, and several noun classes have been reconstructed as. A brief summary of the bantu acquisition literature by language is provided below. Bantu languages are spoken largely east and south of the present day country of cameroon. The reflexes of the protobantu noun class prefixes of the form mu, mi, and maare compared in 84 bantu. The languages represent 52 of the 83 groups listed by bryan 1059. Noun classes in this summer curriculum, were going to emphasize. A comparison of approaches to word class tagging in this sentence, three structural relationships can be identified. Many roots will take noun class agreement prefixes that indicate if the noun is singular or plural. The reflexes of the protobantu noun class prefixes of the form mu, mi, and ma are compared in 84 bantu languages. Noun classes in bantu languages constitute an example of a semantically opaque system. Derived nominals in these languages have agglutinative noun class morphology that allows us to test predictions made by the n analysis of gender. The bantu attribute noun class prefixes and their suffixal.
Of these classes, the ngel, kal, and kon classes have an exclusively diminutive. The general issue on representing lexical information. The singular form of a noun belongs to a different noun class than the plural form of that. Noun classes although making a correlation between the chufie. In changana, each noun things, animals, abstracts etc. Ideophones in manyika shona university at albany, suny.
For instance, nouns denoting human beings are generally grouped in class 1 in singular and in class 2 in plural. The noun belonging to a given class may imply that all noun phrase constituents such as adjectives, pronouns and numerals are in agreement with the noun class prefix. How far can we get in a proposal for bantu nominal syntax when we apply. Although some accounts in the bantu literature suggest that agreement with coordinate structures is avoided by speakers e. Although some writers say that the semantic productivity of bantu noun classes has reduced, this may need further research because some bantu languages are not well documented. Classes 110 and 12 were paired, the first member of the pair was for singular nouns, the second for plural nouns.
Pdf this article offers a spoken corpusbased reanalysis of the. The bantu languages are attractive to the explorer not only from the harmonious adjustment of vowels and consonants, but from the logic of their grammatical structure, which, in the majority of these tongues, provides for a wide range and a nice. The noun class system of chufie bafanji sil international. Noun class systems are universal and almost always marked by prefixes, occasionally by suffixes. Bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the free. Patterns and developments in the marking of diminutives in bantu. The study, which is based on both primary and secondary data, reveals several types of evolutionary trends which have been followed by these prefixes. Forms and functions of noun modifying clauses in bantu languages 22.
Forms and functions of noun modifying clauses in bantu. Thus, a comparison of the acquisition of bantu languages offers an extremely rich area for research, providing insights not only into how language is learned, but also into the possible impact that language learning may exert on processes of historical change. The investigation will be done with reference to aspects such as the following. Bosch university of south africa, southafrica abstract northern sotho and zulu are two south african bantu languages that make use of different. Parts of the bantu area include languages from other language families see map. Pluralizing nouns across agglutinating bantu languages. Carstens 1991, 1993, 2008 analyzes bantu noun classes as combined number and gender information, e. Like many bantu languages, manyika has a noun class system, which affects the morphology and phonology of many parts of speech including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and determiners. The main characteristic of changana are the noun classes which are common for all bantu languages. 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. Document resume ed 107 110 fl 006 296 bell, alan development. The class is often identi able from the noun pre x that is attached to the noun, and it governs the agreement of all words that modify the noun, as well as of predicates of which the noun is a subject. 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. The same situation obtains for all the other thagicu languages.
Table 1 summarizes a basic semantic grid common to bantu noun class systems spitulnik 1989. There are about 250 bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and. Bantu languages make extensive use of noun classes, which are often analysed as a form of grammatical gender. Roots generally do not begin with nc clusters and in protobantu, c is nearly always voiced in tautomorphemic nc clustersreconstructed roots like ntu person, thing are extremely rare. This section briefly outlines the challenges inherent in trying to model bantu noun classes. Swahili unit 4 vocabulary new content heres the lecture audio, if youd like to listen along. Unlike in many other language families, noun classification bantu does not indicate the gender of the noun. 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. The class 2 noun basemane boys governs the subject concord ba in the verb ba ka bala they may read 1, as well as the class prefix ba in the adjective bagolo big 2, and the demonstrative pronoun ba, preceding the adjective 3. The authors of this article isare permitted to use this pdf file to generate. Fsm2 and the morphological analysis of bantu nouns first. Diminutives in bantu are thought to have been historically expressed as part of the noun class system, and several noun classes have been reconstructed as including diminutive meaning maho 1999. A note on bantu extensions and syntactic word formation jochen zeller, university of kwazulunatal, durban.