Morphologically, however, the distinctions are not expressed on the nouns themselves, but on the verbs of which the nouns are the subject or direct object. the noun classes of Bantu languages, since such a system relies on the possibility of identifying the noun classes found in present-day languages as reflexes of reconstructed classes, which in the Atlantic context is only possible to a relatively limited extent. The Bantu languages, spoken across the southern half of Africa, comprise a subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family. Other words that related or referred to that noun, such as adjectives and verbs, also received a prefix that matched the class of the noun ("agreement" or "concord"). Some Bantu languages such as Venda that express variations in size and shape as well as the emotive perception by means of suffixes, or by a combination of prefixes and suffixes Each noun class Basically he argues that Bantu classes are hierarchically arranged in a system of category of spirit. There are 15 noun classes in the bantu languages. Shape is divided into extended, curved, non-extended, etc. Perhaps the most noun classes in any Australian language are found in Yanyuwa, which has 16 noun classes, including nouns associated with food, trees and abstractions, in addition to separate classes for men and masculine things, women and feminine things. Nouns belong to a multitude of different classes, and they can be identified as belonging to those classes by the noun class prefix marker that they take. 2.1. The class of a noun is signalled by. Languages with nominal classes divide nouns formally on the base of hyperonymic meanings. Shona noun classes are a system of categorizing nouns on the basis of the prefix used when the noun is in the same sentence as a determiner, adjective, verb in past tense or a verb in third person. According to Carl Meinhof, the Bantu languages have a total of 22 noun classes called nominal classes (this notion was introduced by W.H.J. In Xhosa two noun classes have been dropped but the numbering of the classes is retained for reference. There are 556 documented Bantu languages divided into 7 subgroups of varying sizes. Chet A. Creider and J. Peter Denny University of Western Ontario . This type of noun affixation is not very frequent in English, but quite common in languages which have the true grammatical gender, including most of the Indo-European family, to which English belongs. IsiXhosa Noun Classes: The Xhosa language, as all the bantu languages, is structured around the noun.There are 15 noun classes in the bantu languages. … Sesotho, like all other Bantu languages, uses a set of "noun classes" and each noun belongs to one of the classes. G. Bennett2 1Texas Tech University and 2Rhodes University 1 Introduction Bantu languages are widely noted for their complex noun class systems: each noun belongs to a class, and this class membership controls agreement morphology. Still, the assignment is somewhat arbitrary, as "raspberry" is animate, but "strawberry" is inanimate. The Zande language distinguishes four noun classes:[5]. Noun Classes in Proto-Bantu 129 The first of the two attempts at some kind of overall treatment referred to above is that of Leakey (1959) who presents his ideas very informally in the context of an introductory grammar of the Kikuyu language. According to Carl Meinhof, the Bantu languages have a total of 22 noun classes called nominal classes (this notion was introduced by W.H.J. In Navajo (Southern Athabaskan) nouns are classified according to their animacy, shape, and consistency. Bantu languages are hypothesized to have descended from one mother language, Proto-Bantu. There are two main theories regarding the development of noun class systems: one, proposed by Malcolm Guthrie in 1967, argues for semantically arbitrary noun classes determined only by grammatical and morphological criteria. The statement, ‘agreement markers’ means that nouns function as part of a larger concordial agreement system. Some sources argue that the distinction is between things which are powerful and things which are not. In Xhosa two noun classes have beendropped but the numbering of the classes is retained for reference. Italian, for example, has a group of nouns deriving from Latin neuter nouns that acts as masculine in the singular but feminine in the plural: il braccio/le braccia; l'uovo/le uova. The Dyirbal language is well known for its system of four noun classes, which tend to be divided along the following semantic lines:[1], The class usually labeled "feminine", for instance, includes the word for fire and nouns relating to fire, as well as all dangerous creatures and phenomena. Noun class system. Bantu languages. Noun classes. Further, these noun classes are not only expressed on nouns and adjectives, but also on verbs, prepositions, and more. Classes 7-8 were heterogeneous. Class. According to Carl Meinhof, the Bantu languages have a total of 22 noun classes called nominal classes (this notion was introduced by W. H. J. Bleek). Bleek). I … 9 and 10). (This inspired the title of the George Lakoff book Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. Like Navajo, it has classificatory verb stems that classify nouns according to animacy, shape, and consistency. In this example, the verbal prefix a- and the pronominal prefix wa- are in concordance with the noun prefix m-: they all express class 1 despite of their different forms. Why is this important? Some members of the Northwest Caucasian family, and almost all of the Northeast Caucasian languages, manifest noun class. The table below shows the 16 noun classes and how they are paired in two commonly used systems. 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 noun class that a noun belongs to is indicated by a prefix. a class-specific word in the noun phrase. The concept of noun classes is similar, except while Romance languages have 2-3 genders, Bantu languages can have up to 23 noun classes! Similar to all Bantu languages, Runyakitara has a noun class system. Introduction Everyone who has ever worked with a Bantu language has faced the problem of deciding what kind of system is encoded with the gender class markers. • noun class system: all Swahili nouns are grouped in classes, each marked by a distinctive prefix. Further, these noun classes are not only expressed on nouns and adjectives, but also on verbs, prepositions, and more. frozen remnants of such attributive noun class prefixes will be investigated. For example, by Meinhof's numbering, Shona has 20 classes, Swahili has 15, Sotho has 18 and Ganda has 17. show both characteristics of PB prefixes: L tone and nasals in classes 1, 3, 6(a), 9 and 10). In the sentence Siziiz tsásk’eh bikáa’gi dah silá "My belt is lying on the bed", the verb silá "lies" is used because the subject siziiz "my belt" is a slender, flexible object. For this reason, noun classes are often referred to by combining their singular and plural forms, e.g., rafiki would be classified as "9/6", indicating that it takes class 9 in the singular, and class 6 in the plural. Classes 3-4 for plants, trees and natural phenomena. [4] For example, Proto-Bantu 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. Nouns are put into noun classes (categories) based on their prefixes. Sometimes these are grouped into 10 pairs so that most singular and plural forms of the same word are included in the same class. Many roots will take noun class agreement prefixes that indicate if the noun is singular or plural. Jerro, Kyle Joseph. However not all Bantu languages have these exceptions. The Semantics of Noun Classes in Proto-Bantu . Class 11 for extended body parts. The most widespread system, however, has four classes: male, female, animate beings and certain objects, and finally a class for the remaining nouns. SIL: Glossary of Linguistic Terms: What is a noun class? Classes 9-10 included animals and miscellanea. 20 gʊ and most don't have cl. Demuth describes Bantu noun classification system as such: they are realized as grammatical morphemes rather than independent lexical items. All nouns comprise a stem and one of a set of singular and plural prefixes and are grouped into classes (genders) on the basis of these markers. According to Steven Pinker, the Kivunjo language has 16 noun classes including classes for precise locations and for general locales, classes for clusters or pairs of objects and classes for the objects that come in pairs or clusters, and classes for abstract qualities.[3]. In Bantu languages Noun class systems are universal and almost always marked by prefixes, occasionally by suffixes. For example, David Ker (p.c. Among Northwest Caucasian languages, only Abkhaz and Abaza have noun class, making use of a human male/human female/non-human distinction. Refereed paper presented at the Workshop on Morphology, MIT, Cambridge. However, most analysis of Bantu noun class semantics thus far has been conducted on a very narrow sample of these languages, primarily focusing on widely-spoken languages like Swahili. Classes 6 and 10 are inherited as polyplural classes by most surviving Bantu languages, but many languages have developed new polyplural classes that are not widely shared by other languages. The 19 noun classes of Proto-Bantu were: Classes 1-2 for people. To illustrate, the verb stem -tonh is used for enclosed objects. In Basque there are two classes, animate and inanimate; however, the only difference is in the declension of locative cases (inessive, locative genitive, allative, terminal allative, ablative and directional ablative). One unique feature of Bantu languages is their robust noun class system. While the grammatical structure of the Proto-Bantu noun class … A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. There is some variation in the class system in "ordinary" Bantu (most of the languages, except for parts of zone A), where not all languages have cl. Jan. 1984: Zero-Derivation and Inflection. … Still, the assignment is somewhat arbitrary, as "raspberry" is animate, but "strawberry" is inanimate. Originally, Bantu languages had over 20 noun categories. 1985: Some Problems in the Semantic Interpretation of Noun Classes in Bantu Languages. For example, by Meinhof’s numbering, Shona has 20 classes, Swahili has 15, Sotho has 18 and Ganda has 17. According to Carl Meinhof, the Bantu languages have a total of 22 noun classes called nominal classes (this notion was introduced by W. H. J. Bleek). Noun stems were prefixed with a noun prefix to specify their meaning. The Anindilyakwa language has a noun class for things that reflect light. (1998), Global map and discussion of languages by type of noun class at, This page was last edited on 5 January 2021, at 01:54. If one follows broader linguistic tradition and counts singular and plural as belonging to the same class, then Swahili has 8 or 9 noun classes, Sotho has 11 and Ganda has 10. Common criteria that define noun classes include: See Swahili for the semantic motivations for an elaborate noun-class system. Noun classes are believed to have historically have been classified according to a semantic criteria, such as grouping nouns which are animate, inanimate, abstract and so on and so forth, these such classifications are shown in Proto … Nouns belong to a multitude of different classes, and they can be identified as belonging to those classes by the noun class prefix marker that they take. Noun classes form a system of grammatical agreement. Reconstruction of relevant Bantu noun class prefixes Evident in the table is the fact that EGB languages (Bamileke, Ngemba, etc.) ... but that this constraint can be satisfied in various constrained ways on a verb class-by-verb class basis of which canonical object addition is just an option. The Ojibwe language and other members of the Algonquian languages distinguish between animate and inanimate classes. For instance, in Ring and Kinyarwanda uses 16 of the Bantu noun classes. This seems to them to be inconsistent with the way other languages are traditionally considered, where number is orthogonal to gender (according to the critics, a Meinhof-style analysis would give Ancient Greek 9 genders). The Proto-Bantu class 12 disappeared in Swahili, class 13 merged with 7, and 14 with 11. Bantu noun classes tend to come in pairs. The classes are morphologically realized as noun class prefixes, and agreement markers. When noun class is expressed on other parts of speech in addition to nouns and pronouns, the language is said to have grammatical gender. While no single language is known to express all of them, most of them have at least 10 noun classes. A noun in a given class may require: In Modern English, countable and uncountable nouns are distinguished by the choice of many/much. All living things, as well as sacred things and things connected to the Earth are considered powerful and belong to the animate class. The Andi language has a noun class reserved for insects. Because there is no verb conjugation, but instead verb construction, the noun classes tend to be the most difficult part of the language. For example, in the sentence Shi’éé’ tsásk’eh bikáa’gi dah siłtsooz "My shirt is lying on the bed", the verb siłtsooz "lies" is used because the subject shi’éé’ "my shirt" is a flat, flexible object. Iturrioz, J. L. (1986) "Structure, meaning and function: a functional analysis of gender and other classificatory techniques". Additionally, there are polyplural noun classes. The table below shows the noun classes of Lingala, ordered according to the numbering system that is widely used in descriptions of Bantu languages. Bantu noun classes tend to come in pairs. Nouns. GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS according to similarities in their meaning (semantic criterion); by grouping them with other nouns that have similar form (morphology); a special form of pronoun to replace the noun. (a) a pair of prefixes attached to the nominal stem, one for singular, one for plural; En J. H. Greenberg et al. Proto-Bantu had nineteen classes which in Swahili have been reduced to fifteen. Nouns are divided somewhat arbitrarily between these classes, although a few of them contain nouns which mostly fall into clear categories. Author. View/ Open. It refers exclusively to people, though not all nouns that have human referents are placed in this class: This post and the following one will summarize my research on this topic. Like all Bantu languages, Lingala has a noun class system in which nouns are classified according to the prefixes they bear and according to the prefixes they trigger in sentences. The noun belonging to a given class may imply that all noun phrase … Noun classes should not be confused with noun classifiers. Classes 5-6 for objects that come in pairs or larger groups. (SC) Descriptors: African Languages, Bantu Languages, Classification, Descriptive Linguistics, Language Patterns, Linguistic Theory, Nouns… Table 1. However, in addition to these verb stems, Koyukon verbs have what are called "gender prefixes" that further classify nouns. 2006) provides the following examples from Nyungwe. 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