Vestigial noun suffixes in Mambay (Adamawa): Vestiges of what? (original) (raw)
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Noun morphology of the Momi [=Vere] language
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The paper presents an overview of the nominal morphology of the Momi [=Vere] language spoken in Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria. Momi has an extremely elaborate system of nominal affix pairings, marked by (V)C suffixes, which correspond to –CV suffixes in other Adamawa (and Gur) languages. Detecting exact segmental correspondences is difficult, probably because the Momi system has undergone extensive erosion and renewal, as is evident in the unproductive infixed segments found the slot after the noun stem. The semantics of noun affix pairings is extremely weak, with only one suffix showing a significant correspondence with a persons class. It is plausible that the suffix system underwent a significant reduction and then developed anew. One consequence of this is the suffix alternations in number marking are highly inconsistent, with many unique pairings. This hypothesis is supported by the demonstrative system, which shows a reduced set of forms compared with the suffixes with which they show agreement. This suggests that they have not augmented the system of alliterative agreement in line with the innovative array of suffixes. Strikingly, a single demonstrative, am, shows a strong correlation with mass nouns and abstracts, an association which lies deep in the NC phylum. This has apparently been retained, while the other demonstratives seem to be determined by phonological correspondences.
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Proceedings of the first Adamawa Conference (Mainz, September 9–11 2019). Sabine Littig, Friederike Vigeland, Alexander Zheltov eds. Language in Africa, 1(3): 155–180., 2020
The paper describes the phonology and nominal morphology of KItʊlε, an Adamawa language of the Tula-Waja group, spoken in East-Central Nigeria. KItʊlε has a restricted consonant inventory, marked by a loss of voicing contrast in most consonants. It has a system of ATR vowel harmony, which has begun to erode in many lexical items. There are three level tones plus rising and falling glides. The underlying system of nominal number marking is suffix alternation as with the other languages in the group, but this has undergone numerous alterations, in part due to the addition of prefix alterations, and fossilised suffixes which have been incorporated into the stem. Some of these then appear as infixes, although this is not the underlying system. A note on demonstratives is appended, which shows that these are not directly concordial, but which have a broad semantic logic.
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