Vestigial noun suffixes in Mambay (Adamawa): Vestiges of what? (original) (raw)
Mambay and related Kebi-Benue languages are characterized by recurrent noun endings that look like noun class markers, but do not function as such. Other authors have described these noun endings as traces of a historical system of noun classification (section 2). In this paper1, I will re-examine this hypothesis. First, I focus on noun affixation in Mambay (3) and show that recurrent noun endings may be viewed as suffixes based on three synchronic indicators: distributional imbalance in the noun lexicon, addition and substitution of noun suffixes, and the semantic value associated with some of the noun endings (4). Comparative and historical support for Mambay noun endings as suffixes is brought into the discussion, and each of these vestigial suffixes is then considered in the context of the Kebi-Benue family (5). Finally, referring to the data that have been presented, I submit the idea that the majority of noun suffixes in Kebi-Benue cannot be traced to a historical system of noun classification, but are the product of an unevenly applied noun-to-noun derivation that has allowed a reconfiguration of noun structure in the languages of this family (5.3).