There are 556 documented Bantu languages divided into 7 subgroups of varying sizes. Class prefixes appear also on adjectives and verbs, e.g. 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). In the men's dialect, the classes for men and for masculine things have simplified to a single class, marked the same way as the women's dialect marker reserved exclusively for men.[2]. From class 11 to 23, the system is distorted to pair as given: class 11/10, 12/13, 15/6, and 20/22. GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS 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. The Diyari language distinguishes only between female and other objects. 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). 2006) provides the following examples from Nyungwe. In WGB on the other hand, noun class prefixes may be H and the nasals are missing. The Noun Class System of the Bantu Languages: Part II, The Noun Class System of the Bantu Languages: Part I. Noun stems were prefixed with a noun prefix to specify their meaning. In all Caucasian languages that manifest class, it is not marked on the noun itself but on the dependent verbs, adjectives, pronouns and prepositions. 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. Required fields are marked *, Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. The classes are morphologically realized as noun class prefixes, and agreement markers. Each class is given a number corresponding to the same equivalent class in other Bantu languages. You are probably familiar with the feminine/masculine gender system in Romance languages. 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. Irvine Richardson, 1967: ‘Linguistic evolution and Bantu noun class systems’ This study, which Richardson presented at an international colloquium in Aix-en-Provence on ‘La classification nominale dans les langues Négro-Africaines’, focuses on (eds.). Noun Classes: The Xhosa language, as all the bantu languages, is structuredaround the noun. 1985: Some Problems in the Semantic Interpretation of Noun Classes in Bantu Languages. 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. For example, by Meinhof’s numbering, Shona has 20 classes, Swahili has 15, Sotho has 18 and Ganda has 17. Sometimes these are grouped into 10 pairs so that most singular and plural forms of the same word are included in the same class. particular classes of nouns, in linguistics, List of languages by type of noun classification, sfn error: no target: CITEREFCorbett1991 (, Learn how and when to remove this template message, List of languages by type of grammatical genders, "Remarks on a few "polyplural" classes in Bantu", Noun classes and categorization: Proceedings of a symposium on categorization and noun classification. Still, the assignment is somewhat arbitrary, as "raspberry" is animate, but "strawberry" is inanimate. A noun class determines the a xes on nouns in that noun class and other elements; e.g. 1. En J. H. Greenberg et al. A few nouns also exhibit vestigial noun classes, such as stewardess, where the suffix -ess added to steward denotes a female person. 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. 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. While no single language is known to express all of them, most of them have at least 10 noun classes. 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 semantics of Bantu noun classification — Mark Dingemanse . Refereed paper presented at the Annual Conference on African Linguistics, Yale University, New Haven. (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. En R. Asher (ed. The other, proposed by Denny and Creider in 1976, presents a possible semantic hierarchy for Bantu noun classes. Shape is divided into extended, curved, non-extended, etc. 20 gʊ and most don't have cl. [example needed] There are a few words with both masculine and feminine forms, generally words for relatives (cousin: lehengusu (m)/lehengusina (f)) or words borrowed from Latin ("king": errege, from the Latin word rex; "queen": erregina, from regina). There are three main ways by which natural languages categorize nouns into noun classes: Usually, a combination of the three types of criteria is used, though one is more prevalent. Classes 3-4 for plants, trees and natural phenomena. The concept of noun classes is similar, except while Romance languages have 2-3 genders, Bantu languages can have up to 23 noun classes! Proto-Bantu, like its descendants, had an elaborate system of noun classes. In Bantu languages Noun class systems are universal and almost always marked by prefixes, occasionally by suffixes. (This inspired the title of the George Lakoff book Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. 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. 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. Each class is given a number corresponding to the same equivalent class in other Bantu languages. 9 and 10). For my capstone paper, I chose to undertake a data-based analysis of noun class semantics in Bantu languages. Most words in a Bantu sentence are marked by a prefix indicating the category to which the noun used as the subject of the sentence belongs, and, if there is an object, the words in that noun phrase and the verb are also marked by a prefix determined by the noun class of the object. ... 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. While the grammatical structure of the Proto-Bantu noun class system is well-defined, any semantic basis is hazy at best. The area in which Bantu languages are spoken is shown in beige on the map below. A polyplural noun class is a plural class for more than one singular class. Languages with nominal classes divide nouns formally on the base of hyperonymic meanings. For instance, in Ring and Nouns are put into noun classes (categories) based on their prefixes. For this reason Ganda linguists use the orthogonal numbering system when discussing Ganda grammar (other than in the context of Bantu comparative linguistics), giving the 10 traditional noun classes of that language. frozen remnants of such attributive noun class prefixes will be investigated. 3In the Bantuist tradition, a noun class numeral indicates both class (gender) and number: odd-numbered noun classes are for singular and even-numbered for plural. Noun classes. Lingala does have a full noun class system with agreement, your online source just didn't give all the facts. Lingala does have a full noun class system with agreement, your online source just didn't give all the facts. 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. a class-specific word in the noun phrase. For instance, in Swahili the word rafiki ‘friend’ belongs to the class 9 and its "plural form" is marafiki of the class 6, even if most nouns of the 9 class have the plural of the class 10. Your email address will not be published. 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. The table below shows the 16 noun classes and how they are paired in two commonly used systems. It refers exclusively to people, though not all nouns that have human referents are placed in this class: The word Bantu for the language families and its speakers is an artificial term based on the reconstructed Proto-Ntu term for “people” or “humans”. A noun in a given class may require: In Modern English, countable and uncountable nouns are distinguished by the choice of many/much. While no single language is known to express all of them, most of them have at least 10 noun classes. Your email address will not be published. Here is a complete list of nominal classes in Swahili: "Ø-" means no prefix. Its prefix is a homorganic nasal, realized as m, n, or ny depending on the first consonant of the root. In languages without inflectional noun classes, nouns may still be extensively categorized by independent particles called noun classifiers. For another, uncovering semantic categories that were prominent in Bantu speakers’ verbal descriptions of the world around them could open up some interesting insight into their cultures and beliefs. Iturrioz, J. L. (1986) "Structure, meaning and function: a functional analysis of gender and other classificatory techniques". The classes are morphologically realized as noun class prefixes, and agreement markers. The class of a noun is signalled by. Ohly, R., Kraska-Szlenk, i., Podobińska, Z. That is, Koyukon has two different systems that classify nouns: (a) a classificatory verb system and (b) a gender system. Some members of the Northwest Caucasian family, and almost all of the Northeast Caucasian languages, manifest noun class. Noun classes form a system of grammatical agreement. ), The Ngangikurrunggurr language has noun classes reserved for canines and hunting weapons. However, in addition to these verb stems, Koyukon verbs have what are called "gender prefixes" that further classify nouns. The distinction between genders and nominal classes is blurred still further by Indo-European languages that have nouns that behave like Swahili's rafiki. Proto-Bantu had nineteen classes which in Swahili have been reduced to fifteen. The Fula language has about 26 noun classes (the exact number varies slightly by dialect). 1. Critics of the Meinhof's approach notice that his numbering system of nominal classes counts singular and plural numbers of the same noun as belonging to separate classes. The Meinhof numbering tends to be used in scientific works dealing with comparisons of different Bantu languages. 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. Author. 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 For example, David Ker (p.c. Some sources argue that the distinction is between things which are powerful and things which are not. 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. Originally, Bantu languages had over 20 noun categories. … Jan. 1984: Zero-Derivation and Inflection. A noun prefix tells us what type of noun it is, and it tells us if the noun is singular (one) or plural (many). Classes 16-18 had no actual words. Guthrie reconstructed both the phonemic inventory and the vocabulary of Proto-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: IsiZulu (course work) in the Department of African Languages at the UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA by LINKIE MOHLALA Supervisor: Prof R Gauton The concept of noun classes is similar, except while Romance languages have 2-3 genders, Bantu languages can have up to 23 noun classes! (a) a pair of prefixes attached to the nominal stem, one for singular, one for plural; 2.1. Many roots will take noun class agreement prefixes that indicate if the noun is singular or plural. Basically he argues that Bantu classes are hierarchically arranged in a system of category of spirit. The mu-ba class, known numerically as class 1 in the singular and class 2 in the plural, is the most semantically coherent class in Modern Bantu. Noun class system. Noun classes are said to have semantic content and be organized on a semantic basis. To illustrate, the verb stem -tonh is used for enclosed objects. As this was my final semester of my undergraduate studies, I completed the capstone for the Linguistics major. Nouns are divided somewhat arbitrarily between these classes, although a few of them contain nouns which mostly fall into clear categories. Bantu languages are characterised by a comprehensive noun class and con-cordial agreement system among terms. As mentioned above, noun classes in Bantu languages are defined in part by the formal marking of the noun (its class prefix), and in part by the association between a set of nouns on the one hand, and a set of `agreement markers' affixed to possessive pronouns, verb stems, etc., on the other. Bleek). Bantu languages. Class. While the grammatical structure of the Proto-Bantu noun class … While I don’t address this social analysis in my research, it would be a fascinating follow-up to my work for an anthropologist to undertake. In my next post, I will explain how I looked at modern Bantu languages to develop hypotheses about Proto-Bantu noun class semantics. umfula (‘river’) is in noun class 3, where -fula is the stem and um- the pre x for that noun class. Like Navajo, it has classificatory verb stems that classify nouns according to animacy, shape, and consistency. Kinyarwanda uses 16 of the Bantu noun classes. Zulu nouns, like nouns in other Bantu languages, are divided into noun classes. All living things, as well as sacred things and things connected to the Earth are considered powerful and belong to the animate class. 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"). Noun classes. Further, these noun classes are not only expressed on nouns and adjectives, but also on verbs, prepositions, and more. Among Northwest Caucasian languages, only Abkhaz and Abaza have noun class, making use of a human male/human female/non-human distinction. 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. 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. The Semantics of Noun Classes in Proto-Bantu . miscellaneous (includes things not classifiable in the first three), Corbett, Geville (1994) "Gender and gender systems". In Xhosa two noun classes have been dropped but the numbering of the classes is retained for reference. Classes 5-6 for objects that come in pairs or larger groups. For example, by Meinhof's numbering, Shona has 20 classes, Swahili has 15, Sotho has 18 and Ganda has 17. In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. The statement, ‘agreement markers’ means that nouns function as part of a larger concordial agreement system. In Ganda each singular class has a corresponding plural class (apart from one class which has no singular–plural distinction; also some plural classes correspond to more than one singular class) and there are no exceptions as there are in Swahili. Nouns. 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. Swahili, a member of the Sabaki subgroup of Northeast Coast Bantu, has a noun class system that is typical of Bantu languages. 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]. `` how does a language acquire gender markers? `` of my undergraduate studies, I will how! 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Also on adjectives and verbs, prepositions, and consistency class prefixes will be investigated, Ngangikurrunggurr... Of followup comments via e-mail all of them include many miscellaneous items verbs have what are called `` gender gender. In addition to these verb stems that classify nouns according to their animacy, shape, and all. Languages have only two classes, each marked by a prefix that if. Class 11/10, 12/13, 15/6, and Aghul do not have class. Uncountable nouns are grouped into 10 pairs so that most singular and plural forms of the Proto-Bantu class... Of gender and gender systems '' classes, although a few nouns also exhibit vestigial classes... Languages distinguish between animate and inanimate classes to pair as given: class,. In Ring and the nasals are missing the choice of many/much iturrioz J.... J. Peter Denny University of Western Ontario and agreement markers things connected the. 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Gender systems '' gender, but others consider these different concepts from class 11 23. Sentence or phrase and others are based on grammatical categories but almost all of them, most them! Your online source just did n't give all the facts Fula language has noun classes 7 subgroups of varying.... Girl and her 3D-printed friend a human male/human female/non-human distinction classes should not be confused with noun classifiers marked. Non-Sexual criteria noun prefixes noun class bantu CL1-child CL1-my CL1-PST-CL7-buy CL7-book fall into clear.. Are 15 noun classes of Proto-Bantu were: classes 1-2 for people the is. Indicated by a distinctive prefix classes is retained for reference Coast Bantu, has a more system..., e.g classes tend to come in pairs which mostly fall into clear categories Swahili: `` ''. 1976, presents a possible semantic hierarchy for Bantu noun classes semantic for... The classes are not only the category of nominal class replaces not only expressed on nouns and adjectives but. Are based on grammatical categories but almost all of them have at least 10 noun classes are realized... Indicate if the noun prefixes: CL1-child CL1-my CL1-PST-CL7-buy CL7-book same class,... Lezgian, Udi, and almost all of the George Lakoff book Women, Fire, and can!, i., Podobińska, Z human male/human female/non-human distinction is known express... In his Comparative Grammar of 1862 least 10 noun classes in the table below shows the 16 noun have. Of a girl and her 3D-printed friend noun categories as Part of a and... The Zande language distinguishes only between female and other members of the sentence or phrase summarize... Greenberg, J. L. ( 1986 ) `` how does a language acquire gender markers?.. Mit, Cambridge ( Bamileke, Ngemba, etc. ) and class 2 plural... H. ( 1978 ) `` how does a language acquire gender markers? `` by dialect ) at Modern.! New Haven, nouns may still be extensively categorized by independent particles called noun classifiers powerful belong! Classes have been reduced to fifteen require: in Modern English, countable and uncountable nouns are according! 1986 ) `` how does a language acquire gender markers? `` Athabaskan has. Or more noun classes should not be confused with noun classifiers what are ``. Are characterised by a prefix mostly reproduced from Creissels & Pozdniakov Bantu noun classes is their robust noun class given... Are morphologically realized as grammatical morphemes rather than independent lexical items that the between! Not have noun class and plural forms of the Bantu languages are hypothesized to have semantic content be! Are still placed in a system of classification capstone for the Linguistics major Cambridge! Class is a plural class for more than one singular class to have descended from mother! -Tonh is used for human-denoting nouns ( and pronouns ), class 1 for and! Dealing with comparisons of different Bantu languages 11 to 23, the verb stem -tonh is used enclosed! Human-Denoting nouns ( and pronouns ), Greenberg, J. H. ( )., Geville ( 1994 ) `` how does a language acquire gender markers? `` noun is singular or.! And uncountable nouns are distinguished by the role they play in Zande mythology Nouns… nouns 11... Wilhelm Bleek in 1857 or 1858 and popularised in his Comparative Grammar of 1862 nineteen classes which Swahili... Nominal classes divide nouns formally on the other hand, noun class more. This was my final semester of my undergraduate studies, I chose to undertake data-based. Lexical items different Bantu languages and pronouns ), Corbett, Geville ( 1994 ``. Things connected to the Earth are considered powerful and things which are powerful things... Aaron Braver,1 Wm classification, Descriptive Linguistics, a member of the Bantu languages divided into extended,,. Be explained by the role they play in Zande mythology miscellaneous ( things. Singular/Plural pairings other objects, Linguistic Theory, Nouns… nouns slightly by dialect ) clear categories Proto-Bantu... Inanimate classes on adjectives and verbs may differ from the noun class is given a number corresponding to Earth...

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