Another aspect illustrated in Chapter 3 is syllable structure. Fròʔò has three underlying syllable structures: C(C)V, C(C)V: or V, where there is no underlying coda; but, C(C)VC syllables arise through final vowel deletion and liquid metathesis. The onset can be complex, although it is limited to two positions which are restricted in their order by the sonority sequence principle. In this chapter, it is also shown how the constraints on syllable structure repair loanwords in Fròʔò. The last process that is described is the fusion of two monosyllabic morphemes into a single syllable, and an optimality-theoretic account of the syllable structure is proposed at the end of the chapter.
Chapter 4 introduces simplex nouns and nominal classes. A noun in Fròʔò consists minimally of a lexical root and a class marker, which can be covert. There are seven classes in Fròʔò, six of which are organized by gender (pairs of corresponding singular and plural). Class 7 contains uncountable (mass) nouns, which have no plural.
In Chapter 5, an overview of alliterative concord is given, addressing work by Corbett (1991) and Hockett (1958) on the nominal domain. Each nominal class is identified in the phonology by a set of features that are reproduced in the initial consonant of each agreeing morpheme. In this chapter, I propose a morphological analysis of the functional morphemes in the framework of Distributed ←17 | 18→Morphology, with special attention to those standing in an agreement relation with the head noun (some, like numerals, are invariable). In the last part of the chapter, I examine the phonological processes that are needed following the morphology, and an optimality-theoretic analysis of the phonological processes is offered.
Chapter 6 discusses the derivational role of class markers (CM). The morphological form of a default noun in Fròʔò is a lexical root and a category-defining CM. The special CMs used with nominal roots are the CM3-CM4, leading to diminutives, the CM5-CM6, leading to augmentatives, and the CM7 for mass nouns or properties. Nouns can be also derived from a verbal root by suffixing a CM on that root, in a deverbalization process. Like denominalization, deverbalization consists of adding a CM to the verbal root. The same CMs as before can play this role: CM3-CM4, CM5-CV6, and CM7. The third process of noun formation involves adjectival roots. When the adjective has no head noun to agree with, it occurs in its citation form. In this case, only CM5 can be added, playing the role of default nominalizer. This process shows that the citation form of adjectives is preferably nominal. In a predicative construction, adjectives agree in the feature [CLASS] with the head nominal they modify, which is either a noun or a pronoun. In both cases, an adjective needs a class marker to stand on its own.
Chapter 7 describes compounding operations in the nominal domain, forming what is called a ‘complex noun’ which contains more than one lexical root. The term ‘complex noun’ is used to demarcate these words from the ‘simplex’ nouns consisting of only one lexical root and one CM. At least three kinds of nominal compounds are found in Fròʔò: complex nouns consisting of two or more nominal roots (N + N), compounds consisting of a nominal and a verbal root (N + V), and complex nouns consisting of a nominal and an adjectival root (N + A).
←18 | 19→
| ADJ | adjective |
| ART | article |
| ASP | aspect marker |
| ATR | advanced tongue root |
| AUX | auxiliary |
| C | consonant |
| CL | class |
| CM | class marker |
| CON | constraint (in Optimality Theory) |
| DEF | definite |
| DEF.ART | definite article |
| DEI | deitic particle |
| DEM | demonstrative |
| DET | determiner |
| DIST | distal |
| DM | Distributed Morphology |
| EVA | evaluator (in Optimality Theory) |
| F | feature |
| GEN | generator (in Optimality Theory) |
| IMPF/IMP | imperfective |
| INDEF | indefinite |
| INDEF.ART | indefinite article |
| N | noun |
| NFR | non-final-root |
| NMLZ | nominalizer |
| OBJ | object |
| PERF PFV | perfective |
| PROX | proximal |
| PTCL | particle |
| PL | plural |
| PRES/ID | presentative/indentificational particle |
| PRO | pronoun |
| Q | question particle |
| REL.PRO | relative pronoun←19 | 20→ |
| SG | singular |
| SSG | sonority sequencing generalization |
| V | vowel/verb |
| VI | Vocabulary Insertion (in Distributed Morphology) |
←20 | 21→
Schriften zur Afrikanistik
Research in African Studies
Herausgegeben von / Edited by
Rainer Vossen und / and Georg Ziegelmeyer
Volume 29
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Zur
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