LINGUIST List 15.214

Wed Jan 21 2004

Qs: Bantu Gender/Concord

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Daniel Robertson, Gender and concord in Bantu languages

Message 1: Gender and concord in Bantu languages

Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 08:33:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Daniel Robertson <Dan.Robertson

stir.ac.uk>
Subject: Gender and concord in Bantu languages


This is a question about noun classification and concord in the noun
phrase in Bantu languages.

According to Brown and Miller (1980), it is a feature of many Bantu
languages that (i) nouns and adjectives have the following structure:
prefix + stem, (ii) the prefix carries information about gender (or,
more generally, the noun class) and number and (iii) there is concord
between the head noun and adjectives and demonstratives (if these
exist). Brown and Miller (1980:282) give the following as examples
from Luganda:

(1) Noun class 1

 a. Oku-kazi omu-lungi o-no
 woman pretty this
 'this pretty woman'

 b. Aba-kazi aba-lunig ba-no aba-satu
 woman pretty this three
 'these three pretty women'

(2) Noun class 2

 a. En-jovu en-kadde ey-o
 elephant old that
 'that old elephant'

 b. En-jovu en-kadde ez-o es-satu
 elephant old that three
 'those three old elephants'

My question is about Idoma, a Bantu language spoken in Benue State in
Nigeria. I have done an extensive search for published information
about the morphosyntax of Idoma, but there appears to be very little
published research on this language, if any.

Essentially, I'd like to know (i) whether nouns in Idoma have the
prefix + stem structure of other Bantu language, (ii) if so, whether
the prefix carries information about noun classes, and (iii) if the
phenomenon of noun concord (as described above in relation to Luganda)
exists in Idoma.

I'm working on this with a native speaker informant who has supplied
the following data:

(3) a. ole-a
 house-DEF
 'the house'

 b. ole alewa
 house ?DEF.PL
 'the houses'

 c. ole nya
 house this
 'this house'

 d. ole nenche nya
 house old this
 'this old house'

 e. ole nenche alewa
 house old these
 'these old houses'
 
It would appear from these data (admittedly limited) that noun concord
does not exist in Idoma. But I would like confirmation from someone
who knows. More generally, can anybody give advice about criteria or
discovery procedures one might use to determine whether Idoma is a
noun concord language or not? I will post a summary of replies.

Reference

Brown, K. and Miller, J. 1980. Syntax: a linguistic introduction to
sentence structure. London: Hutchinson.

Subject-Language: North Idoma;Idoma Nokwu;Idoma;Idoma Central;Idoma
South;Idoma West; Code: ALA Language-Family: Niger-Congo; Code: NC

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