Waali plural formation: a preliminary study on variation in noun class realization
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Jonathan Allen Brindle
Abstract
In this paper I propose a classification of Waali nouns from a variationist perspective. On the basis of a three-speaker dataset, a classification is deduced from the singular-plural forms that are found in all three idiolects. As a result, a noun class is defined as the clustering of the intersection of singular-plural pairs across speakers. The complement of the intersection corresponds to the inter-individual variation. It is defined as any differences between two individuals in the representation of at least one linguistic variable. Thus, the paper provides a perspective of describing stability and variability by both deriving a prototype based on the intersection of multi-speakers’ data, and acknowledging and accounting for inter-individual variations. The method is argued to be better suited for urban and lingua franca linguistics.
Acknowledgment
The author wishes to thank Mary Esther Kropp Dakubu, Signe Rix Berthelin, and Assibi Apatewon Amidu for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Remarks of an anomymous reviewer is gratefully acknowledged, whose critical notes were applied in this work. The paper has benefited from the participants of a guest lecture at the 50th anniversary celebration of the University of Ghana Department of Linguisitcs, which was held at Legon, March 2014, and at the Crossroads project seminar, which was held at SOAS, London, November 2014.
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©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Waali plural formation: a preliminary study on variation in noun class realization
- Prehistoric language contact in the Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier area: Khoisan influence on southwestern Bantu languages
- Dogon noncompositional constructional tonosyntax
- Wh- question formation in Krachi
- Book Reviews
- Georg Klute: Tuareg-Aufstand in der Wüste. Ein Beitrag zur Anthropologie der Gewalt und des Krieges
- Dominique Casajus: L’alphabet touareg
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Waali plural formation: a preliminary study on variation in noun class realization
- Prehistoric language contact in the Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier area: Khoisan influence on southwestern Bantu languages
- Dogon noncompositional constructional tonosyntax
- Wh- question formation in Krachi
- Book Reviews
- Georg Klute: Tuareg-Aufstand in der Wüste. Ein Beitrag zur Anthropologie der Gewalt und des Krieges
- Dominique Casajus: L’alphabet touareg
