Landuma: a case of radical alliterative agreement

Nina Sumbatova

doi:10.1515/jall-2022-8893

Article

Landuma: a case of radical alliterative agreement

Nina Sumbatova

Published/Copyright: September 12, 2022

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Submit Manuscript Author Information Explore this Subject

From the journal Journal of African Languages and Linguistics Volume 43 Issue 1

Abstract

The principal goal of this paper is to describe agreement in the Landuma language (Mel < Niger-Congo). Landuma shows agreement in animacy and, for inanimate nouns, radical alliterative agreement, a type of agreement conditioned by phonology: the first phoneme of the agreement prefix is conditioned by the first phoneme of the controlling noun. This type of agreement has much in common with agreement in noun class but is governed by essentially different mechanisms. Radical alliterative agreement is a challenge for linguistic theory, because it contradicts the generally adopted Principle of Phonology-Free Syntax and the understanding of phonological elements as unilateral entities. Radical alliterative agreement has been previously found in some other languages, first of all in the Kru languages (Niger-Congo) and in the Arapesh languages (New Guinea). The authors who have dealt with radical alliterative agreement have suggested a number of alternative descriptions in order to avoid theoretical problems. Some of the possible alternatives are also discussed in this paper.

Keywords: agreement; Landuma; Mel; radical alliterative agreement

Corresponding author: Nina Sumbatova, Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, E-mail: nina.sumbatova@gmail.com

Acknowledgments

I express my sincerest gratitude to those colleagues who helped me with their attention and advice on earlier versions of this paper: Denis Creissels, Konstantin Pozdniakov, and Valentin Vydrin, as well as two anonymous reviewers from JALL. I am also thankful to my language consultants, who were very helpful in the course of our work: Abdullayi Sanden, Sale Kumbassa, Cerno Tambasa, and Masalu Compo, as well as to Dan Bryant and Kirk Rogers, missionaries and researchers working on Landuma, who kindly shared their manuscripts with me. Any errors remaining are solely my responsibility.

Abbreviations

1, 2, 3: 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd person
adj: adjective
agr: alliterative agreement marker
an: animate
asr: assertive particle
cons: consecutive
cop: copula
def: definite
dflt.agr: default agreement marker
dim: diminutive
fact: factitive
iprs: impersonal
loc: locative prefix
neg: negative
nmz: nominalizer
np (in glosses): nominal prefix
obj: object pronoun
pl: plural
poss: possessive
pot: potential
prg: progressive
rec: reciprocal
sg: singular
subj: subject pronoun
V: verb.

References

Aronoff, Mark. 1998. Gender agreement as morphology. In Geert Booij, Ralli Angela & Sergio Scalise (eds.), Proceedings of the first mediterranean conference of morphology (Mytilene, Greece, 19–21 September 1997), 7–18. Patras: University of Patras.Search in Google Scholar

Bao Diop, S. 2015. Les classes nominales en nyun gunyamolo. In Denis Creissels & Konstantin Pozdniakov (eds.), Les classes nominales dans les langues atlantiques, 371–406. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Search in Google Scholar

Cobbinah, Alexander. 2010. The Casamance as an area of intense language contact. The case of Baïnouk Gubaher. Journal of Language Contact (Thema) 3. 175–201. https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-90000010.Search in Google Scholar

Cobbinah, Alexander. 2013. Nominal classification and verbal nouns in Baïnounk Gubëeher. PhD Thesis. SOAS, University of London.Search in Google Scholar

Corbett, Greville G. 1991. Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139166119Search in Google Scholar

Corbett, Greville G. 2006. Agreement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Dahl, Östen. 2000. Animacy and the notion of semantic gender. In Unterbeck Barbara, Rissanen Matti, Nevalaine Terttu & Saari Mirja (eds.), Gender in grammar and cognition. In: Approaches to gender, 99–116. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110802603.99Search in Google Scholar

Dimitriadis, Alexis. 1996. Alliterative concord in Phonology-Free Syntax. University of Pennsylvania. Ms.Search in Google Scholar

Dobrin, Lise M. 2012. Concreteness in grammar. The noun class systems of the Arapesh languages. Stanford studies in morphology and the lexicon. Stanford: CSLI.Search in Google Scholar

Hockett, Charles F. 1958. A course in modern linguistics. New York: The Macmillan.10.1111/j.1467-1770.1958.tb00870.xSearch in Google Scholar

Houis, Maurice. 1953. Le système pronominal et les classes dans les dialectes baga. BIFAN XV(1). 381–404.Search in Google Scholar

Kramer, Ruth. 2010. The Amharic definite marker and the syntax–morphology interface. Syntax 13(3). 196–240. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9612.2010.00139.x.Search in Google Scholar

Miller, Philip H., Geoffrey K. Pullum & Arnold M. Zwicky. 1997. The principle of Phonology-Free Syntax: Four apparent counterexamples in French. Journal of Linguistics 33. 67–90. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022226796006305.Search in Google Scholar

Norris, Mark. 2014. A theory of nominal concord. Ph.D. dissertation. UC Santa Cruz.Search in Google Scholar

Polinsky, Maria. 2016. Agreement in Archi from a minimalist perspective. In Bond Oliver, Greville G. Corbett, Chumakina Marina & Dunstan Brown (eds.), Archi: Complexities of agreement in cross-theoretical perspective, 184–232. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198747291.003.0007Search in Google Scholar

Pozdniakov, Konstantin. 1993. Sravnitel’naja grammatika atlanticheskix jazykov [A comparative grammar of the Atlantic languages]. Moscow: Nauka.Search in Google Scholar

Pozdniakov, Konstantin & Guillaume Segerer. Forthcoming. Genealogical classification of Atlantic languages. In Friederike Lüpke (ed.), Oxford guide to the world’s languages: Atlantic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Preminger, Omer. Forthcoming. The Anaphor agreement effect: Further evidence against binding-as-agreement. Ms.Search in Google Scholar

Robert, Stéphane & Guillaume Segerer. Forthcoming. Joola Keeraak: A grammatical introduction. In Friederike Lüpke (ed.), Oxford guide to the world’s languages: Atlantic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Rogers, Kirk. 2005. Introduction to Landuma language and culture lessons. Ms.Search in Google Scholar

Rogers, Kirk. 2008a. Landumaa grammar write-up: Noun classing system. Ms.Search in Google Scholar

Rogers, Kirk. 2008b. Phonemic analysis of the Landuma language. Ms.Search in Google Scholar

Rogers, Kirk & Daniel Bryant. 2012. Dictionnaire landouma – français. Boke: Mission Evangélique de Boké.Search in Google Scholar

Sande, Hannah. 2019. Phonologically determined nominal concord as post-syntactic: Evidence from Guébie. Journal of Linguistics 55(4). 831–878. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022226718000476.Search in Google Scholar

Sauvageot, Serge. 1967. Sur la classification nominale en baïnouk. In La classification nominale dans les langues négro-africaines, 225–235. Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique.Search in Google Scholar

Segerer, Guillaume. 2015. Les classes nominales en keerak (joola de Kabrousse). In Creissels Denis & Pozdniakov Konstantin (eds.), Les classes nominales dans les langues atlantiques, 103–146. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Search in Google Scholar

Sumbatova, Nina. 1999. Malen’kie afrikanskie fokusy (struktura predikata i kommunikativnoe vydelenie v jazyke landuma) [Little African tricks : Predicate structure and emphasis in Landuma]. In Ekaterina Raxilina & Yakov Testelets (eds.), Tipologija i teorija jazyka. K 60-letiju A. E. Kibrika, 525–538. Moscow: Jazyki russkoy kul’tury.Search in Google Scholar

Sumbatova, Nina. 2003. Glagol’naja sistema jazyka landuma [The verbal system of Landuma]. In Viktor Vinogradov & Irina Toporova (eds.), Osnovy afrikanskogo jazykoznanija. Glagol [Foundations of African linguistics. The verb], 325–356. Moscow: Vostochnaja literatura.Search in Google Scholar

Sumbatova, Nina & Valentin Vydrin. 2021. Nouns with initial prenasalization in Landuma and their counterparts in Mande. Voprosy jazykovogo rodstva 19, 136–151.Search in Google Scholar

Toporova, Irina. 1994. Grammatika jazyka Lingala [A grammar of Lingala]. Moscow: Pomovskij i partnery.Search in Google Scholar

Traoré, Yranahan & Caroline Féry. 2017. Consonant harmony in Fròʔò nominal domain.In Paper presented at the 25th Manchester phonology meeting.Search in Google Scholar

Wilson, W. A. A. 1961. An outline of the Temne language. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.Search in Google Scholar

Wilson, W. A. A. 1962. Temne, Landuma, and the Baga language. Sierra Leone Language Review 1962(1). 27–38.Search in Google Scholar

Wilson, W. A. A. 1963. Temne and the West Atlantic group. Sierra Leone Language Review 1963(2). 27–29.Search in Google Scholar

Zhurinskij, Alfred. 1987. Slovar’ zaimstvovanij v jazyke zulu [A dictionary of borrowed words in Zulu]. In N.V. Oxotina (ed.), Imennye klassy v jazykax Afriki, 216–240. Moscow: Nauka.Search in Google Scholar

Zwicky, Arnold M. 1969. Phonological constraints in syntactic descriptions. Papers in Linguistics 1(3). 411–463. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351816909389127.Search in Google Scholar

Zwicky, Arnold M. & Geoffrey K. Pullum. 1986. The principle of Phonology-Free Syntax: Introductory remarks. The Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics 32. 63–91.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2022-09-12

Published in Print: 2022-05-25

You are currently not able to access this content.

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2022-8893

Keywords for this article

agreement; Landuma; Mel; radical alliterative agreement