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The morphosyntax of Katcha nominals: A Dynamic Syntax account Darryl Turner V N I E R U S E I T H Y T O H F G E R D I N B U Doctor of Philosophy The University of Edinburgh 2015 To the people of the Nuba Mountains Abstract This thesis presents a new description and theoretical analysis of the nominal system of Katcha (Nilo-Saharan, Kadu), spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. The description and analysis are based on a synthesis of data from several sources, including unpublished archive material and original fieldwork. The study is placed in context with a discussion of the demographic, cultural and political background affecting the Katcha linguistic community, a review of the current state of linguistic research on Katcha and a discussion of the ongoing controversy over the place of the Kadu languages within the language phyla of Africa. The morphosyntactic descriptions first focus on the role of nominals as heads, considering phenomena such as classification, agreement and modification. It is shown that Katcha has a unusual system of gender agreement with three agreement classes based on the concepts of Masculine, Feminine and Plural and that the gender of a noun may change between its singular and plural forms. Surprisingly, these phenomena are both most commonly found in Afro-Asiatic, which is not a phylum to which Kadu has previously been ascribed. The gender changes are shown to be predictable, determined by number-marking affixes. The study then gives a unified analysis of various types of nominal modifiers; relative clauses, possessives, demonstratives and adjectives all display similar morphological properties and this is accounted for by analysing all modfiers as appositional, headed by a demonstrative pronoun. This analysis of modifiers shows them to be related to, though not the same as, the notions of relative markers and construct state found widely in African languages. The role of nominals within sentential argument structure is then considered, with discussion of phenomena such as prepositional phrases, case and verbal valency. From the interaction of prepositions and pronouns, it is tentatively concluded that Katcha has three cases: Nominative, Accusative and Oblique. From the interaction of verbs and nouns, it is demonstrated that the verbal suffixes known as ‘verb extensions’ primarily serve to license the absence of otherwise mandatory core arguments. The second part of the thesis provides a theoretical analysis of the nominal system within the framework of Dynamic Syntax (DS). Two key features of the DS formalism come into play. Firstly, DS construes semantic individuals as terms of the epsilon calculus. Verb extensions are analysed as projecting context-dependent epsilon terms, providing a value for the ‘missing’ argument. Secondly, DS allows information sharing between propositions by means of a ‘LINK’ relation. Prepositional phrases are analysed as projecting a subordinate proposition which shares an argument with the matrix tree. v These two formal tools come together in the analysis of nominal modifiers, which are construed as projecting an arbitrarily complex epsilon term LINKed to some term in the matrix tree, directly reflecting their descriptive analysis as appositional nominals. In presenting new data for a little studied language, this thesis adds to our knowl- edge and understanding of Nuba Mountain languages. In describing and analysing some of the typologically unsual features of Katcha’s nominal system, it challenges some standard assumptions about these constructions and about the genetic affiliation of the Kadu family. And in the theoretical analysis it demonstrates the suitability of Dynamic Syntax to model some of the key insights of the descriptive analysis. vi Acknowledgements Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. (Ecclesiastes 12:12) I used to think I was quite a got-it-all-together kind of person. Until I did a PhD. Now I know what the Teacher was getting at. There’s no way I could have got to submitting a thesis without the help of a cast of thousands. Some of them are people who helped me with my research and study-related things, without whom I could never have completed this. Others are people who helped me by dragging me away from my research and study-related things, thereby keeping me sane (relatively speaking). And a few people, remarkably, did both. Top of the list in the first category must be my supervisors Professor Ronnie Cann, and Dr Bert Remijsen. But there have also been academics, staff and fellow students in universities on three continents: members of the Meaning and Grammar Research Group at the University of Edinburgh; Professor Christopher Ehret and the staff at the Young Research Library at UCLA for helping me access the Stevenson archive; and the Department of Linguistics at the University of Khartoum, especially Dr Maha and Dr Abeer, for linguistic feedback, arranging all the visa admin, and many many cups of tea. In Sudan there were also many people who helped me with data collection. My heartfelt gratitude goes to my main language helpers Tito and Musa, who travelled over an hour each way to try and explain their language to this stupid naive Westerner. Also to the Katcha team, linguists and translation consultants at ECS, especially Dr Russell Norton, who was not merely a helpful linguist with years of Nuba language experience: to me and my family, he, Katharine and Lowenna were neighbours, tour guides, translators, playmates, babysitters, cultural confidantes, fellow homeschoolers, and most importantly, friends. In the second category is virtually the whole population of Sudan. They have a saying: ‘If you took the 100 nicest people in the world and put them in a room together, 99 of them would be Sudanese!’ I think we met all 99: landlords, neighbours, shop- keepers, taxi drivers, passers-by; all desperate to show us hospitality. At home, Maggie and Cameron, providers of my Edinburgh crash pad, made sure there was something delicious waiting in the fridge for when I rolled in at midnight. Our friends and family in Scotland, USA and Sudan have been there when we needed them, especially our friends at Queens Park Baptist Church in Glasgow and Khartoum Christian Centre. Bottom of the page, but top of the list go my amazing, beautiful Kathie, Nathaniel and Joanna, who somehow are still putting up with me. Love you always. vii Declaration I declare that this thesis was composed by myself, that the work contained herein is my own except where explicitly stated otherwise in the text, and that this work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification except as specified. Darryl Turner ix Contents Abstract v Acknowledgements vii Declaration ix List of Tables xv List of Abbreviations xvii I Preliminaries 1 1 Introduction 3 1.1 Preliminaries .................................. 4 1.2 Morphosyntactic Descriptions ......................... 4 1.3 Theoretical Analyses .............................. 6 1.4 Overall aims .................................. 8 2 Background 11 2.1 Demographic background ........................... 12 2.2 The classification of the Kadu languages ................... 13 2.2.1 Internal classification .......................... 13 2.2.2 External Classification ......................... 14 2.3 Previous Linguistic Descriptions and Analyses ................. 17 2.3.1 Stevenson Archive ........................... 17 2.3.2 Phonology ................................ 19 2.3.3 Morphosyntax .............................. 19 2.4 Fieldwork and other data sources ....................... 21 2.5 Conclusion ................................... 22 3 Phonology 25 3.1 Consonants ................................... 25 xi xii CONTENTS 3.1.1 Consonant phonemic inventory ..................... 25 3.1.2 Consonant clusters and length ..................... 27 3.1.3 Word final consonants ......................... 27 3.2 Vowels ..................................... 28 3.2.1 Vowel phonemic inventory ....................... 28 3.2.2 Vowel assimilation & Harmony ..................... 29 3.3 Vowel and Consonant Elision ......................... 29 3.4 Tone ...................................... 29 3.5 Orthographic conventions used in this study ................. 31 II Morphosyntactic Descriptions 33 4 Number and Gender 35 4.1 Number ..................................... 37 4.1.1 Plurative Affixes ............................. 38 4.1.2 Singulative Affixes ........................... 41 4.1.3 Replacive Affixes ............................ 44 4.1.4 Summary ................................ 47 4.2 Gender ..................................... 48 4.3 Number marking and gender .......................... 51 4.3.1