Agents and Artists in Central Africa

Agents and artists in Central Africa

Abstract Zande and Chamba-Daka are Adamawa-Ubangi (Niger-Congo) languages. The Zande agent noun is identical with the accompli verb. Some agent nouns are instrumental or designate the process itself. The Chamba-Daka agent noun is a compound postposing the "infinitive" to 'person'. It refers only to the subject argument of the source verb. Both languages have a semantically related compound: the "artist" noun meaning 'owner, skillful user of (a material object)' or 'individual (with intrinsic attribute)'. The semantic range of the artist noun in both languages is similar. The artist noun may be formed with the "infinitive"; it then contrasts modally with the agent noun.

This paper will briefly examine the formation and use of the "agent noun" and a semantically related construction which will be called the "artist1 noun" in two Central African languages, Zande and Chamba-Daka (CD). Both belong to the Adamawa-Ubangi branch of the Niger-Congo family. Zande belongs to the Ubangi subbranch and is spoken on its eastern periphery in Sudan/CAR/DRC. Chamba- Daka belongs to the Adamawa subbranch and is spoken on its western periphery along the Nigeria-Cameroon border. Both are also peripheral in a classificatory sense: they are lexically distant from the other languages in the Adamawa-Ubangi branch.

I. Agent nouns

Agent nouns are formed in quite different ways in these languages. Most of the differences can be set down to the features of verb morphology which are briefly described below.

I.1a.. In Zande, all verbs are necessarily inflected for aspect: they must be either in an "inaccompli" or in an "accompli" form (usually translated into English as an imperfective/perfective contrast). In nominal syntactic contexts, the simple "inaccompli" form is the "action noun", i.e., the "verbal noun" or "infinitive" expressing the "fact of" or "act of" performing the verbal process. The simple "accompli" form2 is, in turn, the "agent noun" expressing the "one who" performs

1 This is the term selected by FR. STEFANO SANTANDREA (see for example SANTANDREA 1969) to designate the item in question in the Sudanese languages (both NC and NS) he recorded. He speaks of "una caratteristica comunissima in lingue africane. Il prefisso in questione, o primo componente che dir si voglia, implica l'idea di proprietà, di qualsiasi specie: cosa, persona, qualità buona o cattiva, abilità artigianale, artistica, ecc. Sta pure per 'colui que...; chi...; quello...il quale...'... In certe lingue, al suo posto si puྂ trovare il termine 'uomo' (nel senso di 'persona': maschile o femminile), ma solo in determinante costruzioni" (Santandrea 1969: 66). I shall develop these remarks below. 2Each of the simple verbal nouns has a reduplicated (emphatic) form, requiring repetition of the verbal process: the referent of the agent noun would thus be the referent of the animate subject of the source verb used predicatively3. (Verb morphology involves using one or the other of these forms with a variety of prefixes and tone patterns to form predicates.) The agent noun can take one of only two types of morphological elements: a plural prefix å- (also used for ethnonyms) or a gender prefix: bå- 'masculine' or nå- 'feminine'4. The agent noun can (and usually does) form a noun phrase in which the direct (usually patient) object and/or a circumstantial complement of the source verb appears as a modifier5, thus (1) bå-Ìmì bà-mó male-kill father-your 'killer of your father, man who killed your father' The "accompli" semantic feature of the agent noun is tenuous, given the absence of any "accompli/inaccompli" contrast in this function. Hence, the agent noun from an intransitive verb such as s བ ng-6 'sit' can have a stative sense: (2) å-sÙngù séèndè plural-sit locative+earth 'those who have sat down (and are currently sitting) on the ground' The meaning of agent nouns thus varies essentially with the lexical meaning of the verb, its syntactic classfication as transitive or intransitive, and the discursive context: while (1) normally means 'the man who killed your father'7, (3) bå-Ìmì à-nyå male-kill plural-animal 'killer of animals' can be used for one who is a skillful hunter. It signifies not just that he has killed animals, but that he is good at killing animals and can do so again. Likewise, the verb in the inaccompli with prefix à-. 3We may note that Zande also has a few animate patient derivates: zog- 'submit, govern' > zógó 'subordinate, subject, citizen', but these are irregularly formed. Some such as mò- yámbÙ 'servant' (< yamb- 'call') use a prefix mò-, probably imported from a Bantu language. 4These items mean respectively 'father' and 'mother'; they can be preceded by the common- noun plural prefix à-. 5Agent nouns from intransitive verbs nearly always have a circumstantial modifier (the emphatic form without modifier is also allowed); the agent noun thus remains strongly linked to its predicative source. 6Zande verbs have no lexical tone. They are distributed into two morphological classes according to whether the final vowel changes to mark aspect. When the final vowel does not change, tone alone marks aspect. 7It could also conceivably mean 'the man who is sure to kill your father'. (4) bå-vÙ báàngì male-smoke hemp 'hemp smoker' is a habitual smoker. The complex aspectomodal marking which characterizes the Zande verb system cannot be obtained with the agent noun. For example, 'a possible killer' can only be obtained by constructing a noun phrase using a relative clause: 'that person who is capable of killing...'.

I.1b. The "canonical" agent noun refers to the animate subject argument of the source verb. Zande nevertheless has formal agent nouns which refer to inanimate things. These usually have a strongly idiomatic sense, will not take gender prefixes or postposed patient-object modifiers (though they may be modified by nominals in the preposed attributive "adjectival" position), and mark the plural with à-. Instrumental senses, where the object used for the (transitive) process replaces the animate user as 'that which performs the process', are particularly well represented: gbàràgà 'drying wattle' < gbaraga 'spread to dry on a wattle', ìngìrà 'sieve' < ingira '(to) sieve', tògòsÌ 'funnel' < togos- 'run (st.) through a funnel', zèrèsÌ 'tranquillizing medicine' < zeres- 'calm', zÙgàsì 'seed yam' < z བ gasi 'enrich, multiply'. The same analysis extends to the terms designating fingers: nòrò 'thumb' < nor- 'crush with the thumb', rÌngà 'index finger' < r¥nga 'point at (with the index finger)'. A further extension will cover ngànà 'mirror' < ngana 'look at' which can be used reflexively; hence, the mirror is that thing which allows oneself to look at oneself, and in a sense 'looks back at' oneself. Interestingly, there is an attested instance of an intransitive verb taking an animate subject argument, totoroto 'speak on endlessly to criticize or harass', whose agent noun designates not the agent but rather the process itself8. It may be assumed that this is an extension of the previous case, whereby the process is treated as the "means" of its own realization. Some (transitive or intransitive) verbs, however, may take inanimate subjects (as an alternative to an animate subject in a reflexive consruction). In such case, the agent noun may be that subject: gètèkè 'abcess' < getek- 'burrow', gbèfè 'convulsion' < gbef- 'convulse'9. In other words, the process itself is the agent10. In some cases, e.g., kÌndà 'catastrophe' < k¥nda 'bring destruction', the process agent

8The common usage of this ideophonic verb is totoroto kùtí bórò {criticize against person} 'harangue (people) concerning the faults of someone'. The textual example referred to is: (5) mò ní-dù ngúù nåà gbÅgbèrè tòtòròtò {you be constantly with bad criticizing} 'you are always going on and on criticizing people malignantly' 9Both getek- and gbef- are pluriactional derivates, but this fact seems to have no bearing on the current discussion. 10This is conceivably the pattern on which the names of certain months of the year are based. noun is a general term covering a variety of specific processes (in this case, war or famine)11. These examples of process nominalization through the agent noun must be clearly distinguished from a variety of other tonal and affixal derivational procedures. In particular, the latter may yield nouns which appear as the "internal" or "generic" object of verbs, e.g., sog- 'hate' > sógóté 'hatred', whence sºgà sógóté 'be spiteful', mong- 'make fun of, laugh at', mºngà mºngº 'laugh'. This is never the case with agent nouns. There is nevertheless a certain number of derivates obtained by these procedures which seem to be semantically equivalent to the cases cited above of agent nouns from verbs with inanimate subjects, e.g., ímísírì 'suffering' < imis- 'make (so.) suffer' (itself the causative derivate of im- 'be painful; feel pain, suffer'12).

I.1c. The Zande data thus support the affirmation that the pattern "used in the formation of agent nouns may also serve for the formation of instrumental, locative and other nouns". They show that two primary semantic procedures are involved:

1. If an agent uses an object to perform the process, this object in some sense also performs the process and may therefore be designated by an agent noun. 2. Some processes are assumed to occur without animate agents; these may be said to "perform themselves": the agent noun designates the process itself.

I.2a) In CD, verbs have an "absolute" lexical form, i.e., a bare form with an intrinsic tone. This totally uninflected form may be used to form a predicate; with exceptions, any grammatical predicate modifiers will generally be utterance-final. Every verb has a "verbal noun" or "infinitive" form resulting from the imposition of a characteristic tone pattern and the addition of a suffix -(Å)n, and meaning the "fact of" or "act of" performing the verbal process. The word for 'person' is nèé; this term is sometimes found tonally reduced to nè when followed by certain grammatical terms such as demonstratives, the indefinite specifier ('a certain...'), and the plural marker. It is also used with certain attributive ("adjectival") nominals, e.g., (6) nè-yákén 'wielder of the circumcision knife' (literally "knify person", yákén < yák 'knife')13.

11Another interpretation might be that these are in fact the "means" by which the process is carried out. Note also that, in view of the requirement that k¥nda have an inanimate subject, its "agent noun" is bá-kÌndà 'raider' whose first component is bá 'place', not the animate prefix bå-. 12This verb also has a derivate ¡må 'pain, illness', but is used intranstively (im- tí bórò {be_ painful on person} 'be painful for someone'). 13This person is also a guardian of the knives, which must be kept under certain conditions during the years separating successive performances of the circumcision rites. This tonal reduction is thus a mark of close binding and/or compounding. It also appears when 'person' is immediately followed by the verbal noun. This construction provides an agent-noun compound with the meaning 'person who performs or instantiates the verbal process'14. Just as in Zande, the agent noun will often form a phrase in which the direct object arguments15 of the source verb appear as modifiers. Given the absence of any tense-aspect-mode marking, meaning is solely dependent on the lexical meaning and the transitivity of the source verb in the given discursive context: (7) nè-kpåån yák person-cry+infinitive knife 'person who cried as a child at circumcision' refers to a person who has behaved in a given way on a specific occasion while (8a) nè-såån wáå person-divine+infinitive hand 'diviner' and (8b) nè-tårÅn tÉ/Ém b„„ person-shoot+infinitive bow plural 'archers' refer to persons with habitually exercised functions or skills. (9) nè-nyåån méém b„ gËËn person-give+infinitive children plural medicine 'medicator' designates a person who is given the specific task of providing pain killers to boys before they undergo circumcision. (10) nè-bËrÅn bÒnÖ téém b¡¡n person-break+infinitive road heart forward 'pioneer' is a name given to the boy who is circumcised first and sets an example for those who follow. (11a) nè-w„kÅn táå person-hear+infinitive ear 'listener' and (11b) nè-v¡sùmÅn sár¡ person-ask-1me+infinitive speech 'my questioner'

14In CD, there is no trace of derived patient nouns. 15In this language, unlike Zande, both the beneficiary and the patient objects are direct, as are "relational" objects which often require translation into English as a circumstantial phrase, 'with respect to, involving'. refer to persons in a particular state at a given time. (12) nè-låån gáà bÅn person-remain+infinitive locative down 'someone who lives here' refers to someone who is in a constant invariant state. CD differs importantly from Zande, however, in using its verbal noun as an attributive nominal modifier. In this function, it may modify any nominal, whether a (non-subject) argument of the source verb or not, and generally takes on a purposive sense, cf. the "instrumental" uses in (13a) pén dºbÅn sòòn thing dance-infinitive dance 'thing for dancing, item used by (someone) while dancing' (13b) gååm tºngsé/én lérùm b„ téém horn strengthen-infinitive male plural heart 'horn capable of awakening, used to awaken men's courage' and the use with a non-argument of the source verb in (13c) lårí n¡mÅn nìmsí fear sing+infinitive song 'fear of singing a song' A verbal noun may also modify any subject of an intransitive source verb, in which case it generally has stative sense: (14a) yísí dåkénÅn cloth be_clean+infinitive 'clean garment' We may note that the use of the lexical form nèé 'person' as head noun in this construction gives similarly: (14b) nèé dåkénÅn person be_clean+infinitive 'clear-headed (sane) person' which may be said to contrast with the agent noun nè-dåkénÅn, having the more material meaning 'person who is in a state of cleanliness'. Consequently, we must recognize a syntactic kinship of agent nouns (as exemplified by 7-12) with both compound nouns such as (6) and nouns modified by an attributive verbal noun, as in (13-14), since all these constructions may be assumed to consist of a referent noun followed by an attribute. The agent noun is properly identified by the conjunction of two features: 1) it necessarily uses the compounded form of the noun nè16- and 2) the latter

16There are exceptional cases such as (15) pén tåånÅn bùm {thing eat-infinitive place} 'cannibal', necessarily designates the animate subject argument of the source verb of its verbonominal modifier.

1.2b. This analysis sets the agent nouns, as compounds formed with nè- and a postposed verbonominal modifier, over against all other noun phrases in which a noun is modified by a postposed verbonominal phrase. If this analysis is correct17, the CD data refute the generality of the hypothesis that the pattern "used in the formation of agent nouns may also serve for the formation of instrumental, locative and other nouns". Indeed, CD agent nouns include an obligatory reference to an animate entity which blocks any semantic drift towards reference to inanimate non- subject arguments or circumstantial complements of the source verb. They are therefore in some sense totally "transparent" in being the only forms which can validly be called "agent nouns" precisely because they can only designate "agents"18.

II. "Artist" nouns

We must now turn to a formally contrasting but semantically related type of expression formed with the "artist" lexeme, a feature common to many Central African languages.

II.1a. Zande has, in fact, two such lexemes, the relational nouns19 ìrá and mbÅ, the latter being perhaps a more recent importation (related to Sango mvè). They are semantically identical and contrast only in the sense that, in the CAR dialect I have studied, some expressions idiomatically use one and others, the other. These terms may express the notion of ownership, as for example in (16) ìrá Ëtì 'owner of an uncultivated field' This sense leads naturally to the sense 'person in control, head person, ruler', as in (17a) ìrá kpºrº 'head of a household' literally 'one who eats (chewy things) all about'. The African "cannibal" is a humanoid creature, usually making use of supernatural powers. Hence the use of 'thing' for a voluntary agent. Another exception is found in the titles chiefs select for themselves, formed with gàng 'chief'; some are of agent noun structure, e.g., GàngDºkÅn (< dòk 'plant') 'planter chief'. 17There are diverse arguments supporting this analysis. Stated briefly and without the development required for clarification, these include 1) nè- in agent nouns designates the subject argument of the source verb; argument status is not obligatory otherwise; 2) the semantic behavior of agent nouns is specific to them; 3) nouns designating instruments or means may be the object of a reprise in the modifying verbonominal phrase. 18Perhaps "agent or experiencer" is required. We are in any case dealing with a classic Niger-Congo situation where the non-existence of "passivization" confers a peculier semantic status on the subject of the verbal utterance. 19Relational nouns cannot be used without a following nominal modifier. (17b) ìrá gbéré 'organizer, host of a dance' (17c) ìrá zÉgìnà 'master, lord (of the "world")' (17d) bå-ìrá à-mbàrà male-master plural-elephant 'leader of the elephant herd'' (17e) nå-ìrá-ré female-master-my 'my beloved, my mistress' At the same time, however, when a material object is possessed, the senses of ownership and control are often associated with that of skill in use. Thus, the (18a) mbÅ gázà 'drum owner' not only possesses but plays the tamtam; the (18b) mbÅ ng„à possesses, produces, and makes proper use of "medicines". The thing possessed may impose an obligation, as with (19) mbÅ kÚrùgbà 'relative of a deceased person' who must perform the rites of mourning. The same terms may also be used for the possessor of the faculty or skill itself, e.g., (20a) ìrá sánzá '(skillful) user of allusive speech' (20b) mbÅ màyÅrè owner ruse 'astute, resourceful person'. The faculty or skill need not be positively valued, cf. (21a) ìrá dÏn owner theft 'thief' and more generally (21b) mbÅ sÍná owner characteristic_behavior 'delinquent, antisocial person'. Any faculty or skill will, however, often be inherent in its possessor; hence, artist words may be used for any inherent property, whether a skill under the control of the possessor or a condtion suffered by him, e.g., (22a) ìrá vÜràrí owner blindness 'blindman' (22b) mbÅ kùngú owner leprosy 'leper' or a situation in the throes of which he finds himself: (23) ìrá zÅ owner shame 'person who is ashamed, made to feel shame'. This passive nuance is present in the particular use of mbÅ with place names to mean 'inhabitant of': (24a) mbÅ kù pà dí yó owner at beside river there '"downstreamer", person from the region of the Central African capital (further downriver on the Ubangi)' (24b) mbÅ Kòngó 'Congolese' These expressions do not imply that the person referred to is the ruler, but merely an inhabitant (who may of course have more rights and possibilities in his own place than any foreigner). The same sense is present in an expression such as (25) mbÅ kángà owner prison which, rather than 'prison governor', means 'prisoner'.

II.1b. The preceding examples would be excluded from any category of agent nouns defined by derivation from verbs. The artist lexemes may nevertheless also be used with the action nouns (represented by the inaccompli form) of verbs; these expressions are clearly pertinent to this discussion, e.g.: (26a) ìrá mÚngá 'coward' (m བ nga 'be cowardly') (26b) ìrá Åndà 'proud, vain person' (end- 'be proud') (26c) mbÅ zángádá 'sterile woman' (zangada 'be sterile') (26d) mbÅ zÚgá 'rich person' (z བ ga 'be rich') (26e) mbÅ rÚngá 'poor person' (r བ nga 'be poor, miserable') The verbs attested in this construction are preferentially intransitive or transitive/intransitive, and there are no instances of modification by circumstantial phrases. In these cases, the degree of nominalization is therefore high. There is, however, also an instance of an action noun from a transitive verb with its patient complement: (27) ìrá ¡ngà hÅ owner ignore thing 'person who habitually misbehaves, disrespectful person', showing that the possibility of linkage to the object arguments of the source verb remains. II.2a. In CD, the term corresponding to Zande ìrá and mbÅ is t„„. The semantic convergence of the artist lexemes in CD and Zande is remarkable. We thus have CD expressions such as (28a) båån t„„ 'owner of farm'20 (28b) sòòn t„„ 'host of dance' (28c) yàà kÖÖ t„„ concession matting owner 'neighbor' (28d) wók /t„„ water owner 'sole person having the right to fish in a given pond', (28e) súún t„„ husband owner 'married woman' (as opposed to Proper Name + nwúù 'wife of So-and-So') expressing ownership and control; (29a) gíín t„„ 'drum owner and player' (29b) gËËn t„„ 'person familiar with the production and use of a particular medicine', expressing ownership and skill; and (30a) méém (yét /)t„„ children (circumcision) owner 'parent or close relative of a child (undergoing circumcision)' (30b) yák gàng t„„ knife chief owner 'person having the status of head guardian of the circumcision knives' (who is himself also a circumciser, cf. 6 above) expressing social duties and obligation. Examples of possessors of positive social skills are: (31a) tít t„„ advice owner 'wise person, advisor' (31b) håkk¡lÒ21 t„„ 'respectful, circumspect person' (31c) téém tóng-tóng t„„ heart strong owner 'courageous person';

20The Zande make a lexical distinction between the as yet uncultivated and the cultivated farm; the Chamba-Daka do not. 21This is a widely used borrowing from Fulfulde referring to respectful behavior which is nevertheless mindful of the subject's own interest. negative attributes are exemplified by such expressions as (32a) m„m gá/kén t„„ mouth warlike owner 'quarrelsome person' and others using strongly evocative Hausa loanwords: (32b) mùgùntá t„„ 'malign person, evil-doer'. Inherent properties are commonly expressed by phrases headed by t„„, cf. (33) gúù dåké/nÅn t„„ throat be_clean+infinitive owner 'person with a clear, pure (singing) voice' Certain professions may also be expressed in the same way22, cf. (34) wáàjÁ t„„ 'preacher' using a Hausa loanword for a modern phenomenon. Expressions of origin and membership using the artist lexeme are well attested: (35a) Sámá kààm dÀÀrí t„„ Chamba village far owner 'inhabitant of a distant Chamba town' (35b) yáksúm dùksìrì m„m t„„ game ending mouth owner 'participant in the final game' (35c) fåådà23 t„„ 'courtier' (rather than 'one who holds court') The expression (36) wá/á bìlá t„„ arm inauspicious owner 'inauspicious person for performing a given duty' uses the 'artist' lexeme to refer to a person who finds himself in a particular (undesirable) state. By analogy with the constructions described above in the discussion of agent nouns, nè- is sometimes used, in some sense redundantly, in expressions of this kind: (37a) nè-gÀÀ t„„ person-fishtrap owner 'fishtrap owner, person who has installed a fishtrap' (37b) nè-yàà t„„ person-concession owner

22This example might also be grouped semantically with (30b). 23This is the Fulfulde term for 'king's court'. 'landlord'. There seems to be a preference to prepose the independent form nèé (rather than the compounding nè-) when the the speaker wants to express an attribute or state rather than the control or use of a particular object: (38a) nèé pìrà vÀÁ t„„ person plot bad owner 'ill-willed plotter' (38b) nèé téém vÀÁ t„„ person heart bad owner 'person with bad character'; Míí 'child' is sometimes used when the person is young: (38c) míí håkk¡lÒ t„„ 'respectful, obedient child, young person'.

II.2b) Just as in Zande, the 'artist' term can also be used with verbal nouns24: (39) pén l¡¡n t„„ thing eat+infinitive owner 'glutton' It will be remarked that preposition of nè- to such an expression, e.g., (40a) nè-pÓÓ jååmÅn t„„ person-grass stand+infinitive owner 'convener of a bush-fire hunt25', gives a form similar to the agent noun. The latter, however, is only attested with postposition of the object arguments and predicate modifiers of the source verb. Thus, (40b) nè-jååmÅn pÓÓ would be the proper agent noun meaning 'hunter in a bush-fire hunt'.

II.3. At first glance, one might have the impression that the agent and artist nouns in these languages are in a sort of complementary distribution: agent nouns are formed with nominal derivates of verbs26 and artist nouns are formed with non- verbal nouns. We have seen, however, that a manner of contrast arises when artist nouns, too, are formed with verbal nouns. In Zande, complementary distribution is

24The case is less frequently attested than in Zande where the formal contrast between the (accompli) agent noun and the (inaccompli) artist noun is greater. 25Jààm pÓÓ {stand grass} is the idiomatic expression used for 'hunt by setting fire to the bush'. 26We may recall that that this is by definition; indeed, in CD, we excluded syntactically similar compounds formed with nè- and nominal derivates from the category of agent nouns on this basis. mostly restored by the nominal nature of artist nouns (intransitive verbs are used without modifiers) over against the verbal nature of agent nouns (intranstive verbs take modifiers). Thus, (41a) mbÅ zángádá is the common artist noun for 'sterile woman' while the agent noun (41b) nå-zàngàdà would require some kind of circumstantial specification, for example, (41c) nå-zàngàdà típá kázá female-be_sterile for illness 'woman who cannot conceive by reason of having had a disease' Contrasts involving transitive verbs are nevertheless easily conceivable. If (3) means 'skillful hunter', (42) ìrá Ïmà à-nyå might be 'person in charge of a hunt' (cf. 40a in CD) or even of a slaughterhouse. Nevertheless, the possibility of cooccurrence of nè- and t„„ in CD artist nouns is evidence of semantic intersection of agent and artist nouns in this language. Indeed, the artist noun (39) is allowably synonymous with the agent noun (43) nè-l¡¡n pén although the latter is still distinguished from the former by a wider, less specific range of possible usages. This leads us to the conclusion that any lack of contrast between agent and artist nouns may be set down to pragmatic factors. It would seem that, in the languages considered here, there is a semantic contrast between agent and artist nouns which is of a modal nature: agent nouns are factually attributive while artist nouns are volitionally attributive. The nature of the "factuality" and the "volitional" or must nevertheless be made far more precise. With respect to artist nouns, for example: in the case of what might be called a behavioral attribute, cf. Zande (44) mbÅ nyómóró owner be_lazy 'lazy person' and CD (39), the artist is held to be reponsible for his behavior, which he can orient or control according to his will; (44) is a form of insult and reproach. Likewise, when the attribute is virtual, i.e., implies a natural right to control a process as in CD (40a), it must also be seen as an obligation to execute the process in an acceptable way. It is this faculty of control which gives the artist noun an essential evaluative quality, but each culture defines in its own way that which it considers subject to the conscious control or exercise of the animate agent.. Factuality, too, must be culturally defined. Both the languages considered here use agent nouns from the verb meaning 'hate': Zande (45a) bå-sògò à-bòrò male-hate plural-person, and CD (45b) nè-jÄÄn person hate+infinitive 'misanthropic person who is always in conflict with others' This suggests "hatefulness", though an unpleasant feature of behavior, is something which is intrinsic to the agent and stems from his nature. One may dislike the hater but not call on him to control or eliminate his hatred27. Clearly, the kind of notions used by the linguist to capture semantic contrasts of this kind have an extremely high degree of generality. The way in which they are applied in each individual culture to specific sets of notions is therefore a matter for detailed anthropological investigation.

II.4. If we now return to our primary subject, namely the possibility of semantic diversification of agent nouns, we observe that it is impossible, both in Zande and in CD, that an artist noun should designate a non-animate being. The reason for this is identical with the one invoked for the absence of semantic diversification in CD agent nouns, namely, the fact that artist nouns are compounds or phrases headed by a term which can only designate an animate being. Where this feature is absent, as in the Zande agent noun, the possibility of diversification arises. At the same time, these data clearly bring out the fact that, if the agent noun is strictly defined by its inclusion of a verb root (in languages such as these where the nominal and verbal categories are unquestionably distinct), highly relevant collateral (semantically similar) syntactic structures may be escape consideration.

Bibliographical reference

SANTANDREA, STEFANO (1969): Note grammaticali e lessicali sul gruppo Feroge e sul Mundu (Sudàn). Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale.

RAYMOND BOYD (LLACAN-CNRS, Paris) July 2008

27If the Zande wished to attribute spitefulness as an attritubute exercised in an arbitrary way, they would doubtless use mbÅ sógóté {owner hatred}, formed with the nominal derivate of sog- 'hate'.