Language Documentation and Description ISSN 1740-6234 ___________________________________________ This article appears in: Language Documentation and Description, vol 10: Special Issue on Humanities of the lesser-known: New directions in the description, documentation and typology of endangered languages and musics. Editors: Niclas Burenhult, Arthur Holmer, Anastasia Karlsson, Håkan Lundström & Jan-Olof Svantesson The increasing importance of animacy in the agreement systems of Ndengeleko and other Southern Coastal Bantu languages EVA-MARIE STRÖM Cite this article: Eva-Marie Ström (2012). The increasing importance of animacy in the agreement systems of Ndengeleko and other Southern Coastal Bantu languages. In Niclas Burenhult, Arthur Holmer, Anastasia Karlsson, Håkan Lundström & Jan-Olof Svantesson (eds) Language Documentation and Description, vol 10: Special Issue on Humanities of the lesser-known: New directions in the description, documentation and typology of endangered languages and musics. London: SOAS. pp. 265-287 Link to this article: http://www.elpublishing.org/PID/122 This electronic version first published: July 2014 __________________________________________________ This article is published under a Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial). The licence permits users to use, reproduce, disseminate or display the article provided that the author is attributed as the original creator and that the reuse is restricted to non-commercial purposes i.e. research or educational use. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ______________________________________________________ EL Publishing For more EL Publishing articles and services: Website: http://www.elpublishing.org Terms of use: http://www.elpublishing.org/terms Submissions: http://www.elpublishing.org/submissions The increasing importance of animacy in the agreement systems of Ndengeleko and other Southern Coastal Bantu languages Eva-Marie Ström 1. Introduction The aim of this paper1 is to describe and analyze ongoing grammatical changes in the noun class system of the Bantu language Ndengeleko. Semantic considerations, specifically related to animacy, are of increasing importance in the choice of agreement. Also, there is flexibility in the choice of singular/plural pairings. Based on findings regarding animacy and this flexibility, it is claimed that noun class 6 in Ndengeleko is of derivational character. Moreover, a comparison regarding animacy distinctions is made with other southern coastal languages of Tanzania and Mozambique. Ndengeleko is a noun class language. In most Bantu languages, the noun class manifests itself by the use of a noun class prefix, and by the use of 2 CLASS CONCORD (CC). Each noun class triggers a set of concord markers on 3 agreement targets. (1) di-bwa di-swanu di-ku-dia 5-dog 5-good 5-PRES-eat.FV ‘The good dog eats.’ (Petzell 2008: 48) 1 I am grateful for comments from the audience of the 41st Annual Conference of African Languages (ACAL) in Toronto 2010, and from the audience of Humanities of the Lesser-Known in Lund 2010. I also thank Jouni Maho and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on this paper. All mistakes remain my own. 2 I use the terminology AC (animate concord) and CC (class concord) following Wald (1975). 3 The abbreviations used in this paper are cl.1-18 = noun class number, CD = concord marker, FV = final vowel, LOC = locative, NCP = noun class prefix, OM = object marker, OPT = optative, P = plural, PERF = perfect, POSS = possessive, PRES = present, PROG = progressive, S = singular, SM = subject marker, SUBJ = subjunctive. Eva-Marie Ström 2011. The increasing importance of animacy in the agreement systems of Ndengeleko and other Southern Coastal Bantu languages. In Jan-Olof Svantesson, Niclas Burenhult, Arthur Holmer, Anastasia Karlsson and Håkan Lundström (eds.) Language Documentation and Description, Vol 10, 265-287. London: SOAS. 266 Eva-Marie Ström In the above example from Kagulu, the head noun dibwa ‘dog’ is a noun of class 5. Therefore, agreement on the adjective and verb is of class 5, as expected. ANIMATE CONCORD (AC), on the other hand, refers to the use of concords of noun classes 1 (singular) and 2 (plural) for nouns with animate referents, even when these nouns inherently belong to another noun class. That is to say, the semantics of the noun plays a more important role than the class to which the noun belongs when the head noun refers to a human being or an animal, as in the following Ndengeleko example (2). The head noun, from class 7 with a prefix ki-, refers to an animal. Therefore, the subject agreement marker on the verb is from class 1. (2) ki-pʊmbʊgʊ a-yingii mu-liɪmbwa 7-large croc 1SM-enter.PERF 18LOC-5.hole ‘The large crocodile entered into the hole.’ AC occurs in several Bantu languages, mainly along the east coast of central Africa (Wald 1975: 296). The languages closest to the coast exhibit the highest percentage of AC, while in areas further inland the percentage is much lower or non-existent. Apart from being of areal character, AC manifests itself in different ways in the languages concerned. Very few languages make use of it throughout, for example, AC for all animate nouns in all contexts requiring concord. In Matuumbi, for example, animate nouns in class 9 (which can have singular or plural reference) use the concord of class 1 in the singular, but the concord of class 9 when plural (Odden 1996: 31). Swahili, the most well- known language which exhibits AC, uses concords of classes 1 and 2 with all animate nouns, unless these are human relationship terms in attributive possessive constructions (Contini-Morava 2008). For each Bantu language which uses AC, there appears to be a specific set of rules for its application. Wald (1975) made a significant contribution in describing this phenomenon for the so-called North East Coastal Bantu languages (NECB). For the languages spoken in the coastal area to the south of Dar es Salaam, we know little about the specific rules of CC/AC concord. Maho (1999: 124) labels the phenomenon GAC (GENERAL ANIMATE CONCORD), and includes Matuumbi to the south in his study (as well as languages in completely different geographical areas such as Angola). He also notes (1999: 123), that the attested distribution is most probably an underestimation, as many grammars make no mention of the use of animate concord, possibly because it has been considered too colloquial or ‘irregular’ for mention. Ndengeleko is under heavy pressure from Swahili, and from the general multilingual setting of coastal Tanzania. Intergenerational transmission is very low, making the future of the language look bleak indeed (Ström 2009). It is The increasing importance of animacy in the agreement systems of Ndengeleko 267 therefore an urgent matter to describe the different aspects of Ndengeleko grammar, before competence in the language diminishes further. This paper contributes a description of the different nouns with human and animal referents in the language, the noun classes to which they belong and their behaviour in terms of agreement. It analyzes the differences in application of CC/AC for animate nouns, and claims that the reason for this variation is found in the area of derivation. Moreover, it gives a short comparison with certain other south-eastern Tanzanian languages, not included in previous studies of the CC/AC distinction. These languages all exhibit different behaviours in terms of CC/AC. What they have in common is a strong tendency to give more weight to the animate/inanimate distinction. This is in conflict with another tendency: to avoid breaking up the system of CC. To avoid this is more important with derived nouns, where the semantics of the class needs to be emphasized and where there is a clear noun class prefix. It is less important with nouns of class 9, which have either no prefix or an integrated nasal prefix. The languages solve this ‘conflict’ in different ways. The Ndengeleko data presented here are based on fieldwork by the author in the Rufiji area of Tanzania. The data collection has been carried out during five fieldtrips in the period 2005–2011. Elicitation is the main source of data, but examples also come from different kinds of (spoken) text. The database in Toolbox includes tales, descriptions of how to carry out certain tasks, and a few dialogues. All data are also recorded. Nine speakers have been consulted, four women and five men of different ages. The daily use of Ndengeleko is limited, especially among younger speakers, and all are fluent in Swahili. 2. The Ndengeleko noun class system Ndengeleko, like other Bantu languages, is a language in which gender distinctions play a prominent role. The nominal lexicon of Ndengeleko is divided into 16 categories, some of which have singular reference, others plural. Certain of these noun classes consist of, or include, mass nouns without a singular/plural counterpart. Nouns referring to animates, including humans, are found in most noun classes in Bantu languages in general. Humans are hereby concentrated in classes 1/2 and animals in 9/10 (Wald 1975: 272). This is also the case in Ndengeleko. In Table 1, an overview is given of the noun classes. Indication is made of which classes contain nouns with human (‘Hum’) and/or animal (‘Ani’) referents in the data. 268 Eva-Marie Ström Table 1: The Ndengeleko noun classes Noun Prefix Semantic domain Hum Ani Example Gloss class 1 mu- Human beings in x mu-lwawa ‘woman’ the singular. [nnwawa] 2 ba-/a- Human beings in x a-lwawa ‘women’ the plural. 3 mu- Miscellaneous x mu-kongo ‘tree’ nouns in singular. [ŋkongo] Also mass nouns. mu-kʊmbʊlʊ ‘baboon’ [ŋkʊmbʊlʊ] 4 mi- Nouns of class 3 x mi-kongo ‘trees’ in the plural. mi-k mb l ‘baboons’ ʊ ʊ ʊ Plural of derived x x mi-senzema ‘big mosquitoes’ class 5 nouns. 5 li- Miscellaneous li-pinga ‘egg’ nouns in singular.