WORD STRUCTURE IN KISA EMILY AYIETA ONDONDO BA (Linguistics), MA (Linguistics) (Egerton University, Kenya) Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Linguistics) in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle, Australia February, 2013 DECLARATION I hereby certify that the work embodied in this thesis is the result of my original research and has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other University or Institution . Name: EMILY AYIETA ONDONDO Signed…………………. Date…………………. ii COPYRIGHT © Emily Ayieta Ondondo All rights reserved 2013 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The present research was made possible with a University of Newcastle scholarship, the excellent, dedicated, and expert supervision of Dr. Mark Harvey and Dr. Alan Libert, and the infinite patience of my husband and children. To all, I say a big thank you. iv DEDICATION This Thesis is dedicated to My husband George Odhiambo Ochieng’ And My children Criscencia Atieno and Paul Otieno v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .......................................................................................................... ii COPYRIGHT .............................................................................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... iv DEDICATION ............................................................................................................. v ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................... xii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................... xiv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................... xvi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1 1.1 The Luhya dialects .......................................................................................... 1 1.2 Previous research on Luhya dialects................................................................ 3 1.3 Previous research on Kisa ............................................................................... 3 1.4 The current study ............................................................................................ 4 1.5 Organisation of the work ................................................................................ 5 CHAPTER 2: PART-OF-SPEECH CLASSES .............................................................. 7 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Verbs ............................................................................................................ 10 2.2.1 The minimum verbal word ..................................................................... 10 2.2.2 The maximum verbal word .................................................................... 11 2.2.2.1 Inflectional suffixes ............................................................................ 11 2.2.2.2 Derivational suffixes .......................................................................... 11 2.2.2.3 Verbal prefixes ................................................................................... 13 2.3 Nominals ...................................................................................................... 14 2.3.1 The minimum nominal word .................................................................. 14 2.3.2 The maximum nominal word ................................................................. 19 2.3.3 Members of the nominal category .......................................................... 20 2.3.3.1 Class A1 ............................................................................................ 23 2.3.3.1.1 Singular and plural common nouns ............................................... 23 2.3.3.1.2 Singular and plural native place names ......................................... 24 2.3.3.1.3 Singular and plural numeral symbol names ................................... 25 vi 2.3.3.1.4 Plural proper nouns ....................................................................... 26 2.3.3.2 Class A2 ............................................................................................ 27 2.3.3.2.1 Plural kin nouns ............................................................................ 27 2.3.3.2.2 Singular diminutive/augmentative kin nouns ................................. 28 2.3.3.3 Class A3 ............................................................................................ 29 2.3.3.3.1 Singular proper nouns ................................................................... 29 2.3.3.3.2 Singular kin nouns ........................................................................ 30 2.3.3.3.3 The interrogative pronoun ‘who(m)’ ............................................. 31 2.3.3.4 Class B ............................................................................................... 31 2.3.3.5 Class C1 ............................................................................................. 33 2.3.3.5.1 Demonstratives ............................................................................. 33 2.3.3.5.2 Quantifiers .................................................................................... 35 2.3.3.5.3 The cardinal numerals ‘one’ to ‘six’ .............................................. 36 2.3.3.5.4 The interrogative ‘what’ ............................................................... 37 2.3.3.6 Class C2 ............................................................................................. 38 2.3.3.6.1 Possessives ................................................................................... 38 2.3.3.6.2 The word ‘another/other’ .............................................................. 40 2.3.3.7 Class D1 ............................................................................................ 41 2.3.3.8 Class D2 ............................................................................................ 44 2.3.3.9 Class E ............................................................................................... 46 2.3.3.9.1 Cardinal numerals above ‘six’ ....................................................... 46 2.3.3.9.2 First and second person pronouns ................................................. 47 2.3.3.9.3 The distributive determiner ‘each’ ................................................ 48 2.4 Particles ........................................................................................................ 49 2.4.1 Adverbs ................................................................................................. 50 2.4.2 Prepositions ........................................................................................... 50 2.4.3 Conjunctions.......................................................................................... 50 2.4.4 Interjections ........................................................................................... 50 2.5 Summary ...................................................................................................... 50 CHAPTER 3: BASIC PHONOLOGY ........................................................................ 53 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 53 3.2 Segmental inventory ..................................................................................... 53 vii 3.2.1 Consonants ............................................................................................ 53 3.2.2 Vowels .................................................................................................. 56 3.2.3 Distribution of underlying long vowels .................................................. 58 3.2.3.1 Underlying long vowels in interjections ............................................. 60 3.2.3.2 Summary of the distribution of underlying long vowels ...................... 61 3.3 Syllable structure .......................................................................................... 61 3.4 Tone ............................................................................................................. 62 3.5 Sub-minimal lexical word forms ................................................................... 64 3.6 Summary ...................................................................................................... 66 CHAPTER 4: NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY .............................................................. 68 4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 68 4.2 Noun class marking on common nouns ......................................................... 70 4.2.1 Noun classes ...................................................................................... 72 4.2.2 Noun class semantics ......................................................................... 75 4.3 Agreement marking ...................................................................................... 77 4.3.1 Other modifiers ...................................................................................... 81 4.3.2 Numerals ..............................................................................................