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The Tones of Prefixes in Common Bantu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

A. E. Meeussen
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Extract

Those Bantu languages which show the greatest number of correspondences in their concord systems have three kinds of prefixes:

1. Nominal prefixes, with m- in classes 1, 3, 4 and 6; they are used in nouns, locatives (as pre-prefixes), and adjectives.

2. Pronominal prefixes, usually without m- in classes 1, 3, 4, 6 and without forms for 1st and 2nd person (except in the personal pronoun); they appear in all other concording words except principal (i.e. non-relative) verb forms.

3. Verbal prefixes, usually without m- in classes 1, 3, 4, 6, with forms for 1st and 2nd person, and often with a special form in class 1 (e.g. a- as opposed to the pronominal prefix u- or yu-); they obtain as subject-prefixes in the principal verb forms.

Résumé

Par la comparaison des langues ulumbu, mumbisa, bubangi, mbagani, luba et kanyok, on peut attribuer au bantou commun les tons préfixaux suivants:

préf. nominal: ton bas (subst., loc, adj.);

préf. pronominal: ton haut, excepté aux classes 1 et 9 (connect., poss., num., relat. verbal);

préf. verbal: ton haut, excepté à la 1re et 2me personne (verbe non relatif).

Pour les autres langues dont nous connaissons le système tonal on doit conclure à des simplifications: élimination des exceptions propres au préfixe pronominal ou verbal, ou extension du ton bas à tous les préfixes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 1954 , pp. 48 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1954

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