An important theme of this chapter has been that we should consider the problem of reconstruction of the Proto-Benue-Congo noun classes not simply as an exercise in arriving at a set of forms which can be associated with various class markers but, rather, in terms of the reconstruction of an entire noun class system, paying attention, in particular, to the morphosyntactic properties of the system, such as whether class marking on nouns may have ever been optional in Proto-Benue-Congo (see Section 3) or how many distinct series of concords may have been present (see Section 5), among other questions. The reason for doing this is, on the one hand, the fact that even in the absence of a resolution on the shapes of specific forms, progress might still be made with respect to the reconstruction of these more abstract properties of the proto-system. On the other hand, a better understanding of these properties is ultimately likely to yield significant insight into why attested East Benue-Congo noun class systems are the way they are, even at the formal level.

Moreover, if there is a general consideration that emerges from this overview, it is that we should probably not assume the Proto-Benue-Congo noun class behaved as regularly as tabular presentations such as the one in Table 1 might be taken to imply. We can expect there to have been opacity in the principles of class assignment, variability in singular/plural pairings, differences in concord realization across various morphosyntactic constructions, and so on. Whether some of these "irregularities" should be modeled as variability in the usage of particular speakers or representative of dialect diversity among whatever community we can identify with Proto-Benue-Congo may not prove completely reconstructible, though reconstructing significant dialect diversity would be completely reasonable given that, within the East Benue-Congo area, salient dialect diversity within speaker communities seems to be the norm. Furthermore, while de Wolf (1971) does not appear to make an explicit statement about this, it is worth bearing in mind that an examination of the specific historical scenarios relating his Proto-Benue-Congo reconstructions to the noun class systems of his sample languages shows that they are not reducible to simple statements of sound change or clearcut analogical changes. Rather, one has the impression of systems often being generally maintained while combinations of regular, semi-regular, and apparently irregular changes impact them.

I would like to close by briefly considering how we might move forward in our efforts to understand the nature of the Proto-Benue-Congo noun class system. As mentioned in §1, if the goal is to improve on the efforts begun by de

### 2 East Benue-Congo noun classes, with a focus on morphological behavior

Wolf (1971), then the most natural step would involve reconstructing the noun class systems of low-level subgroups and working upwards in systematic fashion.25 Our dataset has improved to a point where quick progress could be made for many such groups, even if reconstructing higher-level positions in the tree might still be somewhat elusive. If the goal is more generally historical in nature, namely using language as a means to understand Niger-Congo prehistory, then this approach is probably too limited, and increased knowledge of the structural and typological characteristics of the system is likely to be more worthwhile, especially since these are likely better windows into patterns of language contact and areal influence than purely formal reconstructions. This survey has emphasized the latter approach over the former. On the one hand, this should be viewed as reflecting changing priorities in the field since de Wolf (1971), especially given the explosion of work on language contact phenomena since the publication of Thomason & Kaufman (1988). On the other hand, it also follows a general expository goal here of laying out a "bigger picture" view of possible directions for future work on East Benue-Congo noun class systems, rather than presupposing that one way forward is to be inherently preferred over another.

### **Acknowledgements**

I would like to thank Larry Hyman, John Watters, and an anonymous reviewer for feedback on a draft of this paper. Portions of the research underlying this proposal were supported by U.S. National Science Foundation award number BCS-1360763.

### **References**

25Bruce Connell (personal communication) suggests that the available data on Upper Cross, for example, should now make it quite feasible to reconstruct its noun class system. (See Dimmendaal (1978: 190–195) for initial work in this direction.)

### Jeff Good

2 East Benue-Congo noun classes, with a focus on morphological behavior

### Jeff Good

2 East Benue-Congo noun classes, with a focus on morphological behavior

2 East Benue-Congo noun classes, with a focus on morphological behavior

## **Chapter 3**

## **Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages of northwestern and central Nigeria**

### Roger M. Blench

McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge

The Kainji languages of northwest and central Nigeria remain little-researched and sparsely described. Their nominal morphology strongly resembles Bantu typologically, but finding segmental cognates remains problematic. They show systems of alternating prefixes and alliterative concord, as well as diminutive and augmentative prefixes and CV- prefixes with underspecified vowels, where the -V of the prefix harmonises with the stem vowel. The limited segmental cognates point to radical restructuring through affix loss and renewal. Indeed one language, Shen, has lost all nominal morphology and it is severely reduced in some branches. Reshe is typologically similar to other Kainji languages, but the affixes seem to have been completely restructured. The paper presents an overview of the literature on Kainji and then describes the nominal affixing in individual branches. It concludes by suggesting what hypotheses can be made about the Kainji system as a whole.

### **1 Introduction: the Kainji languages**

Kainji (formerly Plateau 1a,b) is a family of some eighty languages or lects spoken in northwestern and central Nigeria. A large subset of these, the East Kainji languages, are spoken north and west of the Jos Plateau and are geographically separate from the other branches. Rowlands (1962); Greenberg (1963); Gerhardt (1989) and Crozier & Blench (1992) treat 'East Kainji' and 'West Kainji' as a primary division of the family, but there is no linguistic evidence to support this. Kainji languages are characterised by an extremely diverse morphology and relatively low percentages of common lexical items. It is only comparatively recently that their unity and distinctiveness have been recognised. They form one branch

Roger M. Blench. Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages of northwestern and central Nigeria. In John R. Watters (ed.), *East Benue-Congo: Nouns, pronouns, and verbs*, 59–106. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.1314323

of the East Benue-Congo family,1 itself a major division of Niger-Congo, and their nearest relatives are Plateau and Jukunoid (Williamson 1971; 1989; Williamson & Blench 2000).

Typologically, Kainji languages are difficult to characterise, but the more conservative branches have both nominal and verbal morphology highly reminiscent of Bantu (as indeed the -*tu* root for 'person'). The nominal systems are characterised by alternating affixes and concord on adjectives and some numerals. In some branches these affixes have either collapsed or been heavily restructured, resulting in contrastive consonant length as well as alternating C- prefixes, and rare systems of double-affixing. At least one language, Shen, has lost all trace of nominal affixes and has compensated by evolving a complex tonal inventory. The alternating affixes of one language, Reshe, show almost no segmental cognates with the remainder of the group and an innovative system must somehow have developed. Some branches have complex verbal morphology highly reminiscent of Bantu, with verbs taking long strings of suffixes. Word order is typically S (AUX) V O. Kainji languages are grossly under-represented in standard typological sources such as WALS and the summaries of existing material are quite inaccurate.

Most of the West Kainji languages are still commonly spoken, which is surprising, given that some are encapsulated by Hausa (McGill & Blench 2012). However, East Kainji languages, with few exceptions, are severely threatened and some have disappeared in recent decades. A few Kainji languages have significant numbers of speakers, but most populations are under 10,000. Western Kainji languages have been the subject of numerous literacy projects and these community initiatives appear to be sustainable, but Kainji languages otherwise have a very low profile in the media.

The human geography of Kainji-speaking peoples is very striking. As Figure 1 shows, there are outliers of Kainji spoken near Makurdi, far from the likely homeland area in the northwest. It is likely that the dispersal of the Basa peoples is a consequence of the destructive effects of the nineteenth century slave-raiding era, although this is not confirmed by recorded oral traditions. However, the twentieth century has also seen important migrations. The Hun-Saare peoples

1This term has a tortuous history. Originally 'Benue-Congo' included Plateau, Kainji, Jukunoid, Cross River and Bantoid. Later 'Benue-Congo' was expanded to include 'Eastern Kwa', i.e. Yoruboid, Edoid, etc. Williamson & Blench (2000) subsequently divided Benue-Congo into two branches: West and East. The West branch consisted of the previous 'Eastern Kwa' while the East branch consisted of the previous 'Benue-Congo' languages. Thus, 'East Benue-Congo' used here is equivalent to the original 'Benue-Congo' used in the literature from the 1960s to the 1990s.

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

Figure 1: : The Kainji languages. Background map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

have formed a number of colonies outside their home area to take advantage of more fertile farmland.

Kainji languages are spoken in quite inaccessible areas, and even today, the home areas of many languages can be reached only through arduous motorbike trails. This explains why a comprehensive list of these languages is still to be established. The first attempt to compile a comparative Kainji wordlist was the work of Clark Regnier, a young SIL linguist who began surveys in the late 1980s. Clark was unfortunately the victim of a fatal motor accident in 1992. From the dry season of 2010, a joint programme to physically visit and record the speech of as many Kainji communities as possible has been undertaken by Roger Blench and Stuart McGill. Much of the data used in this paper was collected by the author and Stuart McGill in 2010-2012 and remains unpublished, although an extensive comparative wordlist is available online. At the same time, there has been considerable progress in the development of literacy in individual languages, strongly associated with literacy and bible translation projects (McGill & Blench 2012).

The first lexical material on a Kainji language appears to be the *Kambali* lists in Koelle (1854). Johnston (1919-22, I:732-746) noted that the noun-class systems of the 'Semi-Bantu' languages of northwestern Nigeria showed marked resemblances to those of the Bantu languages and published comparative wordlists linking Kamuku, Gurmana and Basa.Thomas (in Meek 1925, II:137) put the known West Kainji languages into 'Nigerian Semi-Bantu' but joined Lopa and Laru with Bariba in 'Volta' i.e. Gur. In the 1950s, Westermann & Bryan (1952: 70) largely followed Thomas, although recognising that Kambari, Hun-Saare [Duka], and possibly Kamuku and Lela [Dakarkari] were grouped together. These languages were then listed in a catch-all category 'class languages' under the general heading of 'isolated units'. The recognition that the group now known as West Kainji forms a genetic unit is due to Bertho (1952: 264-6) who asserted its coherence on the basis of unpublished wordlists. Bertho rejected the Gur affiliations of Lopa and Laru proposed by Thomas and stated that the affiliations of the '*groupe Kamberi*' were with central Nigerian Plateau languages. A nearly simultaneous classification was proposed by Greenberg (1955) who created a large Plateau group encompassing what would now be called East and West Kainji (as Plateau 1a and b) as well as Tarokoid and Jukunoid. The term Kainji was informally introduced in the 1980s but was established in an article on Plateau in the reference volume on Niger-Congo published at the end of the decade (Gerhardt 1989). No evidence was put forward to support the classification published. Since that date there has been a significant expansion of field data, most of it still in manuscript. The major unpublished sources are listed in Table 30 in the Appendix A.

As our knowledge of the Kainji languages has improved, we can better characterise their internal structure and relationships. The main points are:

Figure 2 shows an abbreviated high-level subclassification of the Kainji languages, which proposes names for nodes at different classificatory levels. If further work confirms the tree outlined here then these names can either be adopted

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

or replaced by something more culturally appropriate. More detailed subclassifications of each major branch are given in the relevant numbered sections of §3 below.

Figure 2 arranges the subgroups of Kainji roughly west to east, except for East Kainji, and the arrangement of §3 follows the same ordering. For reasons of space, information about other aspects of these languages is very reduced and the material is strictly confined to the data available for actual languages and what can be reasonably reconstructed.

This chapter provides an overview of Kainji nominal affixes and associated concord systems. These are very similar to those described for Bantu and consist of (usually) a prefix on a noun root which marks number and which changes in the plural. Typically there is alliterative concord, where the corresponding affix on a qualifier (adjectives, demonstratives, quantifiers, lower numerals) shows agreement with the prefix. A couple of examples illustrate how this operates. The first example is from the Ut-Ma'in [Fakai] languages, described in Smith (2007). A typical alternating prefix would be

(1) Ut-Ma'in: alternating prefix *ə̄r-tāʔār* 'stone' *ə̄t-tāʔār* 'stones'

The class prefix is C4 (i.e. noun class 4) and both the quantifier and the demonstrative show alliterative concord with 'shea tree' using C4 concord markers.

(2) Ut-Ma'in: alliterative concord *ə̄s-fàr* C4-shea.tree *ə̄s-bɛ:t̄* C4-all *sɛ̄* C4.dem *hɛ:ḡ* fall.pst 'all the shea trees fell'

Cicipu, a language in the Kambari cluster, has an extremely transparent agreement system (McGill 2007).

(3) Cicipu agreement system *màdíyá mè-pénâu* 'big hare' *ìndíyá ìm-pénàu* 'big hares'

Various publications and theses have described the noun class systems for individual languages (e.g. Crozier (1984), McGill (2009); Paterson (2012)) but little has been written concerning the overall pattern they form. The chapter begins with a summary table of nominal affixing systems and then goes through what

is known about each branch. A tentative model of the situation that can be attributed to Proto-Kainji is given in a final section together with a summary of the evidence for nasal affixes in Kainji. The numbers assigned to noun classes are those in the source materials. Analysis is far from the point where a standard system of numbers can be established for Kainji languages.

It cannot be emphasised too strongly that the quality of data for different branches is very uneven and that as the great majority is unpublished it should be treated as preliminary. It is unfortunate that a lack of pressure to publish means that preliminary language analyses circulate in manuscript and are made available by the authors on an informal basis. In particular, individual authors use affix numbering devised for a specific language and thus comparison across languages is more difficult. Tone-marking in particular is somewhat impressionistic. In general, in three-tone languages such as Reshe, mid-tone is unmarked. Where the data is too poor to mark tone with certainty, this is flagged in the text.

Figure 2: Subclassification of Kainji languages

3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

### **2 Nominal affixes: overview**

Given the prevalence of alternating affixes and concord in some Kainji languages, it is reasonable to suppose that a system of this type was present in Proto-Kainji. Nonetheless, the synchronic diversity within the family is such that these systems are lost or severely reduced in many languages. Table 1 & 2 summarise the situation in various Kainji subgroups.

### **3 Nominal affixes by subgroup**

### **3.1 Reshe**

Tsureshe, the language of the Reshe people, is spoken at the northern end of Lake Kainji (Dettweiler & Dettweiler 2002).2 Reshe has a characteristic Niger-Congo noun class system, reminiscent of Bantu in several ways, although the class pairings are much reduced.3 The noun stem is preceded by a class marker, either Vor CV-, which alternates between singular and plural and shows concord with adjectives and other parts of speech. There are six paired classes, four of which clearly have semantic motivation: those containing human beings, animals, body parts and mass nouns, although the class including body parts is more weakly defined than the others (Table 3). Class 6, which is invariant, includes mass nouns such as liquids, powders and similar items. Membership of the other two noun classes appears to be arbitrary. Table 3 summarises Reshe noun-class pairings. The tones of the prefixes are highly variable, so it is difficult to determine the underlying tone of the prefix. There is no evidence for tonal changes in the stem between singular and plural and the tone of the plural prefix is always the same as the singular.

Reshe has a complete set of object pronouns which correspond to the nominal affixes. However, where the pronoun refers to something unknown or despised, *là*, a generic pronoun not marked for number is used. This is an allomorph of the subject pronoun for inanimates, *lə*.

2Throughout this chapter, class prefixes are deleted in language and ethnic group names to create a uniform reference term.

3Work on Reshe was conducted jointly between the author and Appollos Agamalafiya in 2010 and 2011. See also the unpublished Boettger & Boettger (1967).

Table 1: Nominal affixing in Kainji Languages

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

Table 2: Nominal affixing in Kainji Languages (continuation of Table 1)

Table 3: Reshe noun-class affix pairings

9 *ú~w-* 10 *tʃ~ts(u)~Ø-* miscellaneous 11 *ri~ry-* 12 *a-* miscellaneous

There are a small number of unusual items, shown in Table 4, that do not form part of the noun class pairings given above. These are invariant nouns, either mass nouns or inherently plural.

Table 4: Extra-systemic Reshe nouns

Surprisingly, if they are replaced by a pronoun in a sentence, the pronoun is *ə́bə̀* usually associated with humans.

Reshe, like many languages in this region, has distinctive incorporated possessives for kin terms and related nouns for persons. The affixes appear on the surface to have class-pair alternation, but the associated concord is that of the underlying noun. So, for example, in the word for 'age-mate', the *mu-/ba-* alternation strongly recalls Bantu prefixes, but in Reshe these probably originate with possessives (Table 5).

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

Table 5: Reshe: *mu-/ba-* alternation recalls Bantu prefixes

The singular first person possessive is *mú*, which has been paired with the usual class 1/2 plural prefix *bà-*.

(5) Reshe *mú* 'my *úlɔ́* friend'

### **3.2 Upper Niger (Shen and Rerang)**

Like the Reshe, the Laru (Shen) and Lopa (Rerang) are fishing peoples who live around the edge of Lake Kainji. Research in 2011 and 2012 showed that 'Lopa' is in fact two distinct languages. Even more surprisingly, despite the ethnic label Rerang and the assertion of a common culture between the Rop and the Shuba, Shuba is clearly a conservative type of Shen, but which still retains at least some nominal morphology. The correct terminology for the Upper Niger languages is shown in Table 6.

Table 6: Ethnonyms and reference names of the Upper Niger Group

Shen exhibits a virtually complete loss of the nominal morphology system. All nouns either have no plural, or a plural suffix *bà(u)*. Shen has come under heavy influence from the Busa language, which is Mande and thus also has similar characteristics. Despite their different morphology, Shuba and Shen clearly share a significant amount of common lexicon.

By contrast, Shuba has not only a relatively rich system of nominal affixation, but demonstrates reprefixing, with unproductive prefixes now incorporated into

the stem. Shuba, like many other Kainji languages, has underspecified vowels in CV- prefixes which frequently show harmony with the stem vowels. The following examples4 show typical singular//plural pairs.

### (6) Shuba prefixation

The word for 'nose' is an interesting example of double affixing, which probably arises through the copying of demonstratives (see Hoffmann 1967 for examples from cLela). Shuba is cognate with tHun *r-ho* for 'nose' and the prefix has been copied as a suffix.

4Unfortunately, when the data was collected, tones were not marked

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

But:

The infixing of a *-bə-* sequence is probably a special case of *ø-/bV-.* The *me*- is probably a fused possessive, cognate with Reshe *mú*- (see above).

As an example of how reprefixing works, the word for 'vulture' is almost certainly a borrowing from Nupe *gùlǔ*. When first borrowed, it seems to have been attributed an *sV*- prefix, rather like 'tree' above. However, it was then re-analysed as part of the sV/a- class, hence the current synchronic form. Similarly with 'pot' which has an old rV- prefix, fused with the stem and also copied as a final syllable.

(7) Shuba reprefixing Gloss Sg. Pl. 'hooded vulture' *saguru a-saguru* 'pot' *ruburu a-ruburu*

This diversity suggests that many of the prefixes are innovative. The nasal in mass nouns recalls the Class 6 prefix and the plural of *do-/bV-* Class 2, the plural of 'persons'. Figure 3 summarises the Shuba singular/plural affix alternations: The merger of many plural affixes to *a-* resembles the universal plural prefix *a*in the Gbari languages (Hyman & Magaji 1970).

rVfVsV- a-Nø sV- -bədo- bV- -bi sVø -zi

Figure 3: Shuba noun-class affix pairings

### **3.3 Northwest Kainji**

Lela (as Dakarkari) is often used as a cover-term for the peoples of the region between Rijau and Donko in reference books such as Gunn & Conant (1960). This name is now generally rejected, and it is here proposed to adopt the term 'Northwest Kainji' to cover this branch, which consists of the cLela, Hun-Saare, Kag clusters and the Wurə-Gwamhyə-Mba languages. The group is unified by a striking morphological feature, the reduction of nominal prefixes to single consonants. A consequence of this is the loss of harmony between prefix and stem vowels. Nominal affixing in the Northwest Kainji languages is relatively welldescribed, with analyses for cLela (Dettweiler 2015), Hun-Saare (Bendor-Samuel et al. 1973) and Ut-Ma'in (Paterson 2012). A particular feature of this group is affix copying (first noted in Hoffmann 1967) which results in suffixes in animate classes (cf. an example in §3.3.1 below).

Figure 4 shows a subclassification of the Northwest Kainji languages, based on lexical innovations. Damakawa is a moribund language recorded by McGill (pers. comm.) for which the data is too fragmentary to classify it with certainty.

Figure 4: Subclassification of the Northwest Kainji languages

### **3.3.1 cLela (Dakarkari)**

cLela has ten noun classes marked by six consonant prefixes: *c-, d-, k-, m-, s-, v-*; three vowel prefixes: *a-, i-, u-*; and a common noun *-n* suffix (Hoffmann 1967; Dettweiler 2015). Number is marked on inanimate nouns with prefixes; while in animates plurality is indicated by an -nV suffix. Classes 1-9 are all inanimates, while animates are all grouped in a single class.

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

Table 7 summarises the noun class affixes of cLela in Dettweiler (2015).

Table 7: cLela noun class affixes

A published dictionary of cLela provides a broad variety of examples of nounclass pairings (Rikoto et al. 2001). The singular and plural affixes are exemplified below in Table 8.

Table 8: Examples of cLela noun class affix pairings

The animates class *ø-/-nV* is related to the forms in the neighbouring tHun language but is innovative within Kainji. Only the mass noun prefix *m-* (here class 9) corresponds to Niger-Congo 6, but has merged with the plural of Class 8 above.

Like Shuba and Reshe, cLela has *mV-* for inalienable possession of kin (Dettweiler 2015). Thus:

(8) cLela: inalienable possession

*hə̀n-mí* 'sibling-my' *hə̀n-mí-nì* 'sibling-my-PL' *ʧèt-mé* 'father-my' *ʧèt-mé-nè* 'fathers-my-PL'

where *-nV* is the Class 2 plural for persons.

A striking feature of Northwest Kainji is double-affixing in compounds, first noted in Hoffmann (1967). This arises when the prefix of the head noun is displaced to the associated noun and precedes its own prefix. Thus:

(9) cLela: double-affixing in compounds Gloss cLela Components 'spine' *tɛ̀l k-ə̂dcìnə̀ k-tɛ̀lɛ̀* 'bone' + *d-cìnə̀* 'back'

This displacement also occurs on demonstratives:

(10) cLela: displacement of nominal prefix to demonstratives *c-gyàŋ* 'eggs' *gyàn cə́hnà* 'these eggs'

### **3.3.2 Hun-Saare (Duka)**

The Hun-Saare people live directly south of the Lela, straddling the border of Niger and Kebbi States.They are conventionally divided into two groups, the Hun and the Saare, but are commonly known in Hausa as Duka and their language as Dukanci (Dettweiler & Dettweiler 2003b). They are first mentioned by Temple (1922: 96-100). The noun-phrase is described in Bendor-Samuel et al. (1973). An electronic dictionary and grammar of tHun (Dukawa) is available, associated with the translation and literacy project (Heath p.c. a,b).

The presentation of Hun-Saare nominal affixing is far from transparent and is moreover, given in orthographic representations. The class marker can move from before to after the noun root. When the marker is before the noun it is the object of the verb and when it follows, the noun is the subject. Table 9 shows the system of tHun nominal affixes and concord, based on Heath (p.c.). Note that Bendor-Samuel et al. (1973) give a somewhat different presentation.

An example of the movement of affixes in relation to intraclausal position is the following (Heath n.d.):

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

Table 9: tHun nominal affixes and concord

(11) tHun: nominal affix on subjects and objects *hɔ.m* water.CM *ʃo'ostɛ* filled *o.wak* CM.swamp 'water filled the swamp'

As with cLela, a class pair marking persons and a mass noun affix can be discerned, but otherwise, tHun shows few cognates with other systems.

### **3.3.3 The Kag (Ut-Ma'in or Fakai) cluster**

The first mention of the languages of the Kag cluster is Temple (1922: 89) who refers to 'Kelinchi' [? = Kelanci, i.e. Ker-ni]. Rowlands (1962) gives short lists of nouns in 'Fakawa', Kelawa and Zusu. Regnier (2003) conducted a sociolinguistic survey among five of the eight named Fakai cluster members in 1991-1992. Paterson (2012) represents new in-depth fieldwork on the Ror language, now named Ut-Ma'in by its speakers. Table 10 shows the peoples and languages of this cluster.

Table 10: Peoples and languages of the Kag cluster

Table 11: Ut-Ma'in noun classes (Paterson (2012))

Table 11shows the thirteen noun classes in Ut-Ma'in, following Paterson (2012). Three classes share the same *ū-* prefix, but their distinct concords suggest class merger. Four classes have a null ø- prefix, but with similarly diverse agreement

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

morphemes. I have added Class 2b, which is the *-nɛ* plural suffix marking some persons, cognate with similar *nV-* suffixes in cLela and tHun. The first column gives a class affix number, corresponding to Bantu where possible. For the diminutive and augmentative classes of ut-Ma'in the labels DIM and AUG are used. The second column shows the nominal prefix and the third column represents the agreement targets, indicated by the object pronoun. The last two columns give sample lexemes from each class.

As elsewhere in the group, the 1/2 class pairing marks persons and the *əm-* prefix marks uncountable nouns. A common feature of Northwest Kainji is the suffix -*nV* marking the plural of nouns for 'persons'. In Kainji languages and elsewhere in Benue-Congo (cf. the Benue-Congo Comparative Wordlist) -*net* is a common word for person and it is possible the suffix is an old compound which has been generalised across the group. If so this creates a certain amount of redundancy. For example:

(12) Ut-Ma'in: suffix *-nV* for plural of nouns for 'persons' 'persons' *nɛtnɛ*

No other clear source for this suffix has been identified.

### **3.4 Kambari**

### **3.4.1 Introduction**

The Kambari are perhaps the largest of the Kainji subgroups, numerically. Their languages have been studied more extensively than others in the group although much research has never been completely published. Kambari (Kamberi, Cumbri etc.) is an outsiders' name, but since there is no overall name for the group it is retained here.

Present studies suggest that Kambari has two major divisions, usually referred to as Kambari I and II. These crudely correspond to east and west, but in some regions the two are territorially intertwined (Blench 1982). Table 12 shows the common names of the various Kambari sub-groups and the correct names of the people and language. The initial consonant of the root is marked with upper case.

### Table 12: The Kambari languages

### **3.4.2 Cicipu**

Cicipu, the Western Acipa language, was formerly considered part of the Kamuku cluster, along with eastern Acipa.

Table 13 lists the Cicipu noun classes and corresponding prefixes.

Class 1, 3b, 4, 6, 7 and 9 prefixes occur with singular nouns.

Class 2, 3a and 5 prefixes occur with plural nouns.

Class 8 prefixes can occur with either singular or plural nouns.

Dettweiler & Dettweiler (2003b) present a comparative wordlist for three lects spoken in the towns Kumbashi, Kakihum and Karisen. In this report they point out that 'Western Acipa' is so different from all the other languages in the group that it would be better to assign it to a separate branch. Stuart McGill (2007; 2009; 2010) proposed that this language has been misclassified and is in fact part of the Kambari group. Alternatively, it could have come under extremely strong influence from Kambari (not impossible since the two languages are neighbours in Kakihum). However, now that a more in-depth description of the grammar and morphology of Cicipu is available, this seems less likely.

The Cicipu noun class system is similar to the Kambari languages, and so the numbering system used by Hoffmann (1963) and Crozier (1984) for Central Kam-

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

Table 13: Cicipu noun class prefixes (Adapted from McGill (2009)

bari is followed. Cicipu has a very coherent system of underspecified vowels in noun prefixes, usually copying V1 of the root. Where C1 is palatalised, the vowel of the prefix is -i.

Figure 5 shows Cicipu noun-class affix pairings. The dotted lines indicate pairings only rarely attested.

Figure 5: Cicipu noun-class affix pairings (Adapted from McGill (2009)

There appears to be no semantic unity in the noun classes and that even common Niger-Congo classes such as Class 6 for mass nouns5 and 1/2 for persons are absent. If we count the number of noun classes by the prefix on the noun there are ten morphological classes. However, two of these (3a and 3b) share the same agreement markers and should possibly be merged.

### **3.4.3 Cishingini (Salka Kambari)**

The nominal affixing of Cishingini, the Kambari of Salka is described in Hoffmann (1963) and Crozier (1984). Table 14 shows the noun class and concordial prefixes in Cishingini as summarised in Crozier (1984). Figure 6 illustrates the pattern of Cishingini noun-class affix pairings.

The classes have not been renumbered, but the unpaired *ma-* and *tsɨ-* classes, containing mass nouns, language names and nouns of manner and style, correspond to Proto-Bantu classes 6 *\*ma-* and 7 *\*ki-*. Unlike Bantu, Cishingini classes 3

5Or else the Class 4 *mV-* prefix has been re-assigned.

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

Table 14: Noun class and concordial prefixes in Cishingini (Adapted from Crozier (1984)

Figure 6: Cishingini noun-class affix pairings (Adapted from Crozier 1984)

and 8a occur as both singular and plural when paired with other classes. The class pair 1/2a includes the majority of nouns. In contrast to Bantu, Cishingini has only three sets of concordial prefixes. Crozier (1984) analysed noun semantics and showed that the majority of humans are associated with the affix pairs 8/2, while other animates fall into 4/5 and 8a/3. Inanimates are common in 1/2a. The *mV-* prefix Class 4 shows harmony between the prefix and stem vowel and corresponds to a syllabic nasal prefix, class 5. The majority of words in this class pair seem to be animals and plants.

### **3.5 East Kainji**

### **3.5.1 General**

The East Kainji languages are a poorly studied group of some 35 languages spoken north and west of the Jos Plateau in Central Nigeria. Compared with the branches of West Kainji, which have undergone a wide variety of morphological changes, the East Kainji languages for which data exist are comparatively similar to one another. Shimizu (1979; 1982a; 1982) collected numerous short wordlists of East Kainji languages and sketched the noun-class prefix pairs that could be extracted from this material. The two languages for which detailed information on nominal prefixing exist are Map (Di Luzio 1972; Anderson 1980) and Boze [=Buji] (Blench & Boze Literacy Committee (BLC) n.d.). Shimizu (1968) is a sketch of the noun-class system of iBunu. Data for many languages consists of fragmentary wordlists, often orthographic with no tones or plurals. Figure 7 show the languages and internal structure of East Kainji as far as can be gauged from existing data.

Some of the names are new, representing languages first recorded in 2016. Former names are given in square brackets, but languages such as Ngmgbang will not be found in standard references.

The threat to East Kainji languages cannot be emphasised too strongly; many have only a few speakers and are rapdily switching to Hausa. Others are only now remembered and can be recovered by urgent fieldwork. Figure 8 shows Sarkin Yakubu, the last rememberer of Ziriya, interviewed in 2003. No more information can now be recovered about the Ziriya language.

A new wordlist of TiZora was taken in March 2016, which can be compared with the one collected by Shimizu (1979) in 1973. During this period TiZora went from being spoken on a daily basis to one spoken between men over seventy in scattered settlements, under heavy pressure from Hausa. As a consequence, although speakers are quite fluent, the noun-class system has undergone sys-

Figure 7: East Kainji languages and their internal structure

Figure 8: Sarkin Yakubu [left], the last rememberer of Ziriya, 2003

tematic collapse. This is described briefly in §3.5.4 to exemplify the rapidity with which morphological change can occur.

### **3.5.2 ɛBoze [=Buji]**

The ɛBoze language is spoken in some seven villages west and northwest of Jos. The language has been threatened by the spread of Hausa but has recently undergone a significant revival. Boze has a rich inventory of prefixes with underspecified vowels and a variety of realisations.6 Table 15 shows a summary of the underlying affixes and their allomorphs.

Marking tone on ɛBoze prefixes is something of a hostage to fortune and they are only noted in the table where the evidence is quite strong. Broadly speaking, ɛBoze has a rule where the singular prefix is low and the plural (both prefix and stem) tones are one level higher. However, there are many unexplained irregularities resulting from the influence of the stem tone on the prefix.

6Work on ɛBoze has been conducted since the early 2000s in conjunction with John Nengel and the Boze Literacy Committee (BLC).

Table 15: Prefixes and their allomorphs in ɛBoze nouns

The table only represents common pairings, but ɛBoze has numerous examples of unexpected pairings, where the singular/plural gender is only represented by one or two attestations. The vowel in prefixes often harmonises with the stem, although vowels tend to be either front or back; only the allomorphs of *tV-* show the broad range of vowels. It is striking that in Class 2, the class which includes persons, the singular prefix is *bV-*, where it might be expected to mark plural.

ɛBoze shows occasional signs of a feature much more common in Plateau, the 'intrusive nasal'. In common examples a nasal is inserted between the prefix and the stem vowel in either the singular or the plural:

(13) ɛBoze: Intrusive nasal Sg. *ituma* 'work' Pl. *intúmá* 'works'

The likely explanation is that n- was originally a nominalisation prefix applied to a verb stem. When the verbal noun was incorporated into the nominal system, it acquired a new prefix, without the previous one being deleted.

### **3.5.3 Map [=Amo]**

The correct name for the language of the Map people is tiMap. Its noun classes are described [under the name Amo] in (Di Luzio 1972; Anderson 1980). Table 16 shows Anderson's (1980: 156) summary of tiMap noun classes and concord. Table 17 shows the tiMap nominal prefix pairings and their semantics, where these can be identified. Nasal prefixes in tiMap do not appear to be homorganic and do not change in relation to the following consonant.

As with other Kaniji languages, tiMap has a diminutive and an augmentative. However, in striking contrast to Boze (see above) it has a very static concord system with the prefixes copying the nominal affixes directly. The underspecified vowel in Boze has been lost and tiMap prefixes are all static.

### **3.5.4 ìZora**

The ì-Zora language was recorded in 1973 by Shimizu when it still had a functioning system of noun classes. Table 18 shows the nominal prefix pairings which were functioning at that time.

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

Table 16: tiMap nominal prefixes and concord (Anderson 1980: 156)

Table 17: tiMap nominal prefix pairings and semantics

Table 18: ì-Zora nominal prefix pairings

Unpaired class prefixes associated with uncountable nouns are highly diverse but there is a strong correlation in (14) between the *mɨ-* prefix and liquids:

(14) i-Zora: *mi-* prefix and liquids *mɨ-ɲùŋu* 'blood' *mɨ-ʃiyà* 'oil' *mɨ-ɲf* 'water'

By 2016, the situation had changed radically. Only nineteen individuals now speak ì-Zora, and they do not live in the same location. To record the language, they had to be brought together (Figure 9). Less than ten per cent of nouns were remembered as having any plural, and the majority of nouns had acquired a 'default' singular prefix *ù-* and a plural *à-*. Table 19 shows a comparison between the forms recorded in 1973 and in 2016.

This also illustrates other changes, including the change from labial-velars to labialised velars (*kp* > *kʷ* ) and the loss of palatalised consonants (*kʸ* > *ke*). This likely reflects the pressure from the phonology of Hausa, in which all speakers are bilingual and illustrates how rapidly morphological systems can change in particular sociolinguistic contexts.

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

Figure 9: Recording the Zora language, 2016

Table 19: ì-Zora nominal prefix pairings compared

### **3.6 The Kamuku group**

### **3.6.1 Introduction**

The Kamuku peoples, following Gunn & Conant (1960) and Rowlands (1962) have conventionally been divided into 'Acipa' and 'Ucinda'. The Acipawa, correctly the Acipu, are linguistically part of the Kambari cluster, and are treated in §3.4 The whole Kamuku area consists of a complex of related languages, and each lect traces its origin to the individual hills in the Mariga area. A study of Kamuku lects has added a great deal to our understanding of these languages but also added many new possible languages (Yoder et al. 2008). Several languages seem to be either extinct or moribund, but their names and locations are known. The two languages for which there are descriptions in some depth are Hungwəryə (Hackett & Davey 2009) and Cinda (Mort 2012). Figure 10 shows the likely subgrouping of the Kamuku languages, based on speakers' impressions.

Figure 10: Subclassification of the Kamuku languages

### **3.6.2 Hungwəryə [=Ngwoi]**

The cəHungwəryə language [Ungwai, Ngwoi in older sources] has been described in Hackett & Davey (2009). Hungwəryə has between 13 and 17 noun class affixes which encode both number and size. The feature marking of size is also reported for tHun (Bendor-Samuel et al. 1973) and its optionality may mean that it is more common than is recognised. The class marker indicates whether the referent is small, normal-sized, or large. Other features distinguish the Hungwəryə system from its neighbours, including leftwards nasal harmony of the prefixes. Where the stem vowel is nasalised, this feature spreads to the prefix vowel. In many plural prefixes the vowel has been lost and a C- prefix now abuts the stem directly, a typological change which has developed and been generalised in the Northwest Kainji languages.

Hungwəryə is characterised by extensive allomorphy of its prefixes. Table 20 shows the singular and plural class markers, re-arranged from the data in Hackett & Davey (2009). To match the mass noun affix in class 6 and the person class 1, as well as merging classes where the prefixes seem to be allomorphs, I have been obliged to re-assign their numbering.

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

In some cases, what must have been a high back vowel in the prefix has now become labialisation (Table 21).

Table 21: High back prefix vowel becoming labialised

Notable features are the unpaired class 7, which has few members and the prefix marking size in class 8. In other languages *kV-* is always a diminutive, but in Hungwəryə there appears to be a relationship between vowel quality and size. Where the *-V-* is back, a larger size of the referent is marked, while central and front vowels seem to denote small and medium referents. Table 22 presents hypothesised abstract underlying forms for the allomorphs of singular and plural prefxes.

Table 22: Hungwəryə underlying nominal affix pairings

Nasalisation, although phonemic, is not treated as a feature of the underlying form. There is no trace of the nasal classes characteristic of Bantu and Bantoid.

### **3.6.3 The Kamuku complex**

The following discussion is based on the description of Cinda in Mort (2012). Cinda noun-classes are defined by their agreement markers, shown in Table 23 but renumbered to represent allomorphy and to align the mass noun prefix with Class 6. I have entered the semantics based on lexical evidence from wordlists.

Table 23: Cinda noun class and agreement markers

The affixes are grouped according to whether they are used for singular, plural, uncountable and as derivational prefixes.

Class markers harmonise for height with the first vowel of the root or word where they are prefixed. There may be an additional small class similar to class 1, containing singular nouns with *ʔA-* agreement markers, but with *A-* class markers on the noun. However, there is some variability between speakers, and even for the same speaker.

There is a loose semantic basis for grouping noun roots into classes and genders. Class 6 contains non-count nouns, such as *mɨ-ní* 'water', *mà-nɛbɛ* 'oil'. The

gender 5/12 is used almost solely for people. Classes 2, 4, 7 and 8, forming genders 2/8, 4/8 and 4/7 are broadly associated with smaller items, although some larger things are also included, for example 'cows' *bɛ-ná ɛ-ná* ( gender 4/7). Class 7 *tU*is a derivational prefix commonly attached to a verb to create a noun, but can also be attached to a noun to derive another noun. The resultant noun behaves like other nouns, with the class marker *tU-*. This class is occasionally used for uncountable nouns which have no obvious derivation from a verb or another noun, like *tɛgá* 'porridge'. Classes 8a-c are rare, with only a total of eight examples recorded to date. The most common of these is *kɔ-ɰágɔ* 'food' which probably derives from *ɰa* 'to eat'.

### **3.7 The Shiroro languages**

The Shiroro group consists of four languages, usually known as Rin, Fungwa, Baushi and Gurmana.7 Baushi can be considered as language cluster with six members. The name proposed here is based on the proximity to Shiroro lake. The Shiroro languages have previously been treated as part of the Kamuku cluster, but there is no evidence for this and here they are treated as an independent branch of Kainji. The Rin (= Rĩ, formerly Pongu) language was surveyed by Dettweiler & Dettweiler (2003a) and MacDonell & Smith (2004) have circulated a phonology and grammar of Rin. For the other languages there is only wordlist data. The Rin system of nominal prefixes is quite reduced, with a *bV*- singular prefix predominant, and several class pairings with a zero singular prefix. Unlike many other Kainji languages, the correspondences with Niger-Congo classes have been somewhat better preserved. Figure 11 shows the likely subgrouping of the Shiroro languages.

Table 24 is a summary table of Rin nominal affixes, re-arranged from the data in MacDonell & Smith (2004) with a column listing the allomorphs of the singular prefixes which are reflected in different affix pairings. Tone is not marked in the source.

Rin has retained the Niger-Congo Class 6 prefix for liquids and mass nouns and a possible trace of the persons class (1/2). The predominance of the *a-* plural affix recalls the Kambari languages and the *tV-* prefix for mass nouns resembles the *tsV-* prefix also found in Kambari.

7 For reasons that are unclear (perhaps typographical error?), Gerhardt (1989) placed Fungwa and Rin with Kamuku in opposition to Baushi and Gurmana. The present group was proposed and provided with some justification in Blench (1988) and has been confirmed by more detailed work (Dettweiler & Dettweiler 2003a; see especially their footnote 11).

Figure 11: : The Shiroro languages

Table 24: Rin nominal affixes

### **3.8 The Basa cluster**

The Basa languages are spread across a wide area of central Nigeria, scattered among unrelated languages. This is probably the result of nineteenth century slave raiding. In many of the communities in the northwest, the language is moribund or only remembered by elderly speakers. As far as the fragmentary

evidence goes, the Basa languages are all closely related, with Table 25 showing a cluster rather than a set of distinct languages.

Table 25: The Basa languages

The Basa languages probably fall into seven groups as shown in Figure 12. The subclassification is based on impressions of lexical differences.

Figure 12: The subclassification of the Basa languages

Fieldwork was conducted on Basa-Benue in conjunction with Paul Imoh and the late Robert Hyslop in 1984; for other languages in the cluster only wordlist data exists. Imoh (2002) is a preliminary phonology and morphology of Basa

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

which differs somewhat from the account presented here. Tones were not marked when this data was collected.

One of the early names for West Kainji was "Basa-Kamuku", mainly because these were the languages for which data was accessible. However, the impression has remained that Basa and Kamuku have a privileged relationship, for which there seems to be no evidence. Basa-Benue noun prefixes are unique among Kainji languages in having developed three-way number marking, even if some traces of this exist in the Kambari cluster. As with Nilo-Saharan, the middle term or first plural applies to the item in general, or in an undefined quantity. In other words it is a non-countable plural where an additional plural has developed. Only a minority of nouns have three-term number marking, and those with a nasal prefix on the primary plural seem to be excluded. The second plural is countable and applies to groups or clusters of the item and, but can also be used as a distributive. The singular is a singulative, i.e. it implies a unique item. So:

(15) Basa-Benue noun prefixes: three-way number marking

a. Chili pepper

*i-kpekpe* 'single chili pepper' *o-kpokpo* 'chili pepper(s), generic' *ʃi-kpokpo* 'piles of chili peppers'

b. Broom

*bi-ʃoʃo* 'single broom' *i-ʃeʃe* 'broom(s), generic' *n-ʃoʃo* 'groups of brooms'

The prefixes are either V- or CV-. Basa permits a large number of nominal affixes and pairings, probably the consequence of the breakdown and re-analysis of the three-way number marking.

In addition, the -V in nominal prefixes in Basa can affect both the C1 of the stem and the stem vowels. Table 26 shows the far from transparent relationship between a singular stem *-a-* and *-E-* in the plural.

However, as the second set shows, there are a variety of isolated possibilities for vowel change which do not seem to be predictable. A less common alternation is *o*↔*(w)e*. The absence of phonological conditioning is shown by the pair of words in Table 27.

Where the first syllable of the stem begins with either a palatal or a labial, the -V of the prefix can act both to delete the semi-vowel and sometimes cause changes in the vowel. Thus (16):

Other examples of vowel mutation are more difficult to explain. Basa can also manifest intrusive nasals in the plural stem as in (17), a phenomenon more common in Plateau languages.

The vowel in some CV- prefixes is underspecified and can change in order to harmonise with the 'underlying' second vowel in the noun stem. This is most

Table 26: *a/E* vowel alternations in Basa number marking

Table 27: Non-phonologically motivated vowel alternations

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

marked in the case of the *ʃV-* plural prefix. The prefix allomorphs are shown in Table 28.

Table 28: Prefix and stem harmony in Basa

There are no cases of *ʃɔ-* and *ʃu-* at present recorded. The *ʃi-* prefix is most common and can apparently occur with any stem vowel, synchronically. This prefix is widespread in related languages and is probably the underlying form inherited from Proto-Basa.

A similar plural prefix *tV*- has a more limited range of variants. In this case, the *tu-* form is dominant and again this corresponds to a similar prefix in other languages. The exact logic of the prefix vowels remains to be understood.

Table 29: Basa Benue variation with plural prefix *tV-*

With a few exceptions, words that have singular prefixes beginning in *m*-, *s*-, or *t*- do not form plurals. These affixes may originally have been applied only to uncountable nouns, such as liquids, but presently they seem to have no semantic unity and may have been generalised by analogy to countable nouns.

### **4 Conclusions**

The Kainji languages demonstrate clear evidence for an original system of noun classes defined by nominal affixing and alliterative concord. However, the poten-

tial to reconstruct a proto-system is limited by the sparsity or absence of descriptions for many subgroups. Beyond that, however, the affix systems seem to show remarkable diversity, with only limited correspondences between branches. The observations of McGill (2009) on the noun-class system of Cicipu could apply to much of Kainji:

It will be clear to anyone familiar with the Benue-Congo or Bantu literature that, superficially at least, the Cicipu system is very different to both the suggested Proto-Benue-Congo (PBC) reconstructions (e.g. de Wolf 1971) and the present-day Bantu systems. There are fewer classes, and the forms of the original PBC prefixes have in some cases changed beyond recognition. Nevertheless, there are also striking similarities, in particular the robust and ubiquitous alliterative agreement … Much the same could be said about the other Kainji languages for which we have data – the prefixes and class pairings are much changed from PBC, but the mechanics of the agreement system have been retained.

The systems have eroded and been renewed in a variety of ways in different subgroups, and in particular some languages seem to have evolved highly divergent 'new' prefixes. One of the distinctive features of Kainji languages is the apparently random way singular and plural affixes shift their number marking. Thus Reshe has a Bantu-like *u*-/*bu*- (1/2) person marking affix pairing. Shuba has *bV*- marking plural persons but the singular prefix is the unfamiliar *do-*. In Hungwəryə the singular class marker for persons is bu- now paired with a plural *ə*-. A preliminary hypothesis to explain this would be that the three-way number marking found in Basa languages was formerly more widespread, and as the classes collapsed innovative class pairings resulted.

The following generalisations about Proto-Kainji seem to be supported by the data.

Once languages where the affixes are eroded are discounted, there remains the problem of whether Reshe can be said to be part of the system. There are almost no correspondences between the Reshe system and the other branches, suggesting it is a renewed system of unknown origin. Understanding Kainji should be a priority goal in the light of its importance in the reconstruction of Proto-East Benue-Congo, but this will require a great deal more data collection and analysis.

### **Acknowledgements**

Individual assistants and informants for particular languages are listed in the Appendix and acknowledged in particular sections, as well as in the Appendix. This chapter could not have been prepared without access to a substantial body of unpublished data, and much of the material has been re-analysed from this. However, I would also like to thank a large number of people for discussion and help in the field. These include Appollos Agamalafiya, Jennifer Davey, Steve and Sonia Dettweiler, David Heath, David & Liz Crozier, Robert (†) and Joyce Hyslop, John Nengel, Barau Kato, James McDonell, Gareth and Katherine Mort and Stuart McGill, Becky Paterson and Clark Regnier (†). Larry Hyman acted as a reviewer and made many helpful comments, as well as suggesting comparisons and extensions of these ideas. A significant update on the East Kainji material has been possible following fieldwork in Nigeria in February-May 2016. Thanks to Luther Hon and the Elm House Survey Department for help with logistics and community relations.

### **Abbreviations and conventions**

### **Appendix A. Data sources for the Kainji Languages**

Table 30: Principal unpublished sources for Kainji languages

### 3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

Table 31: Unpublished sources for Kainji languages (continuation of Table 30)

### **References**

3 Nominal affixing in the Kainji languages

## **Chapter 4**

## **Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages of Central Nigeria**

### Roger M. Blench

McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge

The Plateau branch of East Benue-Congo consists of between sixty and eighty languages spoken in central Nigeria, spreading from Lake Shiroro to the banks of the Benue River. Proto-Plateau is usually considered to have a system of alternating nominal affixes marking number combined with alliterative concord. The paper presents an overall internal classification and then reviews the evidence for affix systems by subgroup, taking a specific language as an exemplar, with a view to linking these to broader hypotheses about Niger-Congo nominal classes. It appears that Plateau has undergone extensive affix renewal, and thus only fragments of any more coherent system are still present. Plateau languages originally had a rich noun class system with CV- and V- prefixes and alliterative concord, but a wave of renewal and analogical re-alignment led to many of the CV- prefixes disappearing or becoming unproductive and replaced by a much smaller set of V- prefixes.

### **1 Introduction: Plateau languages**

The Plateau branch of East Benue-Congo consists of between sixty and eighty languages spoken in central Nigeria, spreading from Lake Shiroro to the banks of the Benue River (Figure 1). Although most Plateau populations are small (2-10,000 speakers), there are probably more than a million speakers of Plateau languages, with the bulk of the numbers made up from large groups such as Berom and Eggon. Some Plateau languages, such as Sambe and Yangkam, are moribund and others are severely threatened, such as Ayu.

Plateau languages represent one of the four major branches of East Benue-Congo outside Bantoid, together with Kainji, Jukunoid and Cross River. Internally, they are divided into a large number of subgroups, whose inter-relations

Roger M. Blench. Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages of Central Nigeria. In John R. Watters (ed.), *East Benue-Congo: Nouns, pronouns, and verbs*, 107–172. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.1314325

are not well understood. Plateau languages remain extremely poorly studied, with no complete grammar or dictionary for any language except Berom (which is in French and thus inaccessible to Nigerians). Basic overviews of their ethnography and ethnic distribution can be found in Temple (1922), Meek (1925; 1931), Gunn (1953; 1956) and Crozier & Blench (1992).

The most striking feature of Plateau is its morphological and typological diversity. It is usually assumed that Proto-Plateau would have had a system of paired nominal prefixes with semantic associations and alliterative concord, similar to but probably less elaborate than Bantu. However, these systems have collapsed and been rebuilt or in some cases disappeared completely. Compensatory morphology has evolved, including highly complex consonantal inventories and rich tone-systems. Synchronically, Plateau languages display systems of consonant mutation, contrastive length, as well as palatalisation, labialisation, lateralisation of initial consonants and combinations of all these.

Figure 1: The Plateau languages by subgroup © OpenStreetMaps contributors

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

The origin of these diverse outcomes may lie in the characteristic marriage systems within the Plateau region. These systems often involved linguistic exogamy, which, combined with marital instability, resulted in the pervasive multilingualism which almost certainly played a role in the evolution of complex 'mixed' systems of number marking. Plateau marriage systems are discussed in considerable detail in Muller (1982). Many different systems co-existed, and there is evidence that when absolute numbers of speakers were much lower (often as little as 500 per language in the pre-colonial era) this principle of outmarriage was strongly enforced.

Plateau languages are assumed to form part of the broader unit represented by East Benue-Congo (Williamson 1971; 1989; Williamson & Blench 2000). The earliest source for Plateau, Koelle (1854) gives wordlists of Ham (Hyam), Koro of Lafia (Migili) and Yasgua (Yeskwa). Westermann (1927) assigned the few languages for which he had data to a "Benue-Cross" family, corresponding to present-day East Benue-Congo, although later in Westermann & Bryan (1952) these were classified as "isolated units". However, the modern subclassification of Plateau derives principally from the work of Joseph Greenberg (1963) who proposed dividing Westermann's "Benue-Cross" languages into seven co-ordinate groups (including modern-day Kainji and Jukunoid). With numerous emendations and additions these have been reprised in almost all subsequent works (notably Williamson & Shimizu 1968; Williamson 1971; 1972; 1989; Maddieson 1982; Gerhardt 1989; Crozier & Blench 1992; Blench 1998; 2000a). Blench (n.d.[b]) reflects the most recent understanding of Plateau subgrouping.

Comparative studies of number marking in the Plateau languages are scarce; Bouquiaux (1967) represents an initial attempt to discern commonalties across a small number of languages. Some Plateau languages retain complex systems of nominal affixes and alliterative concord, notably Kulu and other members of the northwest cluster and Tarok. However, many languages, such as Cara and the Ninzic cluster, include some affix alternation as part of a repertoire of number marking strategies, while subgroups such as Ndunic and Ake, have completely lost these systems. Other languages, such as Izere, have systems which look elaborate at first sight, but when segmental and tonal allomorphs are taken into account, the underlying number of pairings is considerably reduced. The existence of these systems certainly suggests that alternating affixes and concord were a feature of Proto-Plateau, but actual segmental correspondences between affixes are few, pointing to a continuing process of renewal. Plateau also has frequent nasal prefixes, as well as numerous examples of unproductive nasals preceding C1 of the stem (Miehe 1991). Some of these are reflected more widely in other

branches of Benue-Congo or even further afield in Kwa. However, the correspondences between noun classes and semantic subsets (humans, trees, animals, paired things) characteristic of Bantu are more tenuous.

The analytic challenge of Plateau is to account for synchronic number marking systems through the lens of the erosion of affix alternation. In the light of this, the confident assertions of authors such as de Wolf (1971) in reconstructing the prefixes of Proto-Benue-Congo seem very optimistic. Such reconstructed forms reflect a prior knowledge of Bantu and a large pool of miscellaneous data from which exemplars can be selectively chosen. This paper is an overview of nominal affixing in the Plateau languages, based principally on my own fieldwork materials.1 . It describes the systems in individual subgroups and then asks what evidence these provide for the situation in Proto-Plateau.

None of the authors who have classified Plateau languages have presented evidence for their classifications. This is not a criticism; faced with large arrays of data it is easier to set out what appears to be the case impressionistically than to write a monograph demonstrating it. The series of publications on Plateau subgroups, especially Plateau II and IV, by Gerhardt (1969b; 1969a; 1971; 1972/3; 1972/73; 1973/4; 1974; 1983a; 1983b; 1988a; 1988b; 1989; 1994) assume the boundaries of these groups. A particular issue in the internal classification of Plateau and Jukunoid is the notion of a 'Benue' grouping. Shimizu (1975a: 415) proposed that some branches of Plateau should be classified with Jukunoid. In particular, he argued that Eggon (and by implication the other Plateau V languages, including Nungu and Yeskwa) and Tarokoid (at that time consisting only of Yergam (=Tarok) and Basherawa (=Yaŋkam)) formed a group together with Jukunoid. This emerged from his lexico-statistical tables and was further supported by five isoglosses, the words for 'drink', 'tail', 'meat', 'fire', and 'four'. This expanded group he christened "Benue". Gerhardt (1983b) questioned Shimizu's hypothesis noting both that his own lexico-statistical work (Gerhardt & Jockers 1981) did not support this, and casting doubt on the five isoglosses proposed by Shimizu. The 'Benue' group continued in a sort of half-life, appearing in Gerhardt (1989) as a subgrouping of Jukunoid and Tarokoid against the rest of Plateau. Blench (2005) has presented evidence that there is a genuine boundary between Plateau and Jukunoid, drawing on lexical and morphological evidence.

This uncertainty is a reflection of a more general problem, the evidence for a bounded group "Plateau" in opposition to Kainji, Jukunoid, Dakoid or Mambiloid, other members of the Benue-Congo complex. The relationships between Plateau languages, their coherence as a grouping and their links with Jukunoid and Kainji

1Lexical and grammatical materials are available on the author's website Blench (n.d.[g])

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

remain undetermined. Rowlands (1962) was the first to suggest that there was a dichotomy between certain languages of the Jos area, which he linked to West Kainji, and the remainder, but his short wordlists were far from constituting linguistic proof. Comparative analysis has produced some tentative evidence for isoglosses defining Plateau, but so far no phonological or morphological innovations that would define the group have been proposed. Some of this diversity is undoubtedly due to long-term interactions with the mosaic of Chadic languages also occurring on the Jos Plateau (Blench 2003).

With these caveats, Figure 2 presents a new subclassification of Plateau, within the context of East Benue-Congo. Evidence for this subgrouping is presented in Blench (in press). The majority of evidence is lexical, but some subgroups, such as Northwest, clearly also share considerable common elements in the nounclass system. This "tree" is clearly not final, as there are too many co-ordinate branches and too little internal structure. But until further analysis is undertaken, provisional versions of Plateau which do not promote too many unwarranted assumptions are the best that can be produced.

This paper is organised using these Plateau subgroups and listed approximately left to right. The summary Tables 1–10 also gives a list of all known Plateau languages. The great majority of material presented here is either from my own fieldwork since 1980, from manuscript sources, with a relatively small amount from published work, cited in the reference list. Where no source is cited, it can be taken this is my own data. All original wordlists can be found on my website. Some of the earliest data is not tone-marked, and the segmental transcription may be less reliable. Most Plateau languages have a three-level tone system and by convention the mid-tone is not marked. Therefore, if the data is tone-marked, a vowel without a tone is deemed to be mid. Where a standardised orthography exists, for example in the case of Mada, only the high tone is unmarked. I have noted deviations from the standard tone marking in relation to relevant examples.

The sample wordlist is usually five hundred items and of these some 350 are nouns with singular and plural recorded. Allowing for entries that cannot be elicited, the nouns available for analysis amount to around 300. Where the data has not been collected by the author, the sample may be smaller, whereas in the case of dictionaries prepared by the author, for example Berom, Izere, Mada and Tarok the sample is usually well over a thousand. For most languages only singular/plural pairs are available, but where a grammar sketch has been prepared, we also have an overview of the concord system. The reader should refer to the

Figure 2: Proposed classification of Benue-Congo languages

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

original wordlist for examples of the noun-class pairings, where these are summarised in the tables below.

Plateau languages exhibit extensive allomorphy in their nominal affix systems. Allomorphs are here defined as 'one of two or more complementary morphs which manifest a morpheme in its different phonological or morphological environments' Loos et al. (2003). In Plateau, tonal allomorphs are common because the tone of the prefix may be driven by the tone of the stem, thus the V of a CV prefix may have one of three tone levels, as for example in Kulu. Sometimes claims of allomorphy in less-well-studied languages are only educated guesses, based on parallels with better known languages. The term alternation is used to apply to the change in prefix on a stem marking number, i.e. singular and either one or two plurals. Throughout the text, the tables present a summary of the prefix alternations occurring in the data, mostly wordlists. This is not ideal, as we have no evidence for the patterns of concord in many languages, but it provides a preliminary guide to the synchronic system.

### **2 Plateau languages by subgroup**

Tables 1–10 show a comprehensive list of Plateau languages, by subgroup, and a summary of the system of number-marking, as far as it is known. Where there is a published reference on a specific language, it is given, although I do not always agree with the analysis and the text presents my own hypothesis. No entry in the reference column means the summary is based on my own fieldwork. The names of the branches are proposed by the author, since the classification is at variance with previous proposals in many areas. Further justification can be found in Blench (2000a).

### Table 1: Synthesis of nominal affixing: Northwest

Table 2: Synthesis of nominal affixing: Beromic

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Table 3: Synthesis of nominal affixing: West-Central

### Table 4: Synthesis of nominal affixing: Ninzic

*a*Ayu is of uncertain Ninzic affiliation

### Table 5: Synthesis of nominal affixing: Ndunic

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

### Table 6: Synthesis of nominal affixing: Alumic

Table 7: Synthesis of nominal affixing: Southern

### Table 8: Synthesis of nominal affixing: Southeastern

### Table 9: Synthesis of nominal affixing: Tarokoid

Table 10: Synthesis of nominal affixing: Eloyi

### **2.1 Northwest Plateau**

Northwest Plateau consists of Eda/Edra, Acro-Obiro [=Kuturmi], Kulu, Idon, Doka and Iku-Gora-Ankwe. No new data has been published since this group was set up, although a wordlist of Kulu has been circulated (Moser 1982, analysed in Seitz 1993) and Shimizu (1996) has posted a grammar sketch on the Internet. Recent interest in Ẹda [=Kadara] language has resulted in an unpublished dialect survey, a preliminary alphabet book and the launching of an alphabet chart in 2009. Kadara is known to its speakers as 'Ẹda' and there is a closely related lect, Ẹdra (which is presumably the source of the common Hausa name). Two other lects for which information is recorded, Ẹjẹgha and Ẹhwa,2 correspond to Idon and the Iku-Gora-Ankwe clusters (as named in the Benue-Congo Comparative Wordlist in Williamson & Shimizu 1968; Williamson 1972). The wordlists are so

2Thanks to Zac Yoder for sound files of wordlists of 384 items of these languages. Retranscribed by the author.

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

different from each other and from Ẹda that they clearly deserve separate language status. Northwest Plateau remains a high priority for further research.

Table 11 shows the singular/plural prefix pairings recorded in Kulu including tonal variants, based on Moser (1982) and Seitz (1993). A postulated 'underlying' prefix is given together with its allomorphs. The mid-front vowel shows harmony with the stem-vowel. The bracketed nasals in the plural prefixes show their sporadic appearance. They are homorganic with the following consonant and only follow /i/.

Table 11: Kulu prefix pairings. Re-analysis by author of Moser (1982) and Shimizu (1996).

Tonal variation in prefixes is driven by the stem-tone (as in many Plateau languages, cf. Blench 2000b) and the different surface tones do not in themselves mark distinct pairs marked for number. The numerous forms of a *gV*- prefix presumably point to these all originally having a single underspecified vowel which has gradually diverged.3 The presence of an underspecified vowel in the V of a prefix is very common in the East Kainji languages with which Kulu is in contact and it is possible this is a borrowing.

Kulu has frequent doubled /l/ in stem-initial position, assumed to derive from nasal prefixes which have been first fossilised and then assimilated to an initial lateral. For example (1):

	- b. *gɛ́-llam* 'water'

3One reviewer queries the directionality of this process. However, if instead this were a case of convergence, this would require ten different surface forms to come together, which is hardly an economical explanation.

Semantic associations in Kulu are weak, but the majority of nouns for persons show *E-/bE-* prefix alternation. Most domestic animals have a *gV-* singular prefix but no consistent plural marking. Wild animals, on the other hand, almost all have their singular and plural forms distinguished only by tonal differences in the stem. Trees, body parts, abstracts and even mass nouns do not form consistent sets marked by paired affixes. The *ni-* prefix for noun plurals is uncommon and surprisingly, it is strongly correlated with household items as in Table 12.

Table 12: The *ni-* plural prefix in Kulu

However, Kulu does operate a principle of using prefixes to assign semantics, such as the parts of a tree, by means of prefixes, as for example in (2):

(2) Kulu prefixes used to assign semantics e.g. parts of tree *gi-n-yoŋ* 'locust tree' *gɛ́-n-yoŋ* 'locust fruit' *u-yoŋ* 'locust pod powder'

### **2.2 Beromic**

The term 'Beromic' has been adopted here to cover former Plateau 2 languages. Beromic now consists of Berom, Iten, Cara and two closely related lects, Shall and Zwall, geographically distant in Bauchi State. The principal publications on Berom are Bouquiaux (1970; 2001) and Kuhn & Dusu (1985), and on Iten,

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Bouquiaux (1964). Recent unpublished materials are dictionaries of Berom and Iten. Cara (Teriya) was reported in a mimeo paper by Shimizu (1975b), who first proposed a link with Berom. Shall and Zwall were previously classified with the Ninzic languages (Plateau 4), but are better placed with Beromic Blench (n.d.[c]). Beromic languages show a broad range of number-marking systems, although none have a full noun-class system and Shall-Zwall has lost all nominal affixing, perhaps under the influence of Chadic. A summary of Beromic number marking is shown in Table 13.

> Table 13: Number-marking in Beromic. Source: All analyses of Beromic by author based on personal fieldwork.

Berom itself has a complex internal structure. Central Berom includes the Du dialect described by Bouquiaux (1970; 2001) as well as both Vwang (Vom) and Ryom (Riyom). The speakers of Vwang are the most numerous, but the main dialect used for literacy and bible translation is the Eastern dialect, roughly centred on Foron, spoken by only a minority. The other minority dialect is Rim, south and east of the main centres. Data on Berom presented here is based on longterm fieldwork on the Foron dialect and shows marked differences with the Du of Bouquiaux.

Berom noun pluralisation strategies are extremely varied. The most common are:

e) number marking in verbal nouns replicating corresponding verbal plurals

In some cases, two procedures can be applied to mark a plural, suggesting the dynamics of renewal. The great majority of Berom singular nouns have no prefix, while on nouns that are marked for plural, the *be*- prefix is predominant. Berom shows 'echo' concord, where a small subset of concordial adjectives exactly copy the nominal prefix of the noun they qualify. Where the noun has no prefix, the adjective shows no concord. Berom also has just three suppletive plurals in a dictionary which includes more than 2000 nouns. Due to this relatively large database, it is possible to estimate the frequency of nominal prefix alternations in Eastern Berom seen in Table 14.

Table 14: Nominal prefix alternations in Eastern Berom

Tone-marks show the most characteristic tone for this class, with mid-tone unmarked. However, there are numerous unexplained exceptions, which may reflect interaction with the stem-vowel. *ra-* is not attested synchronically as a productive prefix, since all singular nouns in current Berom with stem-initial *ra*have a zero singular prefix and a plural prefix *be-*. However, many words have *ra*- as a first syllable, such as *rato* 'head' where the *ra*- is not historically part of the root, because –*to* is widely attested across Benue-Congo for 'head'.

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

The alternation *wo-/be-*, in (3), is the ethnonym for the Berom people, and is probably not originally a noun class pair. *wo* is a personal pronoun and *be*- a generic plural marker.

(3) *Wòrom* 'Berom person' *Berom* 'Berom people'

The labial and palatal infixes *-w-* and *-y-* almost certainly originally derive from *u-* and *i-* prefixes which have been incorporated into the stem, as in many other Plateau languages. Kießling (2010) has described analogous processes in the languages of the Grassfields of Cameroun. Tonal changes accompany number marking suggest that the tone of the lost prefix vowel affected the stem tone of the noun.

The nasal prefixes form a complex set. It is most likely there is a diminutive marker *ne*- which shows up both as a plural prefix and unpaired in non-count nouns, as well as in *ke*-/*ne*- alternations marking small entities in (15). The *ke*- is probably cognate with Bantu *ka*- which has a similar diminutive function (Maho 1999: 88).

Table 15: *ke-/ne-* alternation in Berom

*ne*- is also a plural marker for a set of miscellaneous nouns in Table 16.

Berom also has an *n-, ne-* unpaired marker for liquids, colours and abstracts as in Table 17, comparable to the *ma*- class 6 in Niger-Congo.

An optional *se-* prefix, noted with parentheses in Table 18, marks abstract states.

There is no trace of either Bantu class 3, *mù*- for trees and plants, or Class 9, *nì*for animals. Berom has a small set of nouns showing initial consonant mutation in Table 19

Presumably these originally had a singulative, *fu*-, and the stem-initial *t*- was deleted, converting the high back vowel into a labial.

Table 16: *ø-/ne-* alternation in Berom

### Table 17: Unpaired *n-, ne-* prefix in Berom

Table 18: An optional *se-* abstract prefix in Berom

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Table 19: Consonant mutation in Berom

### **2.3 West-Central**

### **2.3.1 General**

West-Central Plateau consists of what used to be known as the 'Southern Zaria' languages. Published and manuscript sources include Koelle (1854); Gerhardt (1971; 1974; 1983a; 1994); Adwiraah & Hagen (1983); Adwiraah (1989); McKinney (1979; 1983); McKinney (1984; 1990); Follingstad (1991); Follingstad (n.d.). Although these languages are clearly linked, no published evidence supports their coherence as a group. The languages Nandu [=Ndun] and Tari [=Shakara] were listed in Crozier & Blench (1992) as part of this group. This is erroneous; Ndun-Shakara, together with the newly discovered Nyeng, form their own group, Ndunic (§2.4). The West-Central Plateau languages are a coherent geographical clustering and undoubtedly show numerous links with one another, but their genetic unity is unproven. Gerhardt (1983a: 67ff) presents a comparative wordlist showing cognates between Rigwe, Izere and Tyap. However, with both new insights into the phonology of these languages, and in particular the large number of lects still unrecorded at that period, a new comparative analysis is still to be undertaken. Figure 3 presents the known groups of West-Central Plateau as a flat array.

### **2.3.2 Rigwe**

The Rigwe language is spoken southeast of Jos. It is notable for an extremely complex phonology (Anonymous 2006). Any former system of extensive alternating affixes has been replaced by a standard pluralising prefix or by a variety of tonal changes. Analysis of Rigwe was undertaken by the author in co-operation with Daniel Gya. Table 20 lists the strategies for plural marking in Rigwe with their allomorphs.

Table 20: Nominal plural marking in Rigwe

Class II nouns have a *ɾV-/Ǹ*- alternation. *rV-* is realized as *ɾi-* when the stem vowel is front, and as *ɾu-* when the stem-vowel is back. *Ǹ-* is realised as *ɲ-* before palatals *ɲ-* and *j-* and as *ǹ-* elsewhere. Table 21 presents examples of the operation of this class.

Table 21: *ɾV-/Ǹ*- alternations in Rigwe nouns

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

As the glosses show, the nasal prefix is associated with human and animal body parts, which seems to be innovative. The Class III alternation in Rigwe is *ø-/Ǹ-*, where *Ǹ-* is homorganic with the following consonant, realised as *ɲ*before palatals, *ŋ-* before velars and *n-* elsewhere. Only /a/, /e/ and /u/ have been recorded as stem vowels in Class III. Unlike the other classes, the stem tone changes and is always low, regardless of the tone in the singular. Table 22 presents examples of this class. This class is equally associated with body parts but is otherwise miscellaneous.

Table 22: *ø-/Ǹ-* alternation in Rigwe nouns

In Class IV, an extra-low nasal prefix is raised to mid, and an extra-low stemtone becomes falling, shown in Table 23.

Table 23: Extra-low nasal raising in Rigwe plurals

Rigwe has innovated in nominal affixing to such an extent that no obvious connection with postulated classes for either Niger-Congo or Bantu can be discerned.

### **2.3.3 Tyapic**

Table 24: Tyap nominal affixes and concord (Follingstad 1991: 72)

The Tyapic languages are named for Tyap, or Kataf in older sources. The group consists of six languages (Tyap, Gworok, Atakar, Kacicere, Sholyo, and Kafancan), with the closely related Jju4 . Only Tyap itself is well-described (Follingstad 1991). The prefixed elements appear to be innovative and consist of a (*Ca*-) and its allomorphs. However, the noun is also followed a variety of alternating CV suffixes. These are almost certainly noun-class affixes, now placed after the stem. Table 24 shows a summary of Tyap nominal affixes and concord as well as examples of nominal pairs.

4 It is usual to list Jju separately from the Tyap cluster but this seems increasingly to reflect ethnic separation rather than linguistic reality.

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

The elements marked 'post-concord' in Table 24 were almost certainly former CV prefixes which have been copied at the end of the word, a procedure attested elsewhere in Niger-Congo. They are written in the orthography as distinct words as they do not show phonological merger with the root they follow.

Plurals reduplicate by doubling the first syllable of the root. Thus (4):

(4) Plurals reduplicate the first root syllable *ə̀kwənka* 'tree' *ə̀kə̀kwə̀n nà* 'trees'

Classes 1/2, with the suffixes *wu/ba*, probably corresponds to Bantu class 1/2 and includes many Tyap nouns for human beings. Class 9, which is unpaired, includes liquids such as *ə̀sə̀khwôt nà* 'water' and *ə̀bààn na* 'milk' which is semantically similar to Niger-Congo Class 6. The homorganic plural nasal prefix in Class 8a is possibly to be compared with Bantu Class 6 where it is the plural of Class 5 'paired things', e.g. *mbwàk na* 'hands'.

Follingstad (1991: 79) shows that concord in Tyap is much reduced with only a few adjectives and lower numerals showing any agreement. The agreement is of the 'direct-copy' or 'echo' type, where the numeral has the same prefix as the noun it agrees with.

### **2.3.4 Izeric**

The Izeric languages consist of northwest Izere, northeast Izere, Cèn, Ganàng and Fəràn.5 The language which is best-known is Izere of Fobur but wordlists suggest that the affix pairings in the other languages are broadly similar.6 Blench (2000b) is a more detailed description of Izere number marking. Nominal plurals in Izere of Fobur are formed in four ways:

5These last three are essentially single settlements, whereas the others represent clusters of villages, hence the rather asymmetric geographical names.

6Analysis of Izere was undertaken by the author in collaboration with Bitrus Kaze.

Affix alternation and stem-tone alternation are frequently combined producing a very large number of plural formations. Izere of Fobur has a relatively restricted set of segmental noun-class prefixes. Table 25 shows Izere nominal affix pairings.

Table 25: Izere nominal affix pairings

Tone cannot be specified for most Izere prefixes, since it reflects the tone of the stem. The unpaired mass noun prefix, corresponding to Niger-Congo Class 6, is always low tone. *ka*- and its allomorph *ki*-, realised when the noun stem contains a palatal, can function as a diminutive prefix. Paired *ka*- and *ku*- were probably allomorphs of one another historically, since there is a tendency for stem-vowels following *ka*- to be front or central and those following *ku*- to be back. However, exceptions now abound, suggesting a historical class split.

Izere has an unpaired *nà*- prefix for liquids and solids which probably corresponds to the *ma*- prefix in Niger-Congo, shown in Table 26.

Table 26: Examples of Izere unpaired prefix *nà-*

There is no evidence for a link between the common *na*- prefix in Izere and Bantu nasal prefixes.

4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

### **2.3.5 Hyamic**

The Hyamic languages are spoken between Kwoi and Nok, southwest of Jos and are now central to the prehistoric Nok culture. The members of the Hyamic cluster are as follows:

Many of these languages are very poorly known and existing descriptions are tonally and phonologically inadequate (e.g. Dihoff 1976; Jockers 1982).

Hyam has a wide range of strategies to mark nominal plurals. Analysis of Hyamic languages is based solely on fieldwork by the author. The most important are shown in Table 27:

Table 27: Examples of Hyam noun pluralisation strategies

Transcription of tone is best described as schematic; Hyam has a highly complex tone-system which is far from being fully understood, but which includes multiple contour tones, combining different levels of the underlying three-tone system.

All of these point to the former existence of nominal prefix alternation and palatalisation and labialisation to incorporated *i*- and *u*- prefixes. The *ma*- prefix on 'leaf' is exceptional and not linked with the Class 6 prefix. The *mò*- prefix is

applied to most humans, large animals and reptiles, but not other animals, and a small scatter of miscellaneous lexemes. The *na*-/*fu*- singular/plural alternation is only recorded for a few nouns related to occupations as in (5), and may be some sort of reassigned relative marker ('one who') rather than a relic nominal affix.

(5) *na*-/*fu*- singular/plural alternation

Almost all verbs and adjectives have obligatory plural forms and many undergo the same phonological shifts or mutations as nouns. Adjectives agree in number, i.e. where the noun is plural, the plural adjective is obligatory, but they do not show the type of alliterative concord characteristic of noun-class languages.

The Shang language, while lexically Hyamic, has a nominal affix system resembling Tinɔr and similar Koro languages (§2.3.7) Blench (n.d.[e]). Shang has a reduced system of nominal affixes. The main noun-class pairs are between zero affixes in the singular and plural *a*- and *i*- prefixes seen in Table 28. Rare plural prefixes include *ka*-, *u*- and *ru*-. No singular affix, either productive or fossil, has been recorded. Some nouns referring to persons have a singular/plural alternation *nè*-/*fú*- (as in Hyam) but these are probably not old affixes but compounded terms for 'person'. The tone on the vowel of the plural affix always appears to be low.

Table 28: Shang nominal affix pairings

Semantic correlations are not very clear for most of these pairings. However, there is a strong predominance of body parts with the *ka*- plural affix. Most nouns relating to persons have an *a*- prefix in the plural, but since this is statistically the most common prefix, this may not be significant. There is no trace of nasal prefixes.

4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

### **2.3.6 Gyongic**

Gyongic is the closest relative of Hyamic and consists of two languages, Gyong [Kagoma] and Angan [Kamanton]. Neither language is well-known but there is a description of Gyong which includes information on noun-classes (Hagen 1988). According to this, Gyong marks plurals with prefix alternation, palatalisation alternation and tone. The data tables below follow her presentation. The reduced prefix system is as follows in Table 29.

Table 29: Gyong nominal affixes

Interestingly, liquids, abstracts and mass nouns fall into the unpaired *kì*- class in Table 30.

Table 30: Gyong mass noun *ki-* prefix

Stem-tone changes multiply the possible number-marking strategies. Hagen (1988: 139) gives examples of adjectival agreement in (6).

(6) Gyong adjectival agreement *kìpɛ̀ndɛ̀m* large *kìlúm* farm *pɛ̀ndɛ̀m* large *rúm* farms

The data is not extensive enough to fully understand the system. Demonstratives do show alliterative concord in (7):

(7) Gyong demonstrative concord *kìhá* house *kìhɔ́nà* that *rìhá* house *rìdú(nà)* those

### **2.3.7 Koro**

The Koro cluster consists of five languages spoken in Central Nigeria, north of Keffi. The published literature is sparse and based on limited data (Gerhardt 1972/73; Goroh 2000). All the material presented on the Koro languages is based on fieldwork by the author. Figure 4 shows a tentative outline classification of the languages in the Koro cluster.

Figure 4: Classification of the Koro languages

Waci has retained a much richer noun-class system than any of the related languages, although it is in decay – see Table 31. There is a strong tendency to cite some types of nouns, especially those to do with living things, without a singular prefix and to reduce the pluralisation marker to an *a-* prefix. Moreover, there are a very large number of singular/plural pairings, many of them only occurring once suggesting a complex process of re-analysis is under way. Some prefixes have several allomorphs, probably prefiguring class merger. There is some semantic correlation with prefix pairings: for example, humans commonly have *u-/bV*- prefixes and animals most often *ì/i-*, but the correlation is far from perfect.

There is no evidence for a distinctive mass noun prefix. Some liquids, such as water (*bàm*) and blood (*bèʤí*) show no singular/plural prefix alternation, while others, such as tears, saliva and urine, have diverse singular/plural affix pairs.

The *bV*- plural prefix almost always marks persons and is usually, but not always paired with *u*- singular Table 32. The vowel is underspecified and very often copies the stem vowel, although *b*+ high vowel (i.e. *bi*- and *bu*-) is apparently not permitted.

There is a tendency for the V- of other plural prefixes to copy the ±ATR properties of the stem vowel where these are mid. See Table 33.

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Table 31: Waci nominal affix pairings

Table 32: *bV-* plural prefixes in Waci

Table 33: (C)V- prefixes in Waci, illustrating ±ATR vowel copying

But there are exceptions as in (8):

(8) 'song' *wù-vʷɔ́m ò-vʷɔ́m*

*wu*- (*gu*- in some speakers) is a very common prefix which can be paired with almost any plural *V-* prefix as in Table 34.

Table 34: Waci *wu-* singular prefix and its pairings

*u*- may also be an allomorph of *wu*- in Table 35.

Table 35: Waci *u-* prefix and its plural pairings

*i*- prefixes alternating with other prefixes than *i*- are quite rare and somewhat inconsistent in (9):

(9) 'thorn' *ì-dìdɔ́k bà-dìdɔ́k* 'year' *ì-yɛ́ gɛ̀-yɛ́*

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

The Waci prefix *yV*- where V is always a front vowel is usually paired with *bV*in the plural seen in Table 36, although these nouns do not refer to persons as might be expected by analogy to the pairing of *mu-/ba-* (classes 1/ 2) for persons in Bantu.

Table 36: *yV-* prefixes in Waci

One of the most striking alternations is *gV-/rV-*, which does not seem to have any immediate parallel in other Koro languages. The *-V-* in *gV-* can be any vowel except the high back vowels. The vowel quality in the *gV-* prefix partly reflects stem vowels although the correlation is not perfect. Similarly, most plurals have *rV-* with a few exceptions (Table 37). Some *yV-* prefixes, such as 'faeces' in Table 36 may well be allomorphs of *gV-* to judge by the *rV-* plurals.

The Waci nominal affix system seems to have undergone major renewal. Apart from a class pair for persons and a rather weak animal class, there is no evidence for an unpaired non-count noun prefix and no evidence for semantically clustered prefix pairs elsewhere.

### **2.4 Ndunic (=Ahwai)**

Ndunic is a new name proposed here for the languages previously called 'Nandu-Tari'. Existing sources list two languages, but a third language, Ningon, was first recorded in 2003. The Ndunic languages are spoken in a small area southwest of Fadan Karshi. The correct names for these languages are Ndun (Nandu), Shakara (Tari) and Ningon. The languages are extremely close to one another. The Ndunic peoples have recently adopted the name 'Ahwai' as a cover term for all three languages (Rueck et al. 2008). Shakara has a much reduced set of nominal affixes, but Ndun has numerous nominal singular/plural affix pairs. All the tables

Table 37: *gV-* prefixes in Waci

for Ndunic languages are based on fieldwork by the present author. The main attested noun-class pairings of Ndun are shown in Table 38.

However, there are also numerous plurals created by tonal change and by presence and absence of labialisation and palatalisation. Sporadic nasalisation appears between the stem and the prefix as a result of fossil nominal prefixes, although Ndun still preserves a few productive nasal prefixes. Ndun has many noun-class pairings that only occur once, in part due to the underspecified vowels. The tones are too insecurely marked to be sure that there are no additional contrasts on the *V-* prefixes.

Palatalisation can be applied to almost any initial consonant in singular/plural formation, often combined with primary affix alternation as in Table 39. The likely historical explanation is that there was an initial *i*- prefix which was incorporated into the stem and then a new plural affix (ironically sometimes a new *i*prefix) was applied subsequently.

Ndun also shows numerous examples of sporadic inserted nasals in affix alternations as in Table 40.

Only a single example of an alternating *n-* prefix showing alternation has been recorded, shown in Table 41.

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Table 38: Ndun nominal affix pairings

Table 39: Ndun nominals with contrastive palatalization

Table 40: Ndun nominals with sporadic inserted nasals in prefixes

### Table 41: Single example of alternating n-prefix

In addition there are many nouns with initial homorganic nasals (*m-, n-, ŋ-*) which seem to have been incorporated during an earlier wave of prefix incorporation.

It is not uncommon for Ndun nouns for persons to be *-r* final Table 42:

Table 42: Ndun nominals with final *-r*

In one case, the final *-r* alternates with a final nasal as in (10).

(10) 'woman' *nyaan nyaar*

These are probably the traces of former prefixes which have moved to final position and have almost lost their class pair alternation. Semantic correlations with noun-class affix pairings are weak at best. The *e-/be-* prefix pair includes many nouns referring to persons (Table 43).

Table 43: Ndun *e-/be-* prefixes marking persons

Most liquids have initial *m-* or *mV-* and this presumably reflects Niger-Congo Class 6 Table 44.

However, where *mV*- appears as a plural number marker it seems to show no semantic correlation. No other Ndun prefixes show any tendency to reflect semantic classes such as body parts, trees or salient animals.

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Table 44: Ndun *mV-* prefixes marking liquids

Shakara now has a much reduced system, but Proto-Ndunic clearly had a wide range of nominal affix pairs, with fragmentary evidence for a suffix alternation to do with persons. Nasal prefixes were clearly very common but have become so generalised across the system it is now difficult to discern what part they may have played in the original affix alternations.

### **2.5 Ninzic**

Ninzic, formerly Plateau IV, is probably the most difficult group to characterise and weak data on several languages make it unclear whether certain peripheral languages really belong to it. The name Ninzic is introduced here, reflecting the element *nin*-, which is part of many ethnonyms. The Ninzic languages are spoken south of Fadan Karshi in Plateau, Nassarawa and Kaduna States. The membership of Ninzic has changed quite significantly between various publications noted in Table 45.

General overviews can be found in Gerhardt (1972/3; 1983a) and materials on specific languages in Hoffmann (1976); Hörner (1980); Price (1989); Wilson (2003).

The number marking systems of Ninzic must originally have been paired affixes with alliterative concord, as fragments of such systems are found across the group. However, in most languages the system has broken down or become severely eroded and compensatory strategies have evolved. This section uses examples from Ninzo based on Hörner (1980); Ninzo Language Project Committee (1999) and fieldwork in Fadan Wate in 1995 Blench (n.d.[f]). Ninzo prefix pairings are in Table 46.

Many words have unproductive prefixes and singular and plural is now marked only by tone. Some *u-/a-* prefix alternations are co-associated with *u-/i-* alternations in the first vowel of the stem in Table 47.

Table 45: Changing composition of the Ninzic language group. Key: Blank = not listed; + = assigned to group; – = assigned to another group; ? thus in source.

### Table 46: Ninzo prefix pairings

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Table 47: Ninzo *u-/i-* alternations in first vowel of stem

Other *u/a-* prefix alternations also incorporate alternations of CV syllables of the stem as in Table 48, particularly *u-nV-/a-bV-*. These suggest an unusual process, the retention of a former *ni-/bi*- alternation with the addition of an innovative prefix system preceding it. The *bV*- plural marker is reminiscent of Niger-Congo *ba*- but this may be coincidence; the core lexemes for persons in Ninzo do not have this alternation. A partial development from this is the formation of plural with *VnV*- prefixes Table 49. For example, *à*- and *ì*- singular prefixes alternate with *ànV*- plural prefixes.

As Table 49 shows there is quite a strong correlation between animals and the *anV*- plural prefix, which is highly reminiscent of the Bantu Class 9 *nì*- singular prefix for animals. Ninzo shows no obvious active or fossil morphology for noncount nouns although the word for 'water', *amasíɽ*, has inherited the *ma*- affix from related Plateau languages.

Table 49: Ninzo prefix pairs *V-/anV-*

A common number marking process, which can be combined with prefix alternations, is reduplication of the first syllable of the root seen in Table 50. The vowel of the reduplicated syllable is usually */i/*, but /*u/* in two unexplained cases.

Table 50: Plural marking with reduplication in Ninzo

Ninzic languages have highly diverse nominal morphology and space precludes describing all of them. Many have a non-count noun prefix, but this seems to vary from one group to another. For example, Table 51 shows the prefix for liquids in Ce, *bə-*, which is quite consistent, but which seems to be segmentally unrelated to Niger-Congo Class 6, usually *mV-*.

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Table 51: C*e* prefix for liquids *bə-*

This is an example of metatypy, the copying of a structural feature without the associated segments.

The Mada language has undergone a striking collapse of characteristic affix alternations, which have then been rebuilt using grammaticalisation strategies, which have resulted in highly idiosyncratic marking of nominal plurals. These can be divided into six categories:

### (11) I tone-change

Prefixes marking size can alternate with non-prefixed nouns creating a plethora of additional forms. Some nouns usually take diminutive prefixes in speech, but these are not easy to predict. The historical layering of these number marking strategies can be detected through the existence of multiple forms, sometimes with, for example, tone-raising applied to a noun formerly which also has first syllable reduplication or prefix addition. The consequence of this has been that the tone-plurals of Mada show extremely low levels of predictability as in Table 52.

To give a sense of the variety of number marking strategies in Mada, Table 52 above shows the operation of first syllable reduplication in Mada nouns, and selected examples in Table 53 and Table 54 below display recently adopted plural strategies.

Table 52: First syllable reduplication in Mada nouns

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Table 53: Mada *mə̀-* prefixes where stem tone is conserved

Table 54: Mada *mə̄-* prefixes where stem tone is conserved

The most recent addition to the Mada repertoire of plural strategies is probably the *mə-* prefix. This appears to have two realisations, *mə̀-* and *mə̄-*. The low-tone form seems to have no strongly-defined semantic field in Table 53, but mid-tone *mə̄-* is applied quite strictly to persons in Table 54. The examples in these tables and in other sections show the prefix has been added, sometimes subsequently to other strategies, such as tone-raising or reduplication, providing evidence for its recent genesis. Most nouns taking a *mə̀-* prefix conserve stem-tone in Table 53.

Mada provides a striking example of how rapidly a nominal affix system can break down and then be rebuilt using processes of grammaticalisation, thereby illustrating the difficulties of tracing synchronic affixes back to a presumed protosystem.

### **2.6 Alumic**

One subgroup of Plateau languages spoken in Central Nigeria has effectively no published data. These languages are Hasha [=Yashi], Sambe, Alumu-Təsu and Toro [=Turkwam]. Except for Sambe, they have apparently been classified in

previous lists on the basis of geographical proximity. Sambe is moribund, as there were only two speakers over 90 in 2005, and none remain in 2017. The rest have at most a few hundred speakers. All data and analyses given here were the result of fieldwork by the author Blench (n.d.[a]).

The group is here named Alumic, after the language with the most speakers, but this term can be regarded as provisional. The Alumic languages are now scattered geographically, and isolated among the Ninzic (=Plateau IV) languages. The very different sociolinguistic histories may explain their striking morphological diversity. The internal structure of the Alumic group is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: The relation of Sambe to Hasha and the Alumic languages

Alumu, Toro and Sambe no longer have functioning noun class systems, but the nouns have transparent fossil prefixes. Hasha has developed a highly idiosyncratic system of reduplicating the first syllable of the stem to mark plurality in both nouns and verbs, apparently under the influence of a neighbouring Chadic language, Sha. Təsu has entirely converted to a system of a single plural suffix, with no functioning noun-prefixes. Nonetheless, these can be recovered in part from the existing nouns, especially by comparison with cognate forms in other Plateau languages. Although many nouns have zero prefixes, fossil V- and N- prefixes are quite widespread. The most common prefix is *à-* and *ə̀-* is probably its allomorph. Table 55 shows some characteristic examples.

Table 55: Təsu *à-/ə-* prefixes

Nouns for persons typically have an *à*- prefix as in Table 56.

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Other fossil prefixes are given in Table 57.

Table 57: Fossil prefixes in Təsu

There is no trace of a semantic association for other prefixes. Liquids and noncount nouns show no characteristic morphological pattern.

Sambe no longer has a functioning noun-class system, perhaps a consequence of the switch to Ninzo. However, it clearly existed until recently and many words were cited with fossil prefixes. Indeed, sometimes a word would be cited in one elicitation with the prefix and again without it, showing the language in transition prior to its inevitable death. The tones marked are best characterised as approximate, with speakers varying between elicitation sessions. Three prefixes

can be discerned in the data, *kV*-, *bV*- and *tV*-, each with an underspecified or 'hollow' vowel. In some languages this shows concord with the stem vowel, but this does not seem to have been the case with Sambe.

The most common prefix is *kV̀-* in Table 58.

Table 58: *kV*̀- fossil prefixes in Sambe

Table 59 shows words with a *bV*- fossil prefix.

Table 59: *bV*- fossil prefixes in Sambe

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Table 60 shows words with a *tV*- fossil prefix.

Table 60: *tV*- prefixes in Sambe

Sambe probably also had a nasal prefix which was homorganic with the following consonant, see Table 61.

Many nouns referring to persons have an *a*- prefix and some which are naturally plural, such as 'ancestors' have a *ba*- prefix, see Table 62.

From this we can conclude that Sambe originally had an *a-/ba*- noun class pair for humans. No other fossil prefixes have any semantic associations, and neither mass nouns nor liquids show any common features. The strong presence of CVprefixes with underspecified vowels is extremely rare in this area, although common in Kainji languages (Blench, Chapter 3 this volume).

Gloss Sambe 'man' *àróro* 'woman' *àhìn* 'father' *adídá* 'mother' *aya* 'relations' *bàruhwin ninamláni* 'ancestors' *bàgúgó*

Table 62: *a/ba-* prefixes in Sambe

### **2.7 East**

The three languages constituting Greenberg's Plateau 6, Fyem, Bo-Rukul [=Mabo-Barkul] and Horom were placed together as Southeastern Plateau in the Benue-Congo Comparative Wordlist Williamson & Shimizu (1968); Williamson (1972). Although named Southeastern (e.g. in Crozier & Blench 1992) it is here named 'East Plateau' as a better reflection of its direction in relation to the Plateau centre of gravity. However, it is highly uncertain that they do indeed form a coherent group as Bo-Rukul is very distinct from Fyem and Horom. In Figure 1 they have been separated as branches of Plateau with a tentative linkage marked. Nettle (1998b) is a sketch grammar of Fyem, and Nettle (1998a) short wordlists of all three languages, but Bo-Rukul and Horom remain virtually unknown (although see Blench 2003 for their relation with the Ron (Chadic) languages). Since Horom has the most elaborate system of nominal affixing, it is discussed in detail in this section. Data and analysis are based on fieldwork by the author.

Number marking in Horom nouns is characterised by a great diversity of strategies. V-/CV- prefix alternation is the most characteristic process and the possibilities are numerous. Of these, the *i-* plural prefix is applied in the majority of cases. The singular and plural class/pairings identified so far are shown in Table 63.

Horom also demonstrates some striking semantic unities with respect to plural markers. Singulars are diverse, but almost all animals, from mammals to insects, have *i*- plural prefixes. Similarly, nouns referring to persons have a *ba*- prefix (and sometimes a suffix) but with no corresponding singular prefix. Mass nouns and liquids have no defining morphological character. Horom shows no evidence for nasal prefixes; in one apparent case the widespread Plateau root for 'person' has grammaticalised as an affix.

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Table 63: Singular/plural affix pairings in Horom

The most striking typological feature of Horom is the evolution of a nominal suffixing system, characterised either by vowels or –NV structures. The singular nouns are diverse, with either zero or a wide array of prefixes. The plurals are all prefixed with *ba*-, and a vocalic or –NV segment. Table 65 on the following page shows the nouns so far recorded with both prefixes and suffixes.

Horom also has "broken plurals". In words with stems of CVCCV(C) structure, an epenthetic vowel, either *-i-* or *-ə-*, is inserted between the two syllables of the stem as in Table 64.

Table 64: Horom 'broken' plurals

These may be infixes or simply a phonological extension of the syllable. None of these words are transparent compounds, but this may be their historical origin, in which case each element of the compound would have retained its plural prefix, with the second prefix undergoing centralisation in some environments.

Table 65: Horom nominal suffixes

### **2.8 South**

### **2.8.1 General**

South Plateau is named for two language groups, Jilic and Eggonic, which are here put together. "Southern" was applied to Jilic alone in Crozier & Blench (1992). Figure 6 shows this new proposal.

The Jilic or Koro languages are spoken in scattered communities across a wide swathe of Central Nigeria and this is usually attributed to persistent slave-raiding in the nineteenth centuries. As speakers have lost contact with one another, their languages have rapidly diversified.

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Figure 6: Classification of the Jilic-Eggonic languages

### **2.8.2 Jilic**

Jilic consists of at least two languages, Mijili [=Koro of Lafia] and Ujijili [=Koro Huntu], now separated by a considerable geographic distance, but clearly related Blench (n.d.[h]). There is a microfiched grammar of Mijili by Stofberg (1978), while Ujijili is known from an unpublished wordlist. Koro Ija and Koro Zuba, two languages spoken northwest of Abuja, are said to be nearly intelligible with Ujijili, although no language data exists to demonstrate this. This section will focus on Mijili as described by Stofberg (1978), but with additional material from fieldwork in 2003. Mijili has a system of number marking on nouns based on prefix alternations. Table 66 is a matrix showing the possible pairings of singular and plural prefixes.

Once allomorphy of the prefixes is taken into account, the number of underlying prefixes is considerably reduced. As elsewhere in Plateau, singular nouns referring to human beings have variable morphology. Many nouns for persons have a former *ɲV*- prefix, now apparently lexicalised, but still in alternation in one root, the word for 'young man' in Table 67. Plural prefixes in Mijili nouns for persons are either *mV*- or *a*-.

The *ɲV*- prefix in singulars is unlikely to be a "true" prefix but a recent grammaticalisation of the nouns for 'person' (12):

### (12) *ǹnyɛ* 'person' *mínyɛ* 'person/people'

Almost all liquids and non-count nouns have an unpaired *ń*- prefix as in Table 68.

No other semantic correlations with noun class pairs have been detected.

Table 66: Matrix showing matching of singular and plural prefixes in Mijili. Adapted from Stofberg (1978: 316)

Table 67: Singular and plural prefixes for person nouns in Mijili

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

Table 68: Mass nouns with *n-* prefixes in Jili

### **2.8.3 Eggonic**

Eggonic consists of just two languages, Eggon and Ake, spoken around Akwanga. These have previously been put together with Ninzic, although this is more a supposition based on geography than historical linguistics. The Eggon people are numerous and their language is divided into numerous dialects, while Ake (=Aike) is spoken in only three villages. Although the languages share enough common glosses to be put together, they are still quite distant from one another. Eggon has a limited system of nominal morphology, while Ake has lost its system entirely. All data and analyses in this section are based on fieldwork by the author.

Ake nouns no longer have morphologically marked plurals, with a few exceptions in the case of persons. However, there is considerable evidence for prior systems of CV prefixes, many of which survive in frozen form preceding the stem. The key to detecting such affixes is external cognates. Many words appear with different prefixes in related languages. Thus, although Proto-Ake almost certainly had a *ki-* prefix, in the word *kipindye* 'village/settlement' the *ki-* is not a prefix, since it is cognate with forms in remote Plateau languages such as Hyam *khep*, Jili *kúpɔ̃ ̀* , and the –*ndye* element would then be a compounded element. Such evidence is not available for all the terms with potential affixes, so only more elaborated morphological comparisons will increase certainty. The former V- prefixes often have two distinct tones and may therefore be ultimately of different origins or it may be that this is the result of a now-lost morphophonemic process. However, since they exist in high-low pairs for almost all the hypothetical prefixes reconstructed in Table 69.

Ake has a variety of *kV*- prefixes which constitute possible evidence for an original affix with an underspecified vowel, such as occur both in Sambe (§2.6)

### Table 69: Ake fossil noun prefixes

Table 70: Ake *kV-* prefixes

and East Kainji languages such as Boze (see Blench 2018 [this volume], §3.5.2). Examples are given in Table 70.

An intriguing feature of Ake prefixes, not apparently found in related or nearby Plateau languages, is semantic clustering around specific segments. Some examples are found in (13):

(13) Ake prefixes semantic clustering around specific segments

### a. *ɔ̀-/ɔ́-*

This prefix is strongly associated with body parts: 'mouth' *ɔ̀mu* 'tongue' *ɔ̀lɛ́* 'neck' *ɔ̀lwa* 'shoulder' *ɔ́kyɛ* 'armpit' *ɔ́ŋgwɔ*

4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

### b. *ò-/ó-*

This prefix is strongly associated with animals: 'calf' òyèna 'castrated small ruminant' *òkì* 'colobus monkey' *òkpesɛ̃ ̀* 'hare' *òzwè* 'electric fish' *òrǐ* 'fish sp.' *ópò* c. *ŋ̀-*

Strikingly, and in contrast to most other Plateau languages, the velar nasal prefix is not homorganic synchronically. Almost all the words with *ŋ-* prefixes are in the same semantic area, reptiles, crustaceans and insects. See (14):

Ake has almost certainly reprefixed stems with former velar nasal prefixes in words such as those in Table 71.

It is conceivable this is related Bantu Class 9, *nì*-, for animals, although large salient species in Ake do not have an *ŋ-* prefix.

There is weak evidence for an *mV-* prefix defining liquids in Table 72.

Nouns referring to persons do not have any morphologically unifying characteristics.

Table 72: Ake *mV-* prefix defining liquids

### **2.9 Tarokoid**

The Tarokoid languages consist of four distinct languages and the Kwang cluster. Tarok is numerically the most dominant, spoken in a large area around Langtang, while the others are spoken in small communities isolated from one another between Langtang and Jos. Yangkam is moribund, spoken only by men over fifty years of age. Figure 7 shows the internal structure of Tarokoid.

Figure 7: Internal structure of Tarokoid

Within Tarokoid there is a considerable range of nominal morphology. Tarok itself has both the most complete prefix system and alliterative concord. Yangkam has lost functioning affix alternation but has partially developed a system of reduplicating the initial syllable of the stem. Sur has also lost any functioning affixes without the evolution of a compensatory process, perhaps under the influence of the Chadic language Ngas.

Kwang marks number with singular/plural prefix pairings, but these are extremely reduced compared with Tarok or Pe Blench (n.d.[i]). With very few exceptions, all plurals are marked with an *à*- prefix. Kwang has a small number of nouns where plurality is marked with a tone-change, Low/High or Mid/High, and some irregular plurals which may be examples of residual consonant mutation. Changes in the stem vowel occur in the plurals of some lexemes connected

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

with persons. Table 73 shows the nominal prefixes of Kwang, and by far the most common singular prefix is ø- and plural *à-*.

Table 73: Kwang nominal prefixes

However, the large number of palatalised and labialised stems in Kwang suggests that *i-* and *u-* prefixes were formerly present. By far the most common singular/ plural alternation is *ø-/à-*, as shown in Table 74.

Table 74: Kwang *ø-/à-* prefix pairing

Kwang seems to have deleted the prefixes on singular nouns very extensively, as most of these now show only the root with no fossil morpheme. Nouns referring to persons all take *à*- plurals, but the singulars have no distinctive features. Some nouns copy the number marker at the end of the word, and assimilate the stem vowel if it is not the same –*a* as in Table 75.

The next most common pairing is *ǹ-/á-* as in Table 76.

Kwang also has occasional stem-initial consonant mutation as in Table 77.

Despite the example of 'blood' there is no association between mass nouns or liquids and nasal prefixes.

The noun classes of Tarok have been described in Sibomana (1981) with additional material in Longtau (2008). Sibomana (1981) sets up 6 singular and plural noun classes for Tarok (Figure 8).

Table 75: Kwang *ø-/à-* prefix pairing with suffixed copy vowel

Table 76: Kwang *ǹ-/á-* prefix pairing

Table 77: Kwang stem-initial consonant mutation

Figure 8: Tarok noun-class pairings

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

The order of the numbers seems less than ideal, but since it is reprised in Longtau (2008) it is also used here. Historically, these pairings must result from the merger of a more complex system, as in many singular/plural pairs there are changes in the stem tone. Some of these seem to show semantic correlations, others do not, again suggesting class merger. Tarok also has a rich inventory of adjectives with concordial prefixes. Nasal prefixes are homorganic with the following consonant, with *m-* preceding bilabials and *n-* all others.

Persons in Tarok are almost exclusively in Class 1/2, i.e. with a *u-/o-* prefix alternation, as shown in Table 78.

Table 78: Tarok *u-/o-* prefix alternations

There is a strong tendency for mass nouns, liquids and abstracts to have the unpaired homorganic *N-* prefix as in Table 79.

Table 79: Tarok *N-* prefixes on mass nouns

No other semantic set, such as large animals, trees or body parts, shows a tendency to cluster around a particular prefix pairing.

### **2.10 Eloyi**

The Eloyi or Afo language is spoken in about twenty villages in Nassarawa State, Nigeria. The principle sources on the language are Mackay (1964) and Armstrong (1964; 1983; 1984).7 The classification of Eloyi has been disputed, all the more so because the lexical database for comparison has been so weak. All the preliminary sources classified Eloyi as Plateau 2, i.e. together Izere, Tyap etc. (e.g. Greenberg 1963; Williamson & Shimizu 1968; de Wolf 1971). Armstrong (1983) set out the case for classifying Eloyi as Idomoid, which is a West Benue-Congo or Volta-Niger subgroup, classified together with Yoruba, Igbo, Nupe and Ẹdo. However, in Armstrong's (1984: 29) final published discussion of the subject he expresses some doubts, concluding "Eloyi does not now seem as close to Idoma as it did when only Varvil's list was available". Eloyi has a rich system of alternating nominal prefixes, in contrast to the remainder of Idomoid, and is provisionally treated here as Plateau, though with significant influence from Idomoid. The analysis here is based on the cited published sources, and an unpublished wordlist collected by Barau Kato at the request of the author Blench (n.d.[d]).

Despite the complex affix-pairings, many words have zero prefixes, perhaps due to the impact of extensive bilingualism with Idomoid languages. Many alternations have only one or two cases so far recorded, which makes setting up the system highly provisional. Table 80 shows the nominal prefix pairings in Eloyi.

*kV*- prefixes are probably the most common in Eloyi singulars and *lV*- for plurals. Although usually some type of stem harmony would be expected to operate there is no evidence for this in Eloyi.

Eloyi noun-class pairings do not show much semantic clustering. Most nouns referring to persons have diverse singulars, and plurals in *a*- or *e*-. Mother and father have an exceptional class prefix pair which may reflect the Niger-Congo persons class seen in Table 81. There is no evidence for a distinctive morphology for non-count nouns and no trace of nasal prefixes.

### **3 Conclusion: Plateau nominal affixing**

The numerous examples illustrate the problems of making any generalisations about nominal affixes in Plateau and only weak conclusions can be drawn about its relationship with other branches of Benue-Congo. This represents a common problem of historical linguistics in such a significant contact zone. Traces of prefixes familiar from Bantu and Niger-Congo are found scattered across the family,

7Despite the title of the 1984 publication, this is about Eloyi.

### 4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

### Table 80: Nominal prefix pairings in Eloyi

Table 81: Eloyi prefixes *V-/mba-*

and in the light of external data it might seem likely that these were present in Proto-Plateau. However, on the basis of synchronic data in Plateau alone it would be rash to reconstruct them. Taking the data as a whole we can conclude that:

Based on the synchronic evidence from Plateau, the connection with Niger-Congo noun classes remains tenuous. Only the non-count nouns and the person class show similarities and even these are obscured by innovative affixes. Similarly, there is no single affix alternation that provides evidence for the genetic unity of Plateau. This can only be deduced from lexical isoglosses (e.g. in Blench 2000a). The paper presents a summary of what is known about number marking strategies on nouns in the Plateau languages. Further work will enrich the picture, but it is unlikely to contribute to a coherent reconstruction, as affix renewal has been very extensive.

### **Acknowledgements**

It would be impossible to list all those who have acted as informants, but Barau Kato, Daniel Gya and Selbut Longtau have been my principal co-workers on field data collection. Bitrus Kaze, Deme Dang, Ruth Adiwu, Barnabas Dusu (†), Gideon Asuku, Alex Maikarfi and Wayo Bai have been crucial to the development of extended materials in their languages. Staff members at NBTT and SIL Jos have been always helpful in giving me access to unpublished materials and to discuss issues relating to particular languages. I would particularly like to thank Mark Gaddis for arranging workshops on the Koro cluster languages.

4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

### **Abbreviations and conventions**

### **References**

Adwiraah, Eleonore. 1989. *Grammatik des Gworok (Kagoro)*. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Adwiraah, Eleonore & Eva Hagen. 1983. Nominalklassensystem des Gworok und des Gyong. In R. Voßen & U. Claudi (eds.), *Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur in Afrika*, 17–33. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.

Anonymous. 2006. *How to read and write Irigwe*. Jos: Irigwe Language & Bible Translation Project & Nigeria Bible Translation Trust.

Armstrong, Robert G. 1964. A few more words of Eloyi. *Journal of West African Languages* 1(2). 57–60.

Armstrong, Robert G. 1983. The Idomoid languages of the Benue and Cross River valleys. *Journal of West African Languages* 13(1). 91–149.

Armstrong, Robert G. 1984. The consonant system of Akpa. *Nigerian Language Teacher* 5(2). 26–29.

Blench, Roger M. 1998. The status of the languages of Central Nigeria. In M. Brenzinger (ed.), *Endangered languages in Africa*, 187–206. Köln: Köppe Verlag.

Blench, Roger M. 2000a. Revising Plateau. In Ekkehard Wolff & Orin Gensler (eds.), *Proceedings of 2nd WOCAL*, 159–174. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.

Blench, Roger M. 2000b. Transitions in Izere nominal morphology and implications for the analysis of Plateau languages. In Antje Meißner & Anne Storch (eds.), *Nominal classification in African languages* (Frankfurter Afrikanische Blätter 12), 7–28. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

Bouquiaux, Luc. 2001. *Dictionnaire Birom, 3 vols*. Louvain: Peeters.

4 Nominal affixes and number marking in the Plateau languages

## **Chapter 5**

## **Common Bantoid verb extensions**

Larry M. Hyman

University of California, Berkeley