NounClass: noun class
NounClass is similar to Gender and Animacy because it is to a large part
a lexical category of nouns and other parts of speech inflect for it
to show agreement (pronouns, adjectives,
determiners, numerals, verbs).
The distinction between gender and noun class is not sharp and is partially conditioned by the traditional terminology of a given language family. In general, the feature is called gender if the number of possible values is relatively low (typically 2-4) and the partition correlates with sex of people and animals. In language families where the number of categories is high (10-20), the feature is usually called noun class. No language family uses both the features.
In Bantu languages, the noun class also encodes Number; therefore it is
a lexical-inflectional feature of nouns. The words should be annotated with
the Number feature in addition to NounClass, despite the fact that people
who know Bantu could infer the number from the noun class. The lemma of the
noun should be its singular form.
The set of values of this feature is specific for a language family or group.
Within the group, it is possible to identify classes that have similar meaning
across languages (although some classes may have merged or disappeared in
some languages in the group). The value of the NounClass feature consists
of a short identifier of the language group (e.g., Bantu), and the number
of the class (there is a standardized class numbering system accepted by
scholars of the various Bantu languages; similar numbering systems should be
created for the other families that have noun classes).
List of noun classes in Swahili
(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_class)
| Class number | Prefix | Typical meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | m-, mw-, mu- | singular: persons |
| 2 | wa-, w- | plural: persons (a plural counterpart of class 1) |
| 3 | m-, mw-, mu- | singular: plants |
| 4 | mi-, my- | plural: plants (a plural counterpart of class 3) |
| 5 | ji-, j-, Ø- | singular: fruits |
| 6 | ma-, m- | plural: fruits (a plural counterpart of class 5, 9, 11, seldom 1) |
| 7 | ki-, ch- | singular: things |
| 8 | vi-, vy- | plural: things (a plural counterpart of class 7) |
| 9 | n-, ny-, m-, Ø- | singular: animals, things |
| 10 | n-, ny-, m-, Ø- | plural: animals, things (a plural counterpart of class 9 and 11) |
| 11 | u-, w-, uw- | singular: no clear semantics |
| 15 | ku-, kw- | verbal nouns |
| 16 | pa- | locative meanings: close to something |
| 17 | ku- | indefinite locative or directive meaning |
| 18 | mu-, m- | locative meanings: inside something |
Bantu1: singular, persons
The corresponding plural class is Bantu2.
Examples
- [sw] mtoto “child”
Bantu2: plural, persons
The corresponding singular class is Bantu1.
Examples
- [sw] watoto “children”
Bantu3: singular, plants, thin objects
The corresponding plural class is Bantu4.
Examples
- [sw] mti “tree”
Bantu4: plural, plants, thin objects
The corresponding singular class is Bantu3.
Examples
- [sw] miti “trees”
Bantu5: singular, fruits, round objects, paired things
The corresponding plural class is Bantu6.
Examples
- [sw] jiwe “stone”
Bantu6: plural, fruits, round objects, paired things
The corresponding singular class is Bantu5, also Bantu9, Bantu11, seldomly Bantu1.
Examples
- [sw] mawe “stones”
Bantu7: singular, things, diminutives
The corresponding plural class is Bantu8.
Examples
- [sw] kitabu “book”
Bantu8: plural, things, diminutives
The corresponding singular class is Bantu7.
Examples
- [sw] vitabu “books”
Bantu9: singular, animals, things
The corresponding plural class is Bantu10 or Bantu6.
Examples
- [sw] ndege “bird”
Bantu10: plural, animals, things
The corresponding singular class is Bantu9.
Examples
- [sw] ndege “birds” (plural of the noun is identical to singular; however, verbs agree with the zi- prefix in plural and with i- in singular)
Bantu11: long thin objects, natural phenomena, abstracts
Examples
- [sw] utoto “childhood”
Bantu12: singular, small things, diminutives
The corresponding plural class is Bantu13 or Bantu14.
Examples
- [lg] embwa “dog” → akabwa “puppy”
Bantu13: plural or mass, small amount of mass
Examples
- [lg] mazzi “water” → otuzzi “drop of water”
Bantu14: plural, diminutives
In Ganda, this is the plural counterpart of Bantu12.
Examples
- [lg] obubwa “puppies”
Bantu15: verbal nouns, infinitives
Examples
- [sw] -soma “read” → kusoma “reading; to read”
Bantu16: definite location, close to something
Examples
- [sw] pahali “place”
Bantu17: indefinite location, direction, movement
Examples
- [sw] kule “there”
Bantu18: definite location, inside something
Examples
- [sw] mule “in there”
Bantu19: little bit of, pejorative plural
Bantu class 19 may signify “a little bit of” or a plural with a pejorative nuance, as in Hunde.
Examples
- [hke] hyùndù “a bit of porridge”
- [hke] hìkátsì “frail females”
- [hke] hyábánà “thin children”
Bantu20: singular, augmentatives
In Ganda, the corresponding plural class is Bantu6 or Bantu22.
Examples
- [lg] musajja “man” → ogusajja “giant”
Bantu21: singular, augmentatives, derogatives
Examples
- [ve] ḓinga “large lump of earth”
- [ve] ḓanḓa “big clumsy hand”
Bantu22: plural, augmentatives
The corresponding singular class is Bantu20.
Examples
- [lg] agasajja “giants”
Bantu23: location with place names
Examples
- [lg] elugala “at Lugala”
Noun Classes in Wolof
Wolof is a non-Bantu Niger-Congo language. It has noun classes but their semantics cannot be easily mapped on the Bantu classes. The class is morphologically unmarked on nouns (although it is an inherent property of the lexeme) but determiners have to show agreement with the class.
The Wolof noun class system lacks semantic coherence. One reason for this is that in Wolof noun classification is sometimes based on other factors than semantics, including phonology and morphology. And still these are just some tendencies, but in most cases there is no clear semantics, phonology or morphology that can explain the classification in Wolof.
Examples
The following table shows the forms of proximate demonstratives in the first ten noun classes; classes 2 and 8 are plural, the rest are singular.
| Wol1 | Wol2 | Wol3 | Wol4 | Wol5 | Wol6 | Wol7 | Wol8 | Wol9 | Wol10 | English |
| ki | gi | ji | bi | mi | li | si | wi | “this” | ||
| ñi | yi | “these” |
Wolof classes 11 and 12, although behaving like noun classes, have meanings that are adverbial rather than nominal: class 11 is for location, class 12 for manner.
| Wol11 | Wol12 |
| fi “here” | ni “so” |
Wol1: Wolof noun class 1/k (singular human)
Examples
- [wo] nitug Afrig ki
Wol2: Wolof noun class 2/ñ (plural human)
Examples
- [wo] jigéen ñi
Wol3: Wolof noun class 3/g (singular)
Examples
- [wo] dexug Gaambi gi
Wol4: Wolof noun class 4/j (singular)
Examples
- [wo] jenn jamono ji
Wol5: Wolof noun class 5/b (singular)
For example, “dog” is in the b class.
Examples
- [wo] xaj bi “this dog” (dog class-DEF.PROX)
- [wo] xaj ba “that dog” (dog class-DEF.REMT)
- [wo] buur bi
Wol6: Wolof noun class 6/m (singular)
For example, “sheep” is in the m class.
Examples
- [wo] xar mi “this sheep” (sheep class-DEF.PROX)
- [wo] at mi
Wol7: Wolof noun class 7/l (singular)
Examples
- [wo] ndongo li
Wol8: Wolof noun class 8/y (plural non-human)
Examples
- [wo] nguur yii
Wol9: Wolof noun class 9/s (singular)
Examples
- [wo] sàmm si
Wol10: Wolof noun class 10/w (singular)
Examples
- [wo] sama nag wa
Wol11: Wolof noun class 11/f (location)
Examples
- [wo] fi “here”
- [wo] fa “there”
Wol12: Wolof noun class 12/n (manner)
Examples
- [wo] ni “so”
NounClass in other languages: [nci] [tn] [u]