On the origin of Niger-Congo nominal classification

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On the origin of Niger-Congo nominal classification*

Roland Kießling University of Hamburg

The Niger-Congo noun class system has resisted historical reconstruction due to the advanced stage of grammaticalisation its markers present. Yet, incipient systems of alternative nominal classification such as numeral classifiers and class-terms found across various branches of Niger-Congo provide, by virtue of their cognitive transparency, a key to the identification of both the ultimate lexi-cal sources and the syntactic structures from which the ancient Niger-Congo noun class system must have developed. After an overview of the properties of the Niger-Congo noun class system (Section 2), Section 3 examines alternative systems of nominal classification such as numeral classifiers (3.1) and class-terms (3.2). The synthesis (Section 4) provides a model of the emergence of the Niger-Congo noun class system and its morphological exponents from nouns for basic level concepts, body parts and social functions which were used as head nouns in associative constructions or as class-terms in compounds.

1. Introduction

The classical Niger-Congo noun class system presents a fairly advanced stage of grammaticalisation. Its original development from lexical sources is neither

* The present paper has profited greatly from discussions with Tom Güldemann, Maarten Mous, Thilo Schadeberg, Sören Wichmann and Bill McGregor as well as from feedback from the editors and two anonymous reviewers. In particular, I want to express my gratitude to the DFG (German Research Foundation) whose generous grants enabled the research on which this contribution is based, to Philip Ngessimo Mutaka and Pius Tamanji for their effective adminis-trative help and their hospitality in Yaoundé and Cameron and Valerie Hamm, Jesse Lovegren, Viktor Vinogradov and Alexander Zheltov for sharing their data on Bafanji, Ngwe, Ngiemboon and Gban, respectively. Moreover, I am deeply grateful to Samson Negbo Abangma who has provided the data on Denya and to Bong Marcellus Wung of Isu who has untiringly helped to clarify the grammatical and semantic intricacies of the use of the noun ísɨ� “eye” in his mother tongue. All mistakes remain my own.


44 Roland Kießling

directly accessible by historical sources nor indirectly by linguistic reconstruc-tion so far. Yet, a key to the understanding of its ultimate origins can be found in contemporary Niger-Congo languages and the embryonic stages of alterna-tive systems of nominal classification they present, i.e. class-terms and incipient numeral classifiers. The major aim of this contribution is to unfold their trans-parent etymologies, both on the semantic and the morphosyntactic level, and to retrieve from these a unified model of the emergence of the ancient Niger-Congo noun class system, updating the general debate about noun class genesis in Africa (Bleek 1869; Klingenheben 1958; Claudi 1985; Heine 1988; Claudi 1997).1 As a by-product, the broader documentation of numeral classifier systems calls for a major revision of Africa’s typological landscape by incorporating numeral classi-fiers into the linguistic map – a feature which has been neglected up to date due to an inadequate state of documentation and by the long-standing dominance of a research paradigm the inherited noun class system in Niger-Congo has imposed and still imposes on the practice of language description.

2. The inherited noun class system of Niger-Congo

One of the main attractions of most Niger-Congo languages is their noun class systems which widely share the following properties (Williamson 1989; Williamson & Blench 2000): (a) all nouns are assigned to a limited set of classes marked by nominal prefixes or suffixes; (b) all nouns control, by virtue of their as-signment to a class, a system of concordial agreement which penetrates vast sec-tions of the morphosyntax and which is also used for anaphoric reference; (c) class assignment is governed by semantic principles so that classes could be described as semantic networks (Breedveld 1995: 295–460; Contini-Morava 1997); (d) most noun classes form singular-plural pairs or genders (Corbett 1991), while the mark-ers conflate gender and number up to the point that nominal number is often not a relevant category outside the class system (Schadeberg 2001). Thus, in Swahili, an Eastern Bantu language (Tanzania), the noun ki-kombe “cup” (1a) controls a wide network of concordial agreement in the clause which is manifest in that syntactically dependent targets such as the attributive adjective dogo “small” and

1. It should be pointed out clearly here that a line of argument such as this which is mainly based on morphosyntactic and semantic considerations cannot serve as direct proof of prehis-toric diachronic developments without running into basic methodological problems inherent in typological arguments in historical linguistics (Campbell & Poser 2008). However, the model developed here might provide indirect evidence and point to possible lexical sources of noun class markers on intermediate historical levels, as the reconstruction of Proto-Niger-Congo procedes.


On the origin of Niger-Congo nominal classification 45

the numeral moja “one” agree in class, expressed by the concordial prefix ki-. The same prefix in the verb vunjika “be broken” marks the noun kikombe as the syn-tactic subject. In most cases the nouns themselves display a prefix which assigns them openly to a certain class, i.e. to class 7 (according to Bantuistic conventions, Katamba 2003). Pluralisation involves the transfer to class 8 which is marked by the class 8 nominal prefix vi- and concordial prefixes of the same shape (1b).

(1) Niger-Congo noun class systems: Swahili (Eastern Bantu, G42d, Tanzania): ki-kombe (7/8) “cup”

a. Ki-kombe ki-dogo ki-moja ki-me-vunjika 7-cup 7-small 7-one 7-PERFECT-be.broken “One small cup is broken.” b. Vi-kombe vi-dogo vi-wili vi-me-vunjika 8-cup 8-small 8-two 8-PERFECT-be.broken “Two small cups are broken.”

(2) Niger-Congo noun class systems: Isu (Grassfields Bantu, Cameroon): kə-tswám (7/8) “big mug”

a. tswám kə nèe k-ìy mə ↓kɛmə 7.mug 7 big 7-OF2 PAST.FOC break “The big mug is broken.” b. ú-tswám ú nèe w-ìy mə ↓kɛmə 8-mug 8 big 8-OF PAST.FOC break “The big mugs are broken.”

Isu, a Bantoid language of the Cameroonian Grassfields from the extreme Western periphery of the Bantu area, shows parallels, but also some striking differences to Swahili. Differences relate to the marking strategies of noun classes, the syntactic targets of agreement and the semantic base of the classes: (i) not all syntactic categories are marked for class, thus there is no subject agreement in the verb, (ii) agreement in the attributive adjective is realised by circumposition: there is one concord preceding the adjective, another one following, (c) overt class marking in the nouns fades away, since nominal prefixes of the shape CV- are suppressed in the modified noun (2a), whereas nominal prefixes of the shape V- are retained (2b), (d) the assignment to noun classes is triggered by different semantic prin-ciples, i.e. gender 7/8 has augmentative function (e.g. fəŋwʊ ↓ní (19/6a) “bird” vs. kəŋwʊn (7/8) “big bird”), whereas in Swahili it has diminutive function (cf. kombe (5/6) “large cup”).

While there is no unified reconstruction of the noun class system at the Pro-to-Niger-Congo level so far, formal and functional overlap across most branches,

2. The out-of-focus marker generally replaces subject-verb agreement.


46 Roland Kießling

Tabl

e 1.

Nou

n cl

ass p

refix

es a

nd g

ende

rs in

var

ious

bra

nche

s of N

iger

-Con

go*

Kor

dofa

nian

Atla

ntic

Gur

Kwa

Benu

e-C

ongo

Sem

antic

cor

e of

gen

der

(i)(ii

)(ii

i) (iv

) (v

)(v

i)

1 / 2

*gu-

, ?*u

-gu-

, *a-

ba-

*-ʊ

/ *-a

, *-b

a*o

-, *b

a-*u

-, *b

a-*m

ʊ-, *

ba-

hum

ans

3 / 4

*gu-

, *gi

-*ʊ

-gʊ-

, *ɩ-C

ɩ- (=

8)*-

(ŋ)ʊ

/ *-

ŋi, *

-i*o

-, *i

-*u

-, *ɩ

�-*m

ʊ-, *

mɩ-

tree

, tre

e na

mes

, rop

e, br

oom

, tai

l, ro

ad, fi

re

5 / 6

*li-,

*ŋu-

*e-d

e-, *

a-ga

-*-

ɖɩ, *

-(k)

a?

*li-,

*a-

*ɩ-,

*ma-

egg,

hea

d, n

ame,

eye,

toot

h, b

reas

t, to

ngue

, ye

ar

6a*ŋ

-*a

-ma-

*-m

a*N

-*m

a-*m

a-liq

uids

: blo

od, w

ine,

wat

er

6b?

?*-

mʊ

*N-

*a-

*ma-

mas

s nou

ns: f

aece

s

7 / 8

?*a

-ka-

(=13

), *ɩ

-Cɩ-

(=4)

–, *-

bE /

*-fi

*ki-,

*bi-

*ki-,

*bɩ-

*kɩ-,

*bɩ-

neck

, tho

rn

9 / 1

0?

*ɩ-ɩ/

n-, *

a-ŋa

-*-

ni /

*-yɩ

, *-n

i / *-

na?

*ɩ-,

*ɩ�-

*n-,

*n-

anim

als

11

?*ʊ

-dʊ-

–?

*lu-

*lʊ-

singu

lar o

f 10

12?

?*-

ka*k

a-*k

a-*k

a-sin

gula

r of 1

3

13?

*a-k

a- (=

7)*-

sɩ*t

i-*t

i-*t

ʊ-pl

ural

of 1

2, 3

14?

*u-b

u-*-

bʊ /

*-bɩ

*bu-

*bu-

*bʊ-

sg. o

f 6, 4

/10;

abs

trac

ts, v

erba

l nou

ns

15?

?*-

kʊ /

*-kɩ

*ku-

*ku-

*kʊ-

sg. o

f 6, 4

/10,

ear

, leg

, arm

, kne

e; in

finiti

ve

19?

*V-p

V-*-

fʊ /

*-fɩ

?*b

i-*p

ɩ-

* Sou

rces

: gen

eral

des

ign:

Will

iam

son

(198

9: 38

–39)

; (i)

Prot

o-Ko

rdof

ania

n: S

chad

eber

g (1

981a

and

b);

(ii) P

roto

-Nor

ther

n-At

lant

ic: D

oneu

x (1

975)

; (iii

) Pro

to-G

ur:

Mie

he, K

lein

ewill

ingh

öfer

, von

Ron

cado

r & W

inke

lman

n (2

007)

; (iv

) Pro

to-T

ogo-

Rem

nant

: Hei

ne (1

968)

; (v)

Pro

to-B

enue

-Con

go: D

e W

olf (

1971

); (v

i) Pr

oto-

Bant

u:

Mee

usse

n (1

967)

. Gen

ders

atte

sted

in o

nly

one

bran

ch h

ave

been

supp

ress

ed, e

.g. B

antu

11/

10, 1

1/6,

12/

13, 1

2/14

; – m

eans

: cog

nate

abs

ent.



e.g. Kordofanian, Atlantic, Gur, Kwa and Benue-Congo, as indicated in Table 1, is so striking that it would seem uncontroversial to reconstruct a noun class system of this type at an early stage in the development of Niger-Congo. Independently of the exact historical level of its emergence in Niger-Congo, however, the fact remains that it must have been innovated at some distant point in the past. While grammaticalisation theory tells us that, all morphology ultimately originates in the lexicon (Heine & Reh 1984; Hopper & Traugott 1993; Heine & Kuteva 2002), the contemporary reflexes of the Niger-Congo noun classes represent such an ad-vanced stage of grammaticalisation that their lexical sources cannot be retrieved directly. However, since grammaticalisation occurs in cycles (Heine, Claudi & Hünnemeyer 1991: 212–247), indirect evidence could be attained from observ-ing (a) how contemporary Niger-Congo languages renew individual noun classes within existing systems of nominal classification, and (b) how some Niger-Congo languages innovate alternative systems of nominal classification, either parallel to the pre-existing classical noun class system or as a renovation after loss of the inherited system.

Renewal of individual noun classes via grammaticalisation has been attest-ed in various Bantu languages, most prominently the innovation of diminutives from various reflexes of the relational noun *mʊ-jánà “child (of)” (Kadima 1969; Maho 1999: 90–91, 219). Beyond Bantu and within Benue-Congo, the Proto-Bantu diminutive noun class 19 *pì- probably originates in a grammaticalisation of the “Proto-Sudanic” root bí “(to bear) child” (Westermann 1927: 207; Heine 1982: 214). While these instances provide evidence as to how existing systems of nominal classification could be expanded, they cannot tell us anything about how new systems of nominal classification start from scratch. This point will be taken up and fleshed out in Section 4.

3. Alternative systems of nominal classification in Niger-Congo

Another key to the understanding of the ultimate origins of the classical Niger-Congo noun class system can be found in contemporary Niger-Congo languages and in the embryonic stages of alternative nominal classifications they present, either in replacement of the inherited noun class system or in addition to it. These alternative systems of nominal classification include (incipient) numeral classifier systems (Section 3.1) on the one hand and class-terms which straddle the border-line between composition and derivation (Section 3.2) on the other hand. What they both have in common is that they establish systems of nominal classification representing different stages on a cline of grammaticalisation which ranges from purely lexical to full-fledged grammatical phenomena (Table 5).


48 Roland Kießling

3.1 Numeral classifiers in Niger-Congo

In contrast to their underrepresentation in Gil 2005, African numeral classifier systems have been found in various branches of Niger-Congo (Kießling forthcom-ing), i.e. in Mande (Boko/Busa, Gban), in Gur (Toussian) and in Benue-Congo subgroups such as Cross River (Kana, Gokana, Baan, Eleme; Ibibio), Grassfields Bantu (Ngiemboon, Bali-Mungaka, Bafanji, Ngwe, Isu), Nyang (Denya) and Ekoid (Ejagham). In these languages, numeral classifier systems have evolved ei-ther on top of or in replacement of the classical noun class system. Except for Kana, the study of these numeral classifier systems is in its infancy. Many details of their morphosyntax and their semantics remain to be worked out, since most of the available descriptions barely reach beyond the level of preliminary sketches. Yet, they are definitely sufficient to provide a reliable impression of their major typological properties presented in Table 2: lexical coverage, semantic principles of organization, morphosyntactic parameters of the classifier constructions and the presence of a coexistent and competing noun class system. These properties reveal remarkable correlations which allow for the recognition of roughly two types of numeral classifier systems: (a) systems with (almost) full lexical coverage, and (b) systems with restricted lexical coverage. While only three major branches of Niger-Congo are represented, i.e. Mande, Gur and Benue-Congo, the presence of numeral classifier systems with almost full lexical coverage seems to correlate with the absence of noun class marking, whether the loss of an original noun class system could be demonstrated (i.e Kegboid of Benue-Congo, Gur) or not (i.e. Mande).3 It is also precisely these languages which include animacy as a central semantic feature and, to a lesser extent, number. Both features are absent from the classifier systems with restricted lexical coverage, since they are taken care of by the competing noun class system. Instead, these restricted systems are predomi-nantly organised by criteria of shape, size and aggregation. While it is not clear which ultimate motivations account for the genesis of numeral classifier systems in Niger-Congo languages, possible motivations relate to countability, specificity and genericity which clearly affect nouns in languages with a receding noun class system, but which also seem to be at work in languages which retain a coexistent noun class system.

3. This issue is controversial. While most scholars agree that Proto-Mande never had a noun class system, as inferred from the absensce of noun class systems from all contemporary Mande languages, recent work by Vydrine (1994, 2006) traces nominal endings in various Mande lan-guages which are reminiscent of noun class markers found in other Niger-Congo branches and might thus be interpreted as potential relics of noun classes in Mande.



Tabl

e 2.

Typ

olog

ical

par

amet

ers o

f Nig

er-C

ongo

num

eral

clas

sfier

syst

ems*

Lang

uage

Cla

ssifi

catio

nLe

xica

l cov

erag

eSe

man

tic p

aram

eter

sC

onst

ruct

ion

type

Com

petin

g no

un c

lass

syst

em

Bafa

nji

Benu

e-C

ongo

rest

ricte

dsh

ape,

size,

aggr

egat

ion

NU

M [C

L N

]re

duce

d

Bali-

Mun

gaka

Benu

e-C

ongo

rest

ricte

dsh

ape

[CL

N] N

UM

redu

ced

Busa

Man

deal

mos

t com

plet

ean

imac

y, sh

ape,

num

ber

N [C

L N

UM

]no

Bwam

u G

ur?

anim

acy

N [C

L N

UM

]re

duce

d

Den

yaBe

nue-

Con

gore

stric

ted

shap

e, siz

e, ag

greg

atio

n[C

L N

] NU

Mye

s

Ejag

ham

Benu

e-C

ongo

rest

ricte

dsh

ape,

size,

aggr

egat

ion

[CL

N] N

UM

yes

Gba

nM

ande

?an

imac

y, sh

ape,

size

N [C

L N

UM

]no

Isu

Benu

e-C

ongo

rest

ricte

dsh

ape

[CL

N] N

UM

yes

Kan

aBe

nue-

Con

goal

mos

t com

plet

esh

ape,

size,

anim

acy,

func

tion,

pa

rtiti

on, a

ggre

gatio

nN

UM

[CL

N]

no

Ngi

embo

onBe

nue-

Con

gopr

obab

ly re

stric

ted

shap

e, siz

eN

[CL

NU

M]

yes

Ngw

eBe

nue-

Con

gore

stric

ted

shap

e, ag

greg

atio

nN

[CL

NU

M]

yes

Pana

Gur

?an

imac

yN

[CL

NU

M]

no

Tous

sian

Gur

alm

ost c

ompl

ete?

anim

acy,

shap

e, nu

mbe

rN

[CL

NU

M]

no

Yem

baBe

nue-

Con

gopr

obab

ly re

stric

ted

shap

eN

[CL

NU

M]

yes

* Sou

rces

: Baf

anji

(Ham

m 2

010)

, Bal

i-Mun

gaka

(Tisc

hhau

ser &

Stö

ckle

199

3), B

usa

(Wed

ekin

d 19

72; J

ones

199

8), B

wam

u (M

anes

sy 1

961)

, Den

ya (fi

eld

note

s Aba

ngm

a &

Kie

ßlin

g), E

jagh

am (W

atte

rs 1

981)

, Gba

n (Z

helto

v n.

d.),

Isu

(fiel

d no

tes K

ießl

ing)

, Kan

a (I

koro

199

4, 1

996)

, Ngi

embo

on (V

inog

rado

v 20

09),

Ngw

e (L

oveg

ren

2010

), Pa

na (P

rost

196

9), T

ouss

ian

(Zau

gg-C

oret

ti 20

05; M

ous 1

999)

, Yem

ba (H

arro

& H

ayne

s 199

1).


50 Roland Kießling

Since almost all Niger-Congo numeral classifier systems represent rather re-cent innovations, both the etymology of many classifiers and their source con-structions remain transparent or can be retrieved fairly easily. With respect to syntax it is obvious that in almost all of the numeral classifier languages found so far, the classifier occupies the same syntactic position with respect to the enumer-ated noun as the possessed noun with respect to the possessor in a genitival con-struction, betraying the origin of the classifier in a noun which acts as head of a genitival construction. While the classified noun takes the position of a possessive modifier, the numeral comes in peripheral position, agreeing with the noun class of the classifier head noun in languages with a coexistent noun class system. Thus, an NP-internal word order of possessor noun + possessed noun + numeral which is characteristic of type B languages (Heine 1976: 41–42), i.e. all Mande and Gur languages, produces the word order enumerated noun + classifier (noun) + nu-meral in emergent classifier constructions (3b), conforming to current syntactic generalisations on word order and immediate constituency in classifier construc-tions. Type A languages (Heine 1976: 39–40) with an NP-internal word order of possessed noun + possessor noun + numeral (i.e. most Benue-Congo languages, except Ngwe, Ngiemboon and Yemba), however, regularly produce the word or-der classifier (noun) + enumerated noun + numeral in emergent classifier con-structions (3a), violating the generalisation of non-separability of classifier and numeral (Greenberg 1972; Allan 1977; Dixon 1986).4

(3) Emergent Niger-Congo numeral classifier constructions inherit word order of genitival predecessor constructions:

a. Type A (e.g. Denya: classifier ɲɲì (5/2) “eye” (pl. àmɛ)): possessed head + possessor ↓ ↓ classifier + enumerated noun à-mɛ ɲjègésè á-pɛá 2-CL:eyes 10.groundnuts 2-two “two groundnuts” (lit. “two eyes of groundnut”)

4. Moreover, it is these Benue-Congo languages which provide morphophonological, mor-photonological and morphosyntactic evidence showing that it is the classifier and the enumer-ated noun which form a morphological unit rather than the classifier and the numeral – which had been taken as the only permissible possibility of fusion (Dixon 1986). The general explana-tion which accounts for both – i.e. the allegedly non-permissible separation of classifier and numeral by the enumerated noun and the allegedly non-permissible fusion of classifier and enumerated noun – simply resides in a fundamental difference in constituency relations pre-vailing in most Benue-Congo classifier constructions vis-à-vis the classifier constructions cited in Greenberg (1972), Allan (1977) and Aikhenvald (2000).



b. Type B (e.g. Busa: classifier mɛ “body” (Wedekind 1972: 167)): possessor + possessed head ↓ ↓ enumerated noun + classifier lí mɛ ààɡɔ� tree CL:body three “three trees” (lit. “three trees’ bodies”)

With respect to lexical source concepts, Niger-Congo numeral classifiers are found to originate in nouns for concrete objects such as body parts or in generic or basic level terms, most of which relate to the botanical domain. To a lesser extent con-cepts of aggregation and partition are exploited. Table 3 lists the most frequently found Niger-Congo numeral classifiers according to their lexical sources along with their semantic ranges and specified for their attestation in Niger-Congo.5

Generic or basic level concepts such as “person”, “people” and “thing” are used to classify human singulars vs. human plurals vs. inanimates, respectively.

Body part concepts are attested by numeral classifiers which are derived from body part nouns such as “eye”, “hand”, “head”, “finger”, “breast / udder”, “skin” and the noun for “body” itself. Among these, it is in particular the noun “eye” which stands out as the most frequent across languages from various branches of Niger-Congo. In most cases, it is expanded to refer to small globular objects such as grains, seeds, kernels and nuts. In some languages it is restricted to objects of organic origin. In others it is used for any object, irrespective of haptic criteria, constrained only by the notion of counter-expectual deficiency in number. The cognitive saliency of the model “eye” is strikingly highlighted by the fact that it has radiated beyond Benue-Congo languages of Cameroon into the most widespread vehicular language, Cameroonian Pidgin English, to express the concept of defi-ciency in number, e.g. in no one eye mosquito “not even a single mosquito”. The source concept “hand” is used for clusters of long objects or oblong parts of plants. While the body part noun “breast / udder” classifies bunches of objects which are recognizably subdivided into clusters, e.g. plantains and bananas, “finger” is used for classifying fruits of oblong shape which may occur in such clusters, e.g.

5. To a large extent, these models resemble the ones employed in the grammaticalisation of numeral classifiers world-wide (Aikhenvald 2000, 2006; Bisang 1999). However, it must be kept in mind that these generalisations are preliminary for two reasons. First, in most, if not all cases, the attested numeral classifiers need more accurate description in terms of their range of application. Second, more sophisticated etymological analyses combined with progress in low-level comparative work might unearth etymologies of classifiers which have not been included in this table either because the lexical source suggested has not been confirmed yet or because no lexical source has been given at all.


52 Roland Kießling

plantains and bananas, or which may occur separately, e.g. maize cobs and bean pods. The source concept “head” is attested as classifier for big globular fruits or round flat objects which might be classified by source nouns such as “skin” in other languages. The source concept “body” is used to refer to inanimate objects generally.

Botanical source concepts are manifest in numeral classifiers which are de-rived from generic botanical terms or nouns for parts of plants such as “grain”, “fruit”, “tree (trunk)”, “pod”, “leaf ”, “stick” and “palm kernel”. The concept “grain” is either employed for classifying individual units extracted from some organic aggregation or it may become expanded to all kinds of small objects of oblong or roundish shape in which case there may be functional overlap with the range of application of classifiers derived from the body part concept “eye”. Similarly, the concept “fruit” either remains restricted to the domain of fruits or undegoes a haptic generalisation in its application to objects of roundish shape or is addition-ally expanded by a functional generalisation of the offspring notion. The lexical

Table 3. Cognitive models of numeral classifiers in Niger-Congo

Lexical source of classifier

Semantic range of classifier and attestation

‘person’ human singulars (Busa, Toussian, Gban)

‘people’ human plurals (Busa, Toussian)

‘tree (trunk)’

wooden objects > vehicles of transportation (Kana); objects of oblong shape with a vertical orientation (Gban); trees (Ejagham)

‘fruit’ fruits (Denya); globular objects (Bafanji, Gban); globular objects or offspring (Kana)

‘grain’ individual units extracted from an organic aggregation (Ngiemboon, Kana); small objects of oblong or roundish shape, both animate or inanimate (Toussian)

‘thing’ inanimates (Toussian)

‘body’ inanimates (Busa)

‘eye’ small compact globular objects (Denya, Bali-Mungaka, Busa); spot- or dot-like objects (Kana); objects with curved shapes (Busa, Bali-Mungaka, Bafanji); measurements (Toussian); counter-expectual deficiency in number (Isu, Men)

‘hand’ long objects in a cluster (Isu); long parts of plants (Ngiemboon)

‘breast’ bunches of objects which are recognizably subdivided into clusters (Isu)

‘finger’ fruits of oblong shape (Denya)

‘skin’ flat objects (Kana)

‘bunch’ objects of bunch- or package-form (Kana); fruits which come in distinctive clusters (Denya)



source concept “tree” either classifies wooden objects in general, vehicles of trans-portation or objects of oblong shape with a vertical orientation.

Beside body part nouns and generic or basic level terms, classifiers are also found to be derived from terms for aggregational concepts such as “bunch”, “bun-dle”, “stock”, “heap” and “lump” on the one side and partitional concepts such as “bottom”, “part”, “piece of ” and “half ”.

3.2 Class-terms in Niger-Congo

Across Niger-Congo there is a preference for certain generic and basic level con-cepts such as “person”, “animal”, “tree”, “thing”, “water” and “fruit”, for body part concepts such as “eye”, “mouth” and “head” and for concepts of social functions such as “child”, “mother”, “father”, “chief ” and “owner” to be exploited in nominal composition for forming class-terms which often occupy an uneasy position be-tween lexicalisation and grammaticalisation.

Thus, in Bali-Mungaka, a Grassfields Bantu language from Cameroon (Tischhauser & Stöckle 1993), the noun ŋgàŋ “owner” is used to form compounds referring to human agents, patients or experiencers (4a), based on nouns which encode actions, states or qualities. While both nouns mâ “mother” and ndúm “husband” are used to form augmentatives (4b–c), the noun món “child” derives diminutives or nouns which denote young animates or small mobile parts in an ensemble (4d).

(4) Bali-Mungaka: concepts of social functions as recurrent heads in compounds

a. ŋgàŋ “owner” lɔŋ “laziness, idleness” ŋgàŋ-lɔŋ “sluggard” ŋkád “walk, journey” ŋgàŋ-ŋkád “traveller” dzáŋ “disease, sickness, pain” ŋgàŋ-dzáŋ “patient” ntsù “mouth” ŋgàŋ-ntsù “prattler” b. mâ “mother” ndìkàŋ “gun” mâ-ndìkàŋ “big gun, canon” ndâ ŋgɯ “sitting room” mâ-ndâ ŋgɯ “big house” c. ndúm “husband” tɯ “tree” ndúm-tɯ “big tree” nù “thing, matter, concern” ndúm-nù “main thing” nswén “elephant” ndúm-nswén “mighty elephant” d. món “child” líʔ “eye” mô-líʔ “pupil” tɔŋ “palate, throat, pharynx” mô-tɔŋ “larynx, uvula”


54 Roland Kießling

kéd “arrow, bow” mô-kéd “arrow point” mv “dog” mô-mv “puppy” mbáŋ “pot” mô-mbáŋ “small pot” kún “bed” mô-kún “small bed” lɯʔ “place” mô-mʊlɯʔ “tiniest spot”

Apart from nouns for social function, body part nouns such as líʔ “eye”, ntsù “mouth” and tú “head” are also used for classificatory purposes as initial heads in compounds. The noun líʔ “eye” denotes the notion of small aperture (5a), ntsù “mouth” expresses the concept of an edge or brim (5b), and tú “head” expresses the notion of the top (5c).

(5) Bali-Mungaka: body part nouns as recurrent heads in compounds a. líʔ “eye” > small aperture ndzàŋ “needle” líʔ-ndzàŋ “eye of needle” ntsì “liquid, water” líʔ-ntsì “spring, well” ŋká “raffia vinifera” líʔ-ŋká “tap-hole” ɲùm “sun” líʔ-ɲùm “ball of the sun” tsɯŋní “back, waist, bottom” líʔ-tsɯŋnì “anus” b. ntsù “mouth” > opening; edge, brim bàm “bag” ntsu-bàm “bag opening” kɔʔ “bridge” ntsu-kɔʔ “bridge entrance” ndáb “house” ntsu-ndáb “house entrance” ŋkɔŋdzíʔ “nose” ntsu-ŋkɔŋdzíʔ “nostril” c. tú “head” > top bó “arm” tú-bó “upper arm” ndáb “house” tú-ndáb “roofing of the house” ntsì “river” tú-ntsì “upper part of stream” sì “grave” tú-sì “mound of grave”

Further nouns which are used as recurrent heads in compounds are ntsì “water” and mbaŋ “fruit of oilpalm, stone of oilfruit”. While the first noun derives various concepts of liquids (6a), the latter one is predominantly used for specification of globular body parts (6b).

(6) Bali-Mungaka: other nouns which recurrently occur as heads in compounds a. ntsì “water” baŋ “red” ntsí-bàŋ “blood, race, family” lìba “extension, surface” ntsǐ-lìbà “sea, ocean” míʔ “eyes” ntsǐ-míʔ “tears” ntò “meat, relish, vegetables” ntsǐ-ntò “gravy”



b. mbaŋ “fruit of oilpalm” líʔ “eye” mbaŋ-líʔ “eyeball, sun” ntsàm “scrotum” mbaŋ-ntsàm “testicles” ntɯm “heart” mbaŋ-ntɯm “heart muscle” mùn “person” mbaŋ-mùn “embryo” kù “leg, foot” mbaŋ-ŋkù “foot muscle” ŋkòn ? mbaŋ-ŋkòn “kidneys”

The more individual languages utilize specific source nouns for these purposes, the more the original lexical item tends to undergo phonological and morphological reduction and to become grammaticalised as a derivational marker which pro-duces a classificatory effect in the lexicon without constituting a morphosyntactic system. In Bali-Mungaka, incipient grammaticalisation of this kind is reflected in two phenomena relating to compounds with the noun món “child”: (a) the source noun drops its terminal nasal consonant in compounds; (b) in pluralisation it is preferably the second part which is pluralized, e.g. in mô-míʔ (“child”-“eyes”) “pu-pils” (though the reverse, bón-líʔ (“children”-“eye”), also occurs), whereas in other cases it is clearly only the initial part which is pluralized, not the second one.

Table 4. Cognitive models of class-terms in Niger-Congo

Lexical source

Semantic range of class-term

‘person’ human singular, ethnonym, noun of agent, owner

‘people’ human plural, ethnonym, noun of agent

‘child’ young animate, diminutive, junior partner, small and mobile part in an ensemble

‘owner’ possessor

‘tree’ botanical item (tree, plant)

‘eye’ small globular object, object with small aperture

‘water’ liquid

‘thing’ inanimate, instrument, patient

‘animal’ non-human animate

‘mother’ augmentative

‘father’ owner, augmentative

‘husband’ augmentative

‘place’ locations

‘mouth’ object with prominent edge

‘head’ top side


56 Roland Kießling

Eventually class-terms such as these end up as classificatory pseudo-prefixes in “duplex noun stems” (Shimizu 1980: 106–113), i.e. hyponymic compounds such as Wapan-Jukun wi-jì “buffalo” (literally “animal-buffalo”), as “préformatifs nominaux”, e.g. in Mundang (Elders 2000: 127–140), or etymologically blurred elements in nouns which establish semantically intransparent “pseudo-classes”, e.g. in Hone (Storch 1999: 104, 108–111; 2004: 342–343) and Mumuye (Shimizu 1983: 85, 94, 223–224, 228, 240–241).

Table 4 lists the most widely attested Niger-Congo class-terms according to their lexical sources along with their semantic ranges.

With respect to the lexical origins of noun class systems, class-terms such as these may have developed from head nouns in compounds to derivative affixes and, eventually, to noun class / gender markers along the lines of what Claudi (1997: 72) identifies as the “derivation channel” of noun class genesis.

4. Towards a model of Niger-Congo noun class genesis

In a universal perspective, systems of nominal classification form a lexical-gram-matical continuum (Table 5) which spins out between the poles of more lexi-calised systems instantiated by class- and measure-terms on the one hand and fully grammaticalised systems represented by noun classes or genders on the other hand, with classifier systems as defined by Dixon (1986) and Aikhenvald (2000: 14ff.) ranging in a lexico-grammatical intermediary position (Grinevald & Seifart 2004: 261).

At the lexical end one finds class-terms, e.g. English berry in strawberry or raspberry or Bali-Mungaka mbaŋ “fruit of oilpalm” in mbaŋ-líʔ “eyeball; sun”, mbaŋ-ntsàm “testicles” and mbaŋ-ntɯm “heart muscle” (6b), and measure-terms such as pound in a pound of sugar, as instances of generic nouns, body part nouns, kinship terms, nouns referring to humans and higher animates, unit counters and nouns referring to culturally important items (Aikhenvald 2000: 353–373). All of these produce a classificatory effect without constituting a morphosyntac-tic system. This becomes different with classifiers which represent an incipient stage of grammaticalisation in that their occurrence is obligatorily triggered by morphosyntactic criteria such as the presence of numerals in noun phrases. As

Table 5. From lexical to grammatical systems of nominal classification

Lexical > Lexico-grammatical > Grammatical

class-terms measure-terms

classifiers noun classes / gender



soon as these classifiers come to be used anaphorically, they may give rise to con-cordial markers on syntactically dependent targets, e.g. demonstratives, posses-sives, numerals, and thus to gender, the markers tending to lose their syntactic independence and undergo phonological reduction.

Various Amazonian languages such as Miraña (Grinevald & Seifart 2004; Seifart 2005) present highly elaborate classifier systems in transition to more gram-maticalised noun class systems. A scenario of grammaticalisation from generic nouns in classifier constructions to noun class agreement markers on modifiers and verbs has been suggested for Proto-Australian (Aikhenvald 2000: 372). In an African perspective, the Ubangi language Zande presents a pronominal gender system which originates in the grammaticalisation of basic level lexical items or class-terms such as “person”, “male”, “animal” and “thing”, as Claudi (1985) sug-gests, and the Eastern Nilotic languages have developed a gender system from grammaticalised class-terms for concepts such as “girl, daughter” and “member” (Heine & Voßen 1983: 252–254; Heine & Claudi 1986; Heine 1988). Instances such as these confirm the validity of the lexical-grammatical continuum in Table 5 as a channel of grammaticalisation, as proposed by Grinevald & Seifart (2004: 261) and anticipated to various degrees by Bleek (1869), Klingenheben (1958), Heine (1988) and Claudi (1997): more lexicalised systems of nominal classification de-velop into fully grammaticalised noun class systems with classifier systems occu-pying a mid point in this continuum.

According to Tables 3 and 4, the most widely attested cognitive models under-lying both classifiers and class-terms in Niger-Congo pertain to material, shape and social function. They include the expression of categories such as human singular, human plural, phytomorphic, small globular shape, liquid, inanimate, non-human animate, diminutive and augmentative, which are transparently de-rived from nouns for basic level concepts such as “person”, “people”, “tree”, “fruit”, “water”, “thing”, “animal”, body part nouns such as “eye” and nouns for social functions such as “child”, “husband”, “mother” and “father”. Remarkably, these principles of organization are shared to a large extent by the semantic nuclei of the Niger-Congo noun class systems, e.g. the reconstructed contents of Proto-Bantu noun classes and genders, as is evident from the comparison in (Table 6).

These semantic parallels suggest that the same cognitive models which un-derlie the etymologically transparent numeral classifiers and class-terms of Niger-Congo must be held responsible for the innovation of the ancient Niger-Congo noun class markers and their concords at an earlier period. Even if their ulti-mate lexical sources have not been retrieved yet with the historical-comparative method, it is clear that the most probable candidates should be sought in lexical reconstructions for basic level concepts (“person”, “people”, “tree”, “fruit”, “water”,


58 Roland Kießling

“thing”, “animal”), body parts (“eye”) and social functions (“child”, “husband”, “mother”, “father”) for various higher branch levels within Niger-Congo.

In the initial stage of the entire path of grammaticalisation laid out in Ta-ble 7, these nouns must have been used as class- or measure terms (7a–b) in com-pounds or as head nouns in associative constructions. They gradually assumed the function of classifiers in that they came to categorise syntactically dependent modifier nouns for their semantic properties in terms of material, shape and so-cial function, especially in contexts which require referential individuation, e.g. in collocation with numerals. The basic motivation underlying this process seems to reside in the need to reinforce the noun’s referential potential, i.e. to make sure that “it refers to a concrete, discrete, manipulable, and important participant in discourse […] by emphasizing that the respective noun refers to a member of a certain generic group of rather basic-level concrete referents” (Claudi 1997: 70–71). In this way, the source nouns started to become grammaticalised as classifiers in restricted numeral classifier systems (7c) which gradually became expanded

Table 6. Cognitive models of numeral classifiers and class-terms in Niger-Congo compared to contents of Proto-Bantu noun classes and genders

Lexical source

Semantic range of classifier or class-term Corresponding Proto-Bantu noun class(es)

‘person’ human singular, ethnonym, noun of agent 1

‘people’ human plural, ethnonym, noun of agent 2

‘tree’ botanical item (tree, plant) 3/4

‘body’ inanimate ?

‘fruit’ globular object 5/6

‘eye’ small globular object, object with small aperture 5/6

‘water’ liquid 6(a)

‘thing’ inanimate 7/8

‘animal’ non-human animate 9/10

‘father’ owner, augmentative 11?

‘husband’ augmentative 11?

‘child’ young animate, diminutive, junior partner, small and mobile part in an ensemble

12, 19

‘mother’ augmentative 21?

‘mouth’ object with prominent edge ?

‘head’ top side ?

‘hand’ long objects in a cluster ?

‘lump’ object with curved surface ?



in lexical coverage (7d) and grammatical contexts (7e). With respect to lexical coverage, classifiers must have spread beyond initial core domains such as ani-mates, products from plants and round and oblong objects small enough to hold in hand. With respect to grammatical contexts, expansion of the classifiers could follow two paths: (i) noun phrase internal expansion from quantifying construc-tions to possessive and determiner constructions, (ii) expansion on the clause level beyond the noun phrase which would entail an anaphorical use of classifiers. While Niger-Congo numeral classifier systems found in Pana, Ngwe and Isu tes-tify to the second path of expansion, the first path has not been found so far.

In terms of cliticisation, there are two options for the classifiers: they could attach to the respective syntactic target, i.e. the numeral (7f), as attested in all Mande and Gur languages plus Ngwe, Ngiemboon and Yemba; or they could attach to the enumerated noun directly (7g), as attested in most Benue-Congo languages. In the course of the emergence of a full-fledged noun class system, the first option would pave the way towards the development of concordial agree-ment without overt class marking in nouns in the first line. A subsequent spread of agreement markers from quantifiers to determiners within the noun phrase would have paved the way towards further grammaticalisation along the lines of the Greenbergian model of acquisition of gender markers, i.e. syntactically in-dependent class-marked determiner elements (‘stage I articles’) undergo gram-maticalisation as affixes to the nominal root via formal erosion and functional reduction, ending up as noun class markers (‘stage III articles’) in an overt noun class system (Greenberg 1977: 103; 1978). The crucial point is that in order to ac-count for overt nominal class marking in nouns, there is no actual need to invoke this Greenbergian model of acquisition of gender markers via grammaticalisa-tion of semantically bleached determiners, since nominal class markers could as well have developed directly from prior classifiers which attached directly to the noun, before expanding their domain to dependent syntactic targets – which is actually what we find in most of the contemporary restricted numeral classifiers systems of Benue-Congo where the classifier forms a tighter unit with the classi-fied noun rather than with the numeral, following the second option of classifier fusion above.

A salient property of the classical Niger-Congo noun class system which re-mains to be explained diachronically in this model is its conflation of the notions of class and number in portmanteau-like class markers and their paradigmatic arrangment in singular-plural pairs or genders where the plural marker bears no formal relationship whatsover to the singular marker. In order to account for the formal difference of singular and plural class markers of the same gender, sev-eral paths of development are possible: (a) distinct singular-plural pairs of class markers might go back to stem suppletion in the number paradigm of the lexical


60 Roland Kießling

Tabl

e 7.

Pro

babl

e pa

ths o

f gra

mm

atic

alisa

tion

of th

e N

iger

-Con

go n

oun

clas

s sys

tem

with

in th

e le

xica

l-gra

mm

atic

al co

ntin

uum

of n

omin

al

clas

sifica

tion

(a)

clas

s-te

rms

(‘X-b

erry

’)

(b)

mea

sure

-ter

ms

(‘pou

nd o

f X’)

lexi

cal

(c)

sem

antic

ally

rest

ricte

d cl

assifi

er sy

stem

(<

bas

ic le

vel c

once

pts,

body

par

t nou

ns)

(f)

clas

sifier

atta

ches

to ta

rget

(n

um, p

oss,

dem

.):

conc

ordi

al a

gree

men

t with

out

over

t cla

ss m

arki

ng

(d)

expa

nsio

n of

lexi

cal

cove

rage

of c

lass

ifier

s

lexi

co-g

ram

mat

ical

gram

mat

ical

(e)

expa

nsio

n of

synt

actic

cont

exts

of

clas

sifier

s:

(i)

NP-

inte

rnal

: num

eral

> p

osse

ssiv

e, de

mon

stra

tive

(ii)

NP-

exte

rnal

: ana

phor

ical

use

(g)

clas

sifier

atta

ches

to

clas

sified

nou

n: o

vert

ly

mar

ked

noun

clas

ses

Gre

enbe

rgia

n gr

amm

atica

lisat

ion

of cl

ass m

arke

d de

term

iner

s



source items; (b) distinct plural class markers have been developed from different lexical sources after the grammaticalisation of the singular class markers had been completed; (c) a mixture of (a) and (b). With respect to (a), it is not uncommon to find stem suppletion in the number paradigm of nouns for basic level concepts across Niger-Congo, and – what is more important still – suppletion is attested in the lexical sources of some Niger-Congo numeral classifiers, e.g. in Busa gbɛ� “person” vs. gɔrɔn “people”, Toussian kpâ “thing” vs. yî “things” and Denya ɲɲì “eye” vs. àmɛ “eyes”. Since this suppletion is frequently inherited by the derived classifiers, it will neatly account for the morphological singular-plural distinc-tions which might eventually develop in the course of further grammaticalisation of these classifiers into noun class markers.

5. Conclusion

While some Niger-Congo languages restructure or renovate the classical noun class system by adding new classes or by changing marking strategies and while some others abandon it altogether, still others embark on the development of al-ternative nominal classifications such as numeral classifiers (3.1) and class-terms (3.2), either in replacement of the inherited noun class system or in addition to it. Since class-terms and classifiers represent diachronic predecessors to full-fledged noun class systems, the fairly transparent source concepts which underlie these embryonic systems of nominal classification also point to the ultimate lexical ori-gins of the ancient Niger-Congo noun class system. Moreover, the striking simi-larities they bear to the semantic nuclei of the classical Niger-Congo noun class system suggest that, semantically speaking, they replicate the initial stages of its genesis to a considerable extent, starting a new cycle of grammaticalisation which eventually produces a new generation of noun class systems, basically organized by the same cognitive models as the old one. Thus, semantic and morphosyntactic arguments suggest that the Niger-Congo noun class markers and their concords have their ultimate lexical origin in nouns for basic level concepts such as “per-son”, “people”, “animal”, “thing”, “tree”, “fruit”, and “water”, in nouns for body parts such as “eye” and for social functions such as “child”, “mother”, “father”, and “hus-band” which were used as head nouns in associative constructions or as class-terms in compounds. The next step to be taken towards a reconstruction of the early stages in the development of the ancient Niger-Congo noun class system is to look out for lexical reconstructions for precisely these basic level concepts for various higher branch levels within Niger-Congo, in order to be able to identify potential continuations of the assumed lexical sources of the class markers.


62 Roland Kießling

Abbreviations

Numbers in interlinear glossing refer to person when combined with number indicating glosses such as sg and pl. Otherwise they refer to noun classes following the Bleek/Meinhof conven-tions for Bantu (Katamba 2003).

cl classifierfoc focusn nounnum numeralof out-of-focus

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On the origin of Niger-Congo nominal classification

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