A Grammar of Miya - UCLA Department of Linguistics

192 A Grammar of Miya
Two kin terms (both borrowed from Hausa)5 and a few animal names may be
masculine or feminine depending on the gender of the referent:
k3aka
jfyka
zMab
dl;\nt;\
gManzakway
'grandparent'
'grandchild'
'donkey'
'lion(ness)'
'hyena'
Most nouns with human referents, other than those listed above, and a number of
prominent animals are marked for gender with separate words dzaha "male" or dzaku
"female". The tone on these words is usually L, though in a few cases the tone is
inexplicably H. The list below is exhaustive for my materials. I have also included the
plurals, which are not predictable. Some of these roots have no special plural marking,
some have a morphologically marked plural, and some use the word ghanaw "plural"
parallel to the gender marking words duha and dzaku.
Masculine Feminine Plural
angwiy dz::'hg angwiy dzaku angwiy gh,maw 'twines)'
b3akoo dz;\hg baakoo dzaku b3akoo!baa'iy 'guest, stranger'
barbajf dzohg barbajf dzaku barbajf 'Fulani person'
d::'bakoo dzghg d::'bakoo dzaku dgbakoo 'blind person'
gajal dz::'hg gajal dzaku gajal gh::'naw 'short person'
ghluw dzohg galuw dzaku ghluw ghOnaw 'slave'
gharahaw dzghg gharahaw dzaku gharahaw 'old person'
gwardzoho gwar dzaku gwar ghonaw 'divorced person'
? klliuilwa dzaku ? 'prostitute'
kay dzohg kay dzaku kay ghgnaw 'orphan'
klirrna dzoho klirmadzaku kurrnamaw 'deaf person'
m::'zan dzghg ? mazamaw 'shooter, hunter'
maron dzoho marondzaku mararnaw 'sorcerer'
mlydzghg miydzaku meemeeniy 'Miya person'
t::'gwar dzoho t::'gwar dzaku tggwaraw 'leper'
wiyaMn dzoho wiyahon dzaku wiya soM 'Rausa person'
duwako dzoho duwako dzaku duwakakiiw 'horse'
gumbo dzoho gumbodzaku gUmbo ghonaw 'roan antelope'
mir dzohg mfrdzaku mfr ghoniiw 'tantalus monkey'
tembfr dzoho tembfr dzaku tembfr ghonaw 'gazelle'
Animals other than those listed above have lexically assigned grammatical gender, e.g.
5Though 'grandparent' and 'grandchild' seem like basic kin terms not readily borrowed, the non-native
(almost certainly Hausa) origin for these words is clear not only from their identity to the Hausa terms but
also from the fact that they end in -a, a final vowel not found in native Miya words (§2.1).
8. Personal Pronouns, Nouns, and Adjectives (§2) 193
Masculine
Feminine
bolonkay
derwetli
liiaho
zhiizhoko
mbolam
gwag11m
'baboon'
'leopard'
'jackal'
'porcupine'
'crowned crane'
'dove'
andazhi
giizam
k::'von
yawun
agar
dzaboraku
'hippopotamus'
'cat'
'buffalo'
'elephant'
'Ruppell's griffin'
'guinea fowl'
2.3. Plurals
2.3.1. Regular plural formation. Miya has a regular morphological pattern for
fonning plurals which can potentially be used with any noun which does not have one of
the unproductive plural types (see the list of masculine/feminine/plural sets above and
§2.3.2 below). The regular pattern reduplicates the final consonant, preceded by -a- and
followed by -aw, resulting in a termination -Cra-Craw. I will refer to the penultimate
syllable (-C",) as the "reduplicant syllable" and the final syllable (-C",w) as the "plural
suffix". Tones of plurals are predictable from the singular according to the formulae
below. Note that unless otherwise stated, the tones in formulae for deriving plurals are the
underlying tones, but the illustrative nouns are given with their isolation citation tone
patterns, i.e. with the following tone rules applied (see 3:§3.! for discussion of the major
tonal rules of Miya):
DEFAULTH: A phrase initial Toneless domain takes H (Toneless domains elsewhere copy
the preceding tone).
INIT1AL H LOWERING: A phrase initial H is lowered to L (but H is (downstepped) H
elsewhere, i.e. after a L or another H).
The effect of INITIAL H LOWERING is that in citation form, underlying initial Land H in
both singulars and plurals of nouns are neutralized to L. 6
In the formulae below, C r = root final consonant, T = any possible tone (cf. tonal
restrictions summarized in §2.l):
CVC(.) nouns
plural
i.e. associate the root tone with the reduplicant syllable and associate H with the plural
suffix. As noted in §2.1, Toneless and H are the only existing tone patterns for CVC(a)
roots.
6Thus, vlyayuwawGw 'fireplaces', with initial L in citation form (from viyayuw 'fireplace'), changes in the
phrase ndkan vfyayliwawQ:w 'these fireplaces', with downstepped H after the H demonstrative because of the
underlying initial H which is lowered by INITIAL H LOWERING in the citation fann (3:§3.1). On the other
hand, nduwuldlilw 'pots' (from nduwul 'pot'), with underlying initial L, retains L in ndkan nduwuldlilw
'these pots' .