A Grammar of Mombo Songho Dialect

gédé-gédé‘clitoris’b. {HL}gé-gèhélé-hélèkúbú-kúbùɲé:-ɲè:sómélé-sómélètú:-tù:péré-pérè‘jaundice (disease)’‘Tuareg (person)’‘machete blade’‘griot who travels with Sekoudié holy men (caste)’‘rancidness (of meat)’‘magic spell’‘child’s toy rifle’c. {LH}gèlè-gélégùjù-gújúdègè-dégékàlà-kálákìjì-kíjísàgà-ságásì-síwènjè-wénjéwèlè-wélé‘broken pieces of seed spike or cob’‘Procavia ruficeps’‘statuette’‘Cassia Obtusifolia (plant)’‘bat’‘sauce (leaves of Amaranthus (?) spp, Bamana loan)’‘larva, worm’‘Ficus cordata (plant)’‘Apus affinis, little African swift’Cases like pôw-pôw ‘child's toy rifle’ are not included in the tonal classification dueto their clearly onomatopoeic origin. This sort of tonal peculiarity is hardly of anymorphological interest.In a few cases a vocalic variation is observed. All the examples are of CvCv-CvCvtype. Either the first or the second vowel of the stem can be a subject of variation. Theexamples known to me are those in (xxx).(xxx) múgú-mágùpújú-pá:jùyà:lè-yá:lákéndé-kéndú‘cooked groundnut’‘lung’‘whirlwind, twister’‘hard, firm (adverb)’In addition to vowel quality shift, pújú-pá:jù ‘lung’ is of interest for its variation inlength of the first syllable of iterated components.4.2.7 Frozen initial a- or aN- in nounsUnlike the northern Dogon languages Mombo doesn’t have many examples of“frozen” a- or aN- prefix, which probably reflects some common Dogon word29