Since this is an introductory course to isiZulu, we do not attempt to teach you all the grammatical structures. 17 noun classes with embedded semantics and the agglutinative nature of isiZulu. Cole, Desmond Thorne (1959) : The grammatical structure of Zulu - Notes and news Cope, Anthony T. (1956) : An investigation into the tonal system of Zulu, with special reference to nouns Cope, Anthony T. (1957) : The grammatical structure of Zulu 1st person 2nd person 3rd person Class abantu according action adjectival adverbs agreement applied becomes cattle causative chief Class clicks commencing compound concord conjunctive consonant construction contains Continuous contracted copulatives definite demonstrative derived diminutive employed ending English Examples express father formation full form future horse ideophones … Nouns. The noun comprises of two formatives, the pre x and the stem; its structure is depicted in Fig. It is seen that the adjectival stems in isiZulu are very few. ‘the book of the student’) and relative verbs (e.g. Iziphawulo. Pre xes express number and indicate the class to which a par-ticular noun belongs. are suffixed and to which morphemes that encode negation (NEG), subject marker (SM) and object marker (OM) that cross-reference noun phrases (NPs), tense/aspect, modality, etc. It is one of the Nguni languages, related to Xhosa, SiSwati and Ndebele. Sesotho sa Lebowa. Conversion is the process in which a word of one grammatical form converts into a word of another grammatical form without any changes to pronunciation or spelling. The Course Structure The structure of isiZulu course was arranged into thematic units (for example, umndeni (family), ikhaya (home), isikole (school) iNyuvesi (the university), and so on), which followed a similar format. Also included is a list of vocabulary about jobs and finally some common phrases. Tswa. A proper noun is a noun that refers to a specific person, place, or thing (Lady Gaga, Monongahela River, and iPad). The basic structure of a noun is: Preprefix+ true prefix + root (stem + suffix) It refers to the mental system involved in word formation or the branch of linguistics that deals with words, their internal structure, and how they are formed. Morphology plays a pivotal role in our understanding of the nature of language. Amabizomuntu . IsiXhosa: Amakhwenkwe ayithanda kakhulu ibhhola ekhatywayo. Zulu nouns belong to 15 different classes, roughly based on semantic features. ... Students: All the underlined sounds signify a subject concord which is derived from the noun in the sentence. Our present study seeks to look at one component of the lexicon: the comprehension and production of the nouns and predicate categories of words in isiZulu. New Zulu data challenge the idea of reified domains like the D(erivational)-Stem and Macrostem as relevant constituents for reduplication (Downing 1997, Hyman, Inkelas, and Sibanda 2009). This second article in the series helps you understand the process. The prefixed morphemes differ from suffixed extensions in both form and function. Formally the suffixes have a -VC- structure, as opposed to the regular CV syllable structure. ‘the tall man’), possessives (e.g. Google the noun has created a new word, google the verb. IsiZulu. The paper argues that although compounding of possessive pronouns with their co-referent nouns is not a peculiar feature of isiZulu and isiNdebele, it is restricted to certain formatives. In isiZulu the forms are very predictable, with suffixes of the form aCa generally changing to eCe (aCa + ile ⇒; aiCe ⇒; eCe). Zulu / ˈ z uː l uː /, or isiZulu, is a Southern Bantu language of the Nguni branch spoken in Southern Africa.It is the language of the Zulu people, with about 12 million native speakers, who primarily inhabit the province of KwaZulu-Natal of South Africa.Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa (24% of the population), and it is understood by over 50% of its population. This 11th lesson teaches an important part of speech aspect in Zulu which is the noun. The verbalization of basic constructs requires merging a pre- x with a noun and distinguishing an ‘and’ between a list and linking clauses. Venda group. Classification. In general, a pronoun can be used instead of a noun. Setswana. The Nguni language structure is based on a system of noun classes and a system of concords. The language isiZulu is widely spoken in all over South Africa. Therefore, although structures such as the formation of adjectives (e.g. Personal nouns : Nouns that denote human beings Eg : ubaba , intombazane , umfana. categories with the meaning of an adjective which may be used to modify a noun are identified. SiSwati. morphological structure. IsiZulu language is noun-cluster or class specific, yet English is not. IsiZulu: Umama upheke uphuthu izolo ntambama. There are features that allow for morphological and phonological changes, while others do not. Either a word that can be used to refer to a person, animal, place, thing, phenomenon, substance, quality or idea, or a word that modifies or describes a previous word or its referent; a substantive or adjective, sometimes also including other parts of speech such as numeral or pronoun. A pre x can be characterized as full or incomplete. Morphological and Phonological Structure in Zulu Reduplication Abstract This dissertation provides an account of Zulu reduplication within the derivational framework of Distributed Morphology (DM). Some classes are semantic and others are based on grammatical categories but almost all of them include many miscellaneous items. Not all noun classes can be easily defined. Borrowed nouns : Nouns which are borrowed from other languages such as English and Afrikaans Eg : itiye , ubanana , itafula. Tsonga group. All members of a given class share the same prefix. The rich agglutinating morphological structure which characterizes isiZulu and other Bantu languages is based on two principles, namely the nominal classification system, and the concordial agreement system. are prefixed. There is no gender distinction. There are some exceptions, e,g, a noun such as amanzi ‘water’ structurally appears in a plural class with the prefix ama- (noun class 6), but it is uncountable and does not have a singular form. Tonga. ... contrast, the structure of the noun class prefix is the same as that of the noun class prefixes in the other Tekela languages such as siSwati. Loan words classification in isiZulu: The need for a sociolinguistics approach I will try to give examples using both vocabulary and grammar. That way it will be easy for you to see the words when they are separate and when they are in a sentence. We rather try to apply the principle ‘learn a little, use it a lot’. (1) The concord system in the African languages is largely based on the nouns found in the languages. Syllabus coverage becomes impossible if learners have no background in the language. Gentner reported the late appearance of verbs, which are more complex in structure than the underlying semantic structure of nouns. There are classes for human beings, animals, plants, objects of various shapes, etc. Sotho group. O’Grady ( 1987 ) pointed out that nouns are used as ‘arguments’ or ‘primaries’ that refer to entities or a class of entities, whereas verbs and adjectives are often used as predicates or ‘secondaries’ (Caselli et al ., 1995 , p. 162). basic morphosyntactic structures of their languages such as relative clauses, the passive construction and other complex forms (Bates & Goodman, 1997; Demuth, 2003). Besides the classification of nouns and pronouns (usobizo), isiZulu also looks into tenses, adjectives, adverbs and other linguistic aspects. There are features that allow for morphological and phonological changes, while others do not. Functionally, the verbal extensions affect the argument structure (Mchombo 2007: 203). which is applicable to isiZulu, as included in Table 1. In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns.A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional.Some authors use the term "grammatical gender" as a synonym of "noun class", but others consider these different concepts. noun translation in English-Zulu dictionary. The isiZulu verbal morphology typically comprise of a verb root (VR) to which extensions such as the causative, applicative, reciprocal, passive etc. In my discussion, I highlight aspects of • noun class system: the most distinctive morphological feature of Zulu, as of all Bantu languages, is the grouping of nouns in different classes, marked by a prefix. Each class has a different set of prefixes for marking … It would be ideal for a learner who chooses the subject to have a good primary school foundation. The themes provided a framework in which various interactions could be identified. 1. In Southern Ndebele, as in most other Nguni languages such as isiZulu and isiXhosa, all noun class prefixes comprise two formatives. IsiXhosa. For example instead of saying my teacher speaks 3 languages, you can use the pronoun he, and say he speaks 3 languages. As a rule, the tonal structure of the class prefix has a /HH sequence of tones. The need of the adjective is therefore also supplied by other categories such as the nominal relative, the copUlative with na, the copulative with NP, the stative verb and the descriptive possessive. THE STRUCTURE OF THE PRIMARY NOUN Zulu primary nouns are made up of a regular morphological and tonal structure. In isiZulu, blending plays a major role in building terminology, particularly noun concepts. Southern Sotho. The paper argues that although compounding of possessive pronouns with their co-referent nouns is not a peculiar feature of isiZulu and isiNdebele, it is restricted to certain formatives. Nouns and predicates Up to class 10 singular and plural noun classes are regularly paired, with uneven-numbered classes usually containing singular nouns and the even-numbered classes containing plural nouns. The isiZulu noun class pre xes, based on Mein-ho (1948), are mostly coupled in terms of singular/plural, and the classes are listed in Table 1. The class prefix has a VCV combination of phones, whereas the stem mainly has a CV combination. Ronga. IsiNdebele. They have a disyllabic class prefix and a monosyllabic or polysyllabic stem. According to the nominal classification system, nouns are categorized by prefixal morphemes. In order to help those who are willing to learn Nguni language, lessons have been prepared; and the following lessons are specifically based on Zulu language. 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