Difference between revisions of "Lingala/Grammar"

Revision as of 21:47, 2 February 2017

This page documents the morphologically interesting components of Lingala grammar.

Parts of Speech

Lingala parts of speech follow fairly closely to the parts of speech found in English.

Noun

Perhaps the simplest of the parts of speech is noun, which, as in English, describes a person, place, or thing. Lingala divides nouns into subcategory on the basis of class, of which there are 13. Case is not encoded in the morphology, and number is typically captured by the class system. Class is determined by affixing a prefix to the radical. The classes come in pairs, one representing the singular version of the noun and the other the plural (class 6 pairs with both class 5 and class 11 singular nouns, hence the odd number of classes). Classes generally represent a loose categorical structure on the basis of animacy. Nouns are specified by tag <n>. Individual classes do not have compatible tags, but singular and plural can be distinguished within a class pair using <sg> and <pl>.

For example:

• moto<n><sg> ↔ moto (class 1, here moto is taken to be the "base" form)
• moto<n><pl> ↔ boto (class 2)
• moyíbi<n><sg> ↔ moyíbi (class 3, here moyíbi is taken to be the "base" form)
• moyíbi<n><pl> ↔ miyíbi (class 4)

Adjective

Lingala has a limited number of adjectives (used as in English to describe nouns), specified by tag <adj>. A small number of adjectives are considered "variable" and must agree in number with the noun they describe, which can be specified using <sg> and <pl>. Other adjectives are invariable and have no morphology. Actually, adjectives play a pretty minimal role in Lingala, which instead uses the idea of a connective to to link words together. For example, to describe something a virtuous, you add "ya bosémbo" after the noun. "ya" is the connective, and "bosémbo" is the noun for "virtue."

Nevertheless, examples of adjectives include:

• monéne<adj><sg> ↔ monéne
• monéne<adj><pl> ↔ minéne
• molaí<adj><pl> ↔ milaí
• malámu<adj> ↔ malámu (this is an invariable adjective)

Pronoun

Lingala contains personal (e.g. I, he), demonstrative (e.g. this, those), possessive (e.g. my, his), interrogative (e.g. which, what), and relative pronouns (e.g. who, that). These can be denoted using the tag <prn>. Each pronoun type admits different subtypes. None make distinction for case or gender (class).

Personal pronouns can be distinguished by number (<sg> or <pl>), person (<p1> or <p2> or <p3>), and animacy (<aa> or <nn>). For example,

• ngáí<prn><sg><p1><aa> ↔ ngáí
• ngáí<prn><pl><p3><nn> ↔ yangó

Demonstrative pronouns are invariable and do not have any subtypes.

Possessive pronouns have all of the same subtypes and tags as personal pronouns. Indeed, the words themselves are the same except that the word "na" comes immediately before the personal pronoun.

Interrogative pronouns have subtypes determined by number (<sg> or <pl>), animacy (<aa> or <nn>), and specificity (no corresponding tag). For example,

• náni<prn><sg><aa> ↔ náni
• náni<prn><sg><nn> ↔ níni

Relative pronouns (actually, pronoun, there is only one) are invariable and have no subtypes.

Adverb

Adverbs, denoted using <adv> are invariable and do not have subtypes. They must be learned. Adjectives and nouns can be used as adverbs, but there is no particular morphology. For example, kitóko can function as both an adjective (beautiful) or an adverb (nicely), but this determination is made from context alone.

Preposition

Lingala has a single preposition, na, which can use the tag <pr>. This can be used to convey the meaning of any English pronoun, and it is determined by context how it should be understood. Alternatively, nouns can be joined by use of the "ya" connective (as described in the adjective section) to use preposition with a noun.

Verb

Verbs (<v>) are the most complex part of speech in Lingala. It admits a number of subtypes on the basis of number (<sg> or <pl>), person (<p1> or <p2> or <p3>), animacy (<aa> or <nn>), reflexivity (no tag), mood (<inf> for infinitive, indicative (multiple tags depending on tense), <imp> for imperative, subjunctive (multiple tags depending on tense)), and tense-aspect-modality (TAM). TAM categories include: the future (<fti> or <fts>), the present (<pres>), the present grounded in a distant past, the unrelated recent past, the unrelated distant past, the present continuous, the future continuous, the recent-past continuous, the distant-past continuous, the habitual, and the intensifying suffixes (no tags for those that have none listed parenthetically). This is a very complex system and one that is explained in more detail with an emphasis on morphology further down this page.

Some examples of verbs, using the infinitive as the base form, include: