<研究論文>奇妙な複数形と文法的性としての名詞クラスについて - スワヒリ語の二つの地域変種における事例 -

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that the plural forms of some nouns which differ from forms accounted for in prescriptive grammars result from the merging of noun class (grammatical gender) 11 into class 3 in two varieties of Swahili: Kiunguja and Kikae. While Standard Swahili (SS), Kiunguja (KU) and Kikae (KK) are considered to have fifteen noun classes numbered from 1 to 11 and 15 to 18 (Nakajima 2000, Racine-Issa 2002), class 3 and class 11 cannot be distinguished in terms of agreement patterns, the criterion generally used in descriptive linguistics for noun classification (or using a different term, grammatical gender) (Hockett 1958, Fodor 1959, Greenberg 1978, Dixon 2010). In KU and KK, peculiar plural forms such as the following examples are observed. The singular forms in KU and KK are the same as those in SS, but the plural forms differ. e.g. SS: ufunguo ‘key (sg./cl.11)' : funguo ‘keys (pl./cl.10)'/ KU: ufunguo ‘key (sg./cl.11)' : mifunguo ‘keys (pl./cl.4)'/ KK: ufunguo ‘key (sg./cl.11)' : mifunguo ‘keys (pl./cl.4)'. Nurse & Hinnebusch (1993) state that the change of noun prefix in the singular forms from u (cl.11) to m? (cl.3) was the factor leading to the emergence of the peculiar plural forms on the ground of only one example in Shimaore, which is a closely related language to Swahili. However, in KU and KK , the peculiar plural forms have emerged without the change of noun prefix in singular form. Taking these facts into account, it is more plausible to consider that the merging of class 11 into class 3 directly resulted in the emergence of a new plural form belonging to class 4 of some class 11 nouns.