Semantic and morphophonological productivity of Kîîtharaka gender system

Abstract

In nominal classification systems, both form (i.e., morphology, phonology or both) and meaning often interact to determine the class or gender of the noun. In Bantu languages in particular, linguistic analysis has often put the emphasis on meaning, both inherent and evaluative (e.g., diminutive). However, recent quantitative studies have argued that both meaning and morphophonology — the ubiquitous nominal prefixes — serve as cues to class in Bantu, with their robustness and specific aspects potentially differing across individual languages. Here, we conducted an experimental study aimed at establishing whether speakers of Kîîtharaka (Bantu, E54) are sensitive to both semantics and morphophonology when classify- ing novel Kîîtharaka nouns. The results of two wug-task-style experiments show that speakers are sensitive to two inherent features Human and Fruit, and evaluative features like Augmentative, Pejorative and Diminutive. On the other hand, they are robustly sensitive to all morphophonological features tested when classifying novel nouns. Our results suggest that se- mantic features are generally less productive than morphophonology in the Kîîtharaka nominal classification system.