The morphology of Shilluk transitive verbs

Abstract

This paper offers a descriptive analysis of the morphology of transitive verbs in Shilluk. Shilluk is a language in which stem-internal changes, many of them suprasegmental in nature, play an important role in the morphology, alongside affixal markers. In particular, tone, vowel length, Advanced Tongue Root (ATR), vowel height, and the stem-final consonant are involved in the morphological marking of a range inflections, expressing tense-aspect-modality, valency changes, agreement, and focus. The paper lays out the inflectional marking of these operations, for each of seven classes that can be distinguished among transitive verbs. In this way, the study extends our understanding of stem-internal morphology and its development in West Nilotic languages.

Ternary vowel length in Shilluk

“…This derivation is marked by a package of stem-internal markers: quantity alternation, vowel raising and a change of coda /l r/ to /t/ (cf. Remijsen et al 2016). The antipassives of the three verbs in (5) are /á-ŋùt/, /á-c±ʌʌm/ and /á-lèeeŋ/ respectively.…”

“…Remijsen et al . 2016). The antipassives of the three verbs in (5) are /á-ŋùt/, /á-cʌ̀ʌʌm/ and /á-lèeeŋ/ respectively.…”

“…Vowel shortening is regularly found in other morphological operations on transitive verbs as well, such as the derivations for benefactive and iterative (Remijsen et al . 2016). For example, long-with-grade /mâat̪/ has a short stem vowel in both – the past tense object voice form of the iterative derivation is /á-mát̪-ɪ̀/, and the past tense object voice form of the benefactive derivation is /á-m∞t̪-ɪ̀/.…”