Open AccessA typological overview of Eegimaa (Jóola Banjal)
Author(s) -
Serge Sagna
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
studies in african linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.178
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 2154-428X
pISSN - 0039-3533
DOI - 10.32473/sal.v48i1.114928
Subject(s) - linguistics , noun , prefix , plural , suffix , categorization , vowel harmony , morphophonology , computer science , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , phonology , philosophy
This paper presents some of the most prominent properties of Eegimaa, a Jóola/Diola2 language spoken in the Basse-Casamance (Southern Senegal). The phonological features examined include [ATR] vowel harmony, backness harmony, lenition, and Eegimaa’s typologically unusual geminate consonants. Most of the paper, however, focuses on Eegimaa morphology. My analysis of the noun class system separates morphological classes from agreement classes (genders), and presents the most important principles of semantic categorization, including shape encoding. I also show that Eegimaa classifies nouns and verbs by the same overt linguistic means, namely, noun class prefixes. I argue that this overt classification of nouns and verbs reflects parallel semantic categorization of entities and events. Other prominent typological features include associative plural marking and nominal TAM marking with the inactualis suffix, which also expresses alienability contrasts.