0.0. Symbols and Explanations

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KINYARWANDA SPELL CHECKER. ALPHA DROP by Alexandre Kimenyi. 0.0. Symbols and Explanations. S= sentence cl= clause mcl= main clause.
KINYARWANDA SPELL CHECKER ALPHA DROP by Alexandre Kimenyi

0.0. Symbols and Explanations

S= sentence cl= clause mcl= main clause scl= subordinate clause NP= noun phrase VP= verb phrase N= noun CN= compound noun DN= deverbal noun (noun derived from a verb) V= verb DNV= denominal verb (verb derived from a noun) AUX= auxiliary verb AU= augment PFX= prefix PPFX= preprefix SFX= suffix PSFX= post suffix Tn= tone T= tense PST= past tense FUT= future tense TAM= tense-aspect-modality ASP= aspect PA= perfective aspect IA= imperfective aspect PR= pronoun OP= object pronoun CM= class marker IDO= ideophone ITJ= interjection RED= reduplication APPL= applicative PASS= passive CAUS= causative ASS= associative REC= reciprocal ADJ= adjective ADV= adverb DEM= demonstrative POSS= possessive var.= lexical or phonetic variation

lw= loan-word all classes= can take the class marker of all noun classes *= incorrect form 0= a default zero morpheme given to some words class 5i , 9i and 10i which have lost it.or certain tenses such as as the habitual. / /= morphological or underlying representation [ ]= phonetic representation (how the word should be pronounced) ( )= optional morphological elements >= changes into 1a= noun of class 1 lacking the augment u2a= noun of class 2 lacking the augment a- and take ba instead 5i= noun of class 5 without the class marker –ri9a= noun of class 9 lacking the augment (preprefix) i9i= noun of clas 9 lacking the class marker, the nasal -n10a= noun of class 10 lack augment and take za in its place

0.1. Introduction Kinyarwanda is the national language of Rwanda and is a sister dialect of Kirundi, the national language of Burundi. Linguistically speaking, these are indeed dialects of the same language as in the case of American English and British English since there is total intelligibility between their respective speakers. Together with another dialect known as Giha spoken in Tanzania, it is the second largest language cluster after Kiswahili within the Bantu language group. Despite genocide which took place taking lives of more than one million Tutsi, its speakers are perhaps more than 20 million people. Rwanda has around 8,5 million people right now, Burundi has around 7 million but besides the Giha speakers there are also ethnic Banyarwanda in Southern Uganda in the Kigezi discrict known as Bafumbira. Other Kinyarwanda speakers are Banyamulenge in Southern Kivu and ethnic Banyarwanda in Masisi and Rutshuro in Northern Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kinyarwanda is also spoken in Tanzania, in Karagwe region which was a kingdom of Kinyarwanda speaking people before colonialsim. Kinyarwanda belongs to the interlacustrine (Great Lakes) Bantu languages. Kinyarwanda has an official orthography. Although, both short and long vowels are phonemic and are realized at the phonetic level, only short vowels are used which creates a lot of homonyms (homographs). Thus the word kuvura can stand for either [kuvura] ‘to foam’ or [kuvuura] ‘to cure/to heal’ The language also has tones but the orthography does not mark them either. Without

a proper context, it will not be easy to tell if a word like ino stands for [ino] ‘toe’ or [inó] ‘here’. Kinyarwanda has one ethnic dialect, the Gitwa which is characterized by the anticipation of tone and two distinct regional dialects, the northern dialect known as Igikiga and the southern dialect known as Ikinyanduga. These two main dialects have in turn subdialects (Ikigoyi, Igishiru, Ikirera) .

Kinyarwanda is an agglutinative language having a handful of items which are free morphemes. Nouns and verbs get their full phonetic shape depending on the function they play in the sentence stucture., thus having to have prefixes or suffixes added. For instance the number of extensions on the verb stem depends on how many noun complements the verb has. The verb morphology and the word order of these morphemes seems also to be a mirror image of the sentence structure.

Simple nouns consist of an augment, a class marker and a stem. Simple nouns don’t use suffixation that much. Only deverbal nouns do.

Kinyarwanda and other Bantu languages have few adjectives. Associative morphemes or relative clause constructions are used to modify the head noun. Unclassified categories are interjections, exclamations and ideophones. Function words such as prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries seem to not exist in Kinyarwanda. It is the structure which determines where a word is a regular word or a function word. Thus nouns can function as prepositions when they occur before other nouns can occur and verbs as conjunctions or auxiliaries when they occur before other verbs also. Phonological rules affecting vowels are vowel deletion, vowel lengthening, vowel shortening, vowel coalescence, gliding, vowel harmony, vowel copy and vowel insertion. Those affecting consonants are consonant deletion, consonant addition, consonant assimilation, Dahl’s law, palatal fricative harmony, Noun tones can occur on any syllable or mora except class markers. In verb they are assigned differently. They occur ever in the prestem position, first mora of the first syllable of the stem or the first mora of the stem second syllable. Other

domains are extraprosodic. No tone activity can take place there. The tone rules found in the language are Meeussen rule or Beat Deletion (deletion of the second tone on the right), Beat Addition (secondary tone assignment), Beat Movement (high tone spread), Weak Beat Alternation, Iambic Reversal. The following list of Kinyarwanda words is found in the majority of Bantu languages with sometimes slight phonetic differences due to known universal phonological rules and phonetic factors. These lexical items are associated with universal phenomena or referents in the shared Bantu cultural experiences. Verbs: kubara 'to count' , kubona 'to see', kubora 'to rot', kubyara 'to give birth', kubyina 'to dance', kubumba 'to mould', guha 'to give', guhita 'to pass', kugura 'to buy', gukura 'to grow', kuroga 'to poison', kuruma 'to bite', kubora 'to rot', kugenda 'to leave', gutuka 'to insult', kunywa 'to drink', kurya 'to eat', gupfa 'to die', kugwa 'to fall', kunnya 'to defecate', gucya 'to dawn', kurara 'to spend the night', kurota 'to dream', -ti 'to say', kurira 'to cry', kugona 'to snore', kwita 'to name', gukubita 'to hit', kurima 'to toil', kurinda 'to guard', kuririimba 'to sing', guseka 'to smile/laugh', gushyika 'to arrive', gutema 'to cut', gutuma 'to send', kuza 'to come' Nouns: Humans: uuuntu 'person'; umupfumu 'diviner'; umuganga 'medicineman'; umugeni 'bride'; umwana 'child'; umwari 'well behaved marriable girl'; umuzungu 'white person'. Body parts: ibere 'breast', umutwe 'head', ugutwi 'ear', ijisho 'eye', iryinyo 'tooth', umunwa 'mouth', ururimi 'tongue', rugongo 'clitoris', umugongo 'back', ukuboko 'arm', itako 'thigh', itama 'cheek', imboro 'penis', ubwonko 'brain' Animals: imbwa 'dog', inkoko 'chicken', inkware 'partridge', umubu 'mosquito', inzoka 'snake', impyisi 'hyena' imbogo 'buffalo', imvubu 'hippo', ingona 'crocodile', ingwe 'leopard', ingurube 'pig', inkanga 'guinea-fowl', umuswa 'termite', inzuki 'bees'.

Others: inzara 'hunger', inyota 'thirst', isoni 'shame/shyness', inyumba 'large house', ibuye 'stone', inyanja 'lake', imbeho 'cold/wind', imvura 'rain', igiti 'tree', inyama 'meat', imboga 'vegetables', indurú 'war cry', ijuru 'sky', izuba 'sun', ukwezi 'moon/month', umwaka 'crop/year', amazi 'water', ingabo 'shield', inyundo 'hammer', ingoma 'drum', icumu 'spear', isi 'earth', umwotsi 'smoke', umuriro 'fire', Adjectives: -inshi 'many/much/a lot'; -ese/-ose 'all/every', -shya 'new'; -re-re 'long/tall/deep'; -kuru 'old/important'; -bi 'bad'; -zima 'alive/healthy'; Numbers: -mwe 'one'; -biri 'two'; -tatu 'three'; -ne 'four'; -tanu 'six'; -nani eight’; icumi 'ten'. A large number of words which have cognates in a larger number of Bantu languages are either monosyllabic or have lost the initial consonant.

3. Part of Speech. Kinyarwanda has the following parts of speech : nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, subordinators, ideophones and interjections. Each part of speech has its formal charatertics. 3.A1. Noun The noun in Kinyarwanda consists of a stem, a prefix and a preprefix or augment. This preprefix which is realized as a vowel, seems to be a copy of the prefix vowel. These prefixes are also known in Bantu as class markers. 3.1.1. Noun Morphology. There two types of nouns in Kinyarwanda, nominal nouns and deverbal nouns (DN), derived from verbs. A regular Kinyarwanda noun consists of a preprefix (PPX) or augment (AU), a class marker (CM) and a stem. A deverbal noun consists of a preprefix or augment also, a class marker, a verb, an optiional lexical extention (LE), an optional grammatical extention (GE) and a nominalizer (NR), as the following examples show. NN = Au-CM-Stem. -gabo, 1 ‘man’ u-mu-gabo >umugabo -enda, 4 ‘clothes’ i-mi-enda>imyenda -aha, 15 ‘armpit’ u-ku-aha> ukwaha DN= Au-CM-Verb Stem-(LE)-(GE)-NR -kino, 3 ‘game’ u-mu-kin-o umukino AU-CM3-play-NR -funguzo,11 ‘key’ u-ru-fung-ur-y-o urufunguzo AU-CM11-open-LE-GE-NR -terano, 9 ‘meeting’ i-ter-an-ir-o iteraniro AU-cause-LE-GE-NR -kinisho, 7 ‘toy’ i-ki-kin-ish-o igikinisho AU-CM7-play-GE-NR

The most productive morpheme which can be added to the verb stem to create new words are the class 5 augment i- which precedes the verb stem to short action or state, the nominalizer –yi, and the suffix –ire which is always accompanied with the augment and class marker of class 4 to show manners. i-a -kor- ‘work’ ikora ‘working’ -som- ‘read’ isoma ‘reading’ -ib- ‘steal’ iyiba ‘stealing’ -yi -kor- ‘work’ umukozi ‘worker’ -som- ‘read’ umusomyi ‘reader’ -ib- ‘steal’ umwibyi ‘thief’ -ire -kor- ‘work’ imikorere ‘ways of working’ -som- ‘read’ imisomere ‘ways of reading’ -ib- ‘steal’ imyibire ‘ways of stealing’ 3.1.2. Noun Classes. Kinyarwanda has 16 classes. Modifiers (adjectives, demonstratives, numerals, possessives) agree with the head noun by taking this class marker. In some cases, however, the modifier takes a different type of prefix depending on whether it is an adjective, a verb, an object pronoun , a quantifier or a possessive as illustrated in (1). The numbers 1-16 correspond to traditional conventional Bantu noun classification.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Noun

adjective subject pronoun object pronoun demonstrative possessive

u-mua-bau-mui-mii-ria-mai-ki-

mubamumirimaki-

abauiriaki-

-mu-ba-wu-yi-ri-ya-ki-

ubauiriaki-

ubauiriaki-

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

i-bi i-ni-nu-rua-kau-tuu-buu-kua-ha-

binnrukatubukuha-

biizirukatubukuha-

-bi-yi-zi-ru-ka-tu-bu-ku-ha-

biizirukatubukuha-

biizirukatubukuha-

For illustration purposes, let’s use the stem of the noun –gabo which belongs to class 1 for singular and class 2 for plural and –bindi ‘clay jar’ which belongs to class 7 and pluralizes by taking class 8 marker. -gabo 1/2 ‘man/husband’ noun : umugabo ‘man’/abagabo ‘men’ adj : umugabo mugufi ‘a short man’/abagabo bagufi ‘short men’ sub.pr. umugabo araguye ‘the man has just fallen’/abagabo baraguye ‘the men have just fallen’ obj.pr. baramubona ‘they see him’/barababona ‘they see them’ dem. uriya mugabo ‘that man’/bariya bagabo ‘those men’ poss. umugabo wanjye ‘my man’/abagabo banjye ‘my men’ -bindi 7/8 : noun ikibindi ‘clay jar’/ibibindi ‘clay jars’ adj. ikibindi kigufi ‘a short clay jar’/ibibindi bigufi ‘short clay jars’ sub.pr. ikibindi kiraguye ‘the clay jar has just fallen down’/ibibindi biraguye ‘the clay pots have just fallen down’ obj.pr. barakibona ‘they see it’/barabibona ‘they see them’ dem. kiriya kibindi ‘that clay jar’/biriya bibindi ‘those clay jars’ poss. ikibindi cyanjye ‘my clay jar’/ibibindi byanjye ‘my clay jars’ Class 1 and Class 2 : -mu-/-ba-ntu, 1/2. umuntu/abantu ‘person/people’ -gabo, 1/2 umugabo/abagabo ‘man/men’ -gore, 1/2 umugore/abagore ‘woman/women -ana, 1/2 umwana/abana ‘child/children’ -arabu, 1/2 umwarabu/abarabu ‘Arab/Arabs’ -iru, 1/2 umwiru/abiru ‘royal ritualist/royal ritualists’ -ega, 1/2 umwega/abega ‘menber of the Bega clan/members of the Bega clan’

-hungu, 1/2 umuhungu/abahungu ‘boy/boys’ -kobwa, 1/2 umukobwa/abakobwa ‘girl/girls’ -ami, 1/2 umwami/abami ‘king/kings’ -oro, 1/2 umworo/aboro ‘poor person/poor people’ -ari, 1/2 umwari/abari ‘a teenager girl/teenager girls’ -arimu, 1/2 umwarimu ‘teacher/teachers’ -boyi , 1/2 umuboyi/ababoyi ‘cook/cooks’ -foroma, 1/2 umuforoma/abaforoma ‘nurse/nurses’ -geni, 1/2 umugeni/abageni ‘bride/brides’ -kwe, 1/2 umukwe/abakwe ‘groom/grooms, -nyarwanda, 1/2 umunyarwanda/abanyarwanda ‘Rwandan/Rwandans’ -nyafurika, 1/2 umunyafurika/abanyafurika ‘African/Africans’ -ere , 1/2 umwere/abere ‘innocent person/innocent people’ -camanza, 1/2 umucamanza/abacamanza ‘judge/judges’ -ibyi, 1/2 umwibyi/abibyi ‘thief/thieves’ Class 1a and 2a : 0/ba data/ba data ‘my father/my fathers’ mama/ba mama ‘my mother/my mothes’ papa/ba papa ‘pope/popes’ perezida/ba perezida ‘president/presidents’ muganga/ba muganga ‘doctor/doctors’ maneko/ba maneko ‘secret agent/secret agents’ mayibobo/ba mayibobo ‘street child/street children’ magendu/ba magendu magigiri/ba magigiri ‘spy’ ruharwa/ba ruharwa ‘suicider’ gitimujisho/ba gitimujisho ‘the one whose name should not be mentioned’ rugizerute/ ba rugizerute minisitiri/ba minisitiri ‘minister/ministers’ padiri/ba padiri ‘priest/priests’ Class 3 and Class 4 : -mu-/-mi-ti, 3/4 umuti/imiti ‘medicine/medicines’ -gozi, 3/4 umugozi/imigozi ‘rope/ropes’ -rima, 3/4 umurima/imirima ‘field/fields’

-zi, 3/4 umuzi/imizi ‘root/roots’ -obo, 3/4 umwobo/imyobo ‘hole/holes’ -enda, 3/4 umwenda/imyenda ‘dress/dresses’; ‘debt/debts’ -anda, 3/4 umwanda/imyanda ‘dirt/dirts’ -eyo, 3/4 umweyo/imyeyo ‘broom/brooms’ -kandara, 3/4 umukandara/imikandara ‘belt/belts’ -handa, 3/4 umuhanda ‘road/roads’ -tima, 3/4 umutima/imitima ‘heart/hearts’ -gezi, 3/4 umugezi/imigezi ‘river/rivers’ -soro, 3/4 umusoro/imisoro ‘tax/taxes’ -rizo , 3/4 umurizo/imirizo ‘tail/tails’ -sego, 3/4 umusego/imisego ‘pillow/pillows’ -neke, 3/4 umuneke/imineke ‘yellow banana/yellow bananas’ -pira, 3/4 umupira/imipira ‘ball/balls’, ‘sweater/sweaters’; ‘tire/tires’ -sozi, 3/4 umusozi/imisozi ‘hill/hills’; ‘mountain/mountains’ -sumari, 3/4 umusumari/imisumari ‘nail/nails’ -nota, 3/4 umunota/iminota ‘minute/minutes’ -nara, 3/4 umunara/iminara ‘minaret/minrets’ -nsi, 3/4 umunsi/iminsi ‘day\days’ -aka, 3/4 umwaka/imyaka ‘crop/crops’; ‘year/years’ -satsi, 3/4 umusatsi/imisatsi ‘hair/hairs’ -otsi, 3/4 umwotsi/imyotsi ‘smoke/smokes’ -enge, 3/4 umwenge/imyenge ‘crack/cracks’ Note : Both -mu- of Class 1 and –mu- of Class 3, change to -mw- if the stem starts with a vowel. Class marker 2 –ba- changes to –be- if the stem starts with the letter –iand Class marker –mi- Class 4 changes to –my- if the stem starts with a vowel. Class 5 and Class 6 : -ri-/-ma-inyo, 5/6 iryinyo/amenyo ‘tooth/teeth’ -so, 5/6 ijisho/amaso ‘eye/eyes’ -tama, 5/6 itama/amatama ‘cheek/cheeks’ -zuru, 5/6 izuru/amazuru ‘nose/noses’ -bere, 5/6 ibere/amabere ‘breast/breasts’ -josi, 5/6 ijosi/amajosi ‘neck/necks’ -tako, 5/6 itako/amatako ‘thigh/thighs’ -bya, 5/6 ibya/amabya ‘testicle/testicles’

-vi, 5/6 ivi/amavi ‘knee/knees’ -no, 5/6 ino/amano ‘toe/toes’ -guf(w)a, 5/6 iguf(w)a/amaguf(w)a ‘bone/bones’ -buye, 5/6 ibuye/amabuye ‘stone/stones’ -shyamba, 5/6 ishyamba/amashyamba ‘forest/forests’ -joro, 5/6 ijoro/amajoro ‘night/nights’ -juru, 5/6 ijuru/amajuru ‘sky/skies’ -suka, 5/6 isuka/amasuka ‘hoe/hoes’ -foto, 5/6 ifoto/amafoto ‘photo/photos’ -gare, 5/6 igare/amagare ‘bicycle/bicycles’ -cupa, 5/6 icupa/amacupa ‘bottle/bottles’ -shati, 5/6 ishati/amashati ‘shirt/shirts’ -tabi, 5/6 itabi/amatabi ‘tobacco/tobaccos’ -zina, 5/6 izina/amazina ‘name/names’ -gunira, 5/6 igunira/amagunira ‘bag/bags’ -godora, 5/6 igodora/amagodora ‘mattress/mattresses’ -cumu, 5/6 icumu/amacumu ‘spear/spears -shyamba, 5/6 ishyamba/amashyamba ‘forest/forests’ -soko, 5/6 isoko/amasoko ,flea market/flea markets’ -shuri, 5/6 ishuri/amashuri ‘schoolschools’ -pamba, 5/6 ipamba/amapamba ‘cotton/cottons’ -faranga, 5/6 ifaranga/amafaranga ‘money/moneys’; ‘frank/franks’ As tbe examples show, the Class marker for Class 5 –ri- has been lost. It has survived in only very few cases. It changes to –ry- if the stem starts with a vowel. The ckass narker –ma- also undergoes vowel coalescence. It changes to –me- if the stem starts with the letter –i-. Class 6 : -ma-zi, 6 amazi ‘water’ -raso, 6 amaraso ‘blood’ -ta, 6 amata ‘milk’ -byi, 6 amabyi ‘human excrements’ -se, 6 amase ‘cow’s dung’ -hurunguru, 6 amahugurnguru ‘goats’ excrements’ -totoro, 6 amatotoro ‘chicken excrements’ -bwegegeri, 6 amabwegegeri ‘rats’ excrements’

-ganga, 6 amaganga ‘cow’s urine’ -shereka, 6 amashereka ‘milk from human breast’ -henehene, 6 amahenehene ‘goat milk’ -shyira, 6 amashyira ‘pus’ -ga, 6 amaga ‘body crust’ -candwe, 6 amacandwe ‘sputum’ -ngazini, 6 amangazini ‘shopping store’ -iza, 6 ameza ‘table’ -horo, 6 amahoro ‘peace’ -ganya, 6 amaganya ‘jeremiads/lamentations’ -pfa , 6 amapfa ‘drought’ -bwiriza, 6 amabwiriza ‘advice’ -yeri, 6 amayeri ‘tricks’ -cakubiri, 6 amacakubiri ‘division’ -burakindi, 6 amaburakindi ‘state of desperation’ -njwe, 6 amanjwe ‘worthless thing’ -futi, 6 amafuti ‘wrong deeds’ -gara, 6 amagara ‘energy’ -shanyaraza, 6 amashanyaraza ‘electricity’ -kuba, 6 amakuba ‘trouble’ -herere, 6 amaherere ‘injustice’ -hane, 6 amahane ‘trouble’ -cakubiri, 6 amacakubiri ‘division’ -njywe, 6 amanjwe ‘stupid words’ -ngambure, 6 amangambure ‘foolish words’ There are some words of class 5 and 6 which change the first consonant of the stem depending on whether they change classes. It is more likely words in class five because these initial consonants are all palatal : -shyanga, 5 >ishyanga ‘diapora’ ; -hanga 6, amahanga ‘abroad’ -jisho, 5 ijisho ‘eye’; -so, 6 amaso ‘eyes’ -shyari, ishyari ‘jealousy’ –hari, 6 amahari/amashyari ‘jealousies’ shaka, 5 ishaka ‘sorghum’ –saka, 6 amasaka ‘sorghums’ -jana, 5 ijana ‘one hundred’; gana, 6 amagana ‘hundreds’ -shyerezo/herezo, 5 iherezo/ishyerezo ‘end’;-herezo, 6 amaherezo ‘ends’ -cumi, 5 icumi ‘ten’ makumyabiri, adj ‘twenty’

Class 7 and Class 8 : -ki-/-by-ti, 7/8 igiti/ibiti ‘tree/trees’ -tuza, 7/8 igituza/ibituza ‘chest/chests’ -haha, 7/8 igihaha/ibihaha ‘lung/lungs’ -atsi, 7/8 icyatsi/ibyatsi ‘grass/grasses’ -uma, 7/8 icyuma/ibyuma ‘knife/knives’ -ondo, 7/8 icyondo/ibyondo ‘mud/muds’ -ifuzo, 7/8 icyifuzo/ibyifuzo ‘wish/wishes’ -ubahiro, 7/8 icyubahiro/ibyuhahiro ‘respect/respects’ -emezo, 7/8 icyemezo/ibyemezo ‘approval’ -bazo , 7/8 ikibazo/ibibazo ‘question/questions’; ‘problem/problems’ -tabo, 7/8 igitabo/ibitabo ‘book/books’ -sebe, 7/8 igisebe/ibisebe ‘wound/wounds’ -tuntu, 7/8 igituntu/ibituntu ‘tuberculosis/tuberculosises’ -ragi, 7/8 ikiragi/ibiragi ‘deaf/deaf people’ -babi, 7/8 ikibabi/ibibabi ‘leaf/leaves’ -curi , 7/8 igicuri/ibicuri ‘epilepsy/epilepsies’ -ciro, 7/8 igiciro/ibiciro ‘price/prices’ -menyetso, 7/8 ikimenyetso/ibimenyetso ‘sign/signs’ -tambo, 7/8 igitambo/ibitambo ‘sacrifice/sacrifices’ -tebo , 7/8 igitebo/ibitebo ‘basket/baskets’ -bindi, 7/8 ikbindi/ibibindi ‘clay water jar/clay water jars’ -hano, 7/8 igihano/ibihano ‘punishment/punishments’ -ugu, 7/8 icyugu/ibyugu ‘ -hunyira, 7/8 igihunyira/ibihunyira ‘owl/owls’ -nyamunjonjorerwa, 7/8 ikinyamunjonjorerwa ‘snail/snails’ -tagangurirwa, 7/8 igitagangurirwa /ibitagangurirwa ‘spider/spiders’ -nyogote, 7/8 ikinyogote/ibinyogote ‘porcupine/porcupines’ -ubahiro, 7/8 icyubahiro/ibyubahiro ‘respect/respects’ -unamo, 7/8 icyunamo/ibyunamo ‘memorial/memorials’ -icaro, 7/8 icyicaro/ibyicaro ‘headquarter/headquarters’ -ayi, 7/8 icyayi/ibyayi ‘tea/teas’ The class marker -ki- changes to –gi- because of Dahl’s law : that is if the stem starts with a voiceless consonant. It becomes –cy- if the stem starts with a vowel. The class marker –bi- changes to –by- also if the stem starts with a vowel.

Class 9 and Class 10 : -n-/-n-ka, 9/10 inka/inka ‘cow/cows’ -tama, 9/10 intama/intama ‘sheep/sheep’ -yovu, 9/10 inzovu/inzovu ‘elephant/elephants’ -tare, 9/10 intare/intare ‘lion/lions’ -yoka, 9/10 inzoka/inzoka ‘snake/snakes’ -yira, 9/10 inzira/inzira ‘path/paths’ -gwe, 9/10 ingwe/ingwe ‘leopard’ -koko, 9//0 inkoko/inkoko ‘chicken/chickens’ -guge, 9/10 inguge/inguge ‘monkey/monkeys’ -hene, 9i/10i ihene/ihene ‘goat/goats’ -farasi/farasi, 9i/10i ‘horse/horses’ -sazi, 9i/10i isazi/isazi ‘fly/flies’ -pyisi, 9/10 impyisi/impyisi ‘hyena/hyenas’ -pyiko, 9/10 impyiko/impyiko ‘kidney/kidneys’ -sake, 9i/10i isake/isake ‘rooster/roosters’ -pasi, 9i/10i ipasi/ipasi ‘iron/irons’ -hongo, 9/10 impongo/impongo ‘antelope/antelopes’ -cuti, 9/10 inshuti/inshuti ‘friend/friends’ -tsina, 9/10 insina/insina ‘banana tree/banana trees’ -kuba, 9/10 inkuba/inkuba ‘thunder/thunders’ -harage, 9/10 imparage ‘zebra’ -huha, 9/10 impuha/impuha ‘rumor/rumors’ -haka, 9/10 impaka/impaka ‘dispute/disputes’ -hunzi, 9/10 impunzi/impunzi ‘refugee/refugees’ -heta, 9/10 impeta/impeta ‘ring/rings’ -bandwa, 9/10 imandwa/imandwa ‘initiated to Ryangombe cult/initiates of Ryangombe cult’ -mana, 9/10 imana/imana ‘god/gods’ -nama, 9/10 inama/inama ‘advice/advices’ -numa,9/10 inuma/inuma ‘pidgeon/pidgeons’ -nanga, 9/10 inanga/inanga ‘cithare/cithares’ -noti, 9/10 inoti/inoti ‘paper money/paper moneys’ -nyoni, 9/10 inyoni/inyoni ‘bird/birds’ -nyana, 9/10 inyana/inyana ‘calf/calves’ -nyama, 9/10 inyama/inyama ‘meat/meats’ -nyamaswa, 9/10 inyamaswa/inyamaswa ‘animal/animals’

-nyemera, 9/10 inyemera/inyemera ‘type of antelope/types of antelope’ -nyuguti, 9/10 inyuguti/inyuguti ‘letter/letters’ Like in Class 5, the majority of words in class 9 and 10 whose stems start with a voiceless fricatives (f, s, h, sh, c) have lost the nasal class marker. Many changes also take place affecting the first consonant of the noun stem. The letter h becomes p after the nasal, the letter r becomes d, the affricates pf, ts and c become f, s and sh, respectively. The glide y becomes z and noun stems which start with a vowel have the letter z inserted. Class 9a and Class 10a radiyo/za radiyo ‘radio/radios’ ruswa/za ruswa ‘bribe/bribes’ ruvakwaya/za ruvakwaya ‘truck/trucks’ rugondihene/za rugondihene ‘type of wrestling/types of wrestlings’ sakabaka/za sakabaka ‘name for a type of bird’ nyirabarazana/ za nyirabarazana nyakabwana/za nyakabwana ‘small dog/small dogs’ nyirahuku/za nyirahuku ‘cat/cats’ mugiga/za mugiga ‘stroke/strokes’ rubagimpande/za rubagimpande ‘rheumatism/rheumatisms’ mburugu/za mburugu ‘syphilis/syphilises’ malariya/za malariya ‘malaria/malarias’ kaburimbo/za kaburimbo ‘paved road/paved roads’ serwakira/za serwakira ‘whirlwind/whirlwinds’ serutorogo/za serutorogo ‘name for a type of bird’ marakuja/za narakuja ‘passion fruit juice/passion fruit juices’ Class 11 and Class 10 : -ru-/-n-kwi, 11/10 urukwi/inkwi ‘firewood/firewoods’ -go, 11/10 urugo/ingo ‘compound-fence/compound-fences’ -ugi, 11/10 urugi/inzugi ‘door/doors’ -kwavu, 11/10 urukwavu/inkwavu ‘rabbit/rabbit’ -yuki, 11/10 uruyuki/inzuki ‘bee/bees’ -ara, 11/10 urwara/inzara ‘nail/nails’ -ego, 11/10 urwego/inzego ‘ladder/kadders’

-kweto, 11/10 urukweto/inkweto ‘shoe/shoes’ -gero, 11/10 urugero/ingero ‘example/examples’ -hushya, 11/10 uruhushya/impushya ‘permission/permissions’ -dodo, 11/10 urudodo/indodo ‘thread/threads’ -rimi, 11/10 ururimi/indimi ‘tongue/tongues’; ‘language/languages’ -ziga, 11/10 uruziga/inziga ‘circle/circles’; ‘mustache/mustaches’ -embe 11/10 urwembe/inzembe ‘razor/razors’ -banza, 11/10 urubanza/imanza ‘court case/court cases’ -bambo, 11/10 urubambo/imambo ‘peg/pegs’ -hago, 11/10 uruhago/impago ‘bag/bags’ -uzi, 11/10 uruzi/inzuzi ‘river/rivers’ -agwa, 11/10 urwagwa/inzagwa ‘banana wine/banana wines’ -me, 11/10 urume/ime ‘dew/dews’ -nigi, 11/10 urunigi/inigi ‘necklace/necklaces’ -syo, 11/10 urusyo/insyo ‘grinding stone/grinding stones’ -hinja, 11/10 uruhinja/impinja ‘baby/babies’ -hande, 11/10 uruhande/impande ‘side/sides’ -hu, 11/10 uruhu/impu ‘hide/hides’ -nyo, 11/10 urunyo/inyo -nyanya, 11/10 urunyanya/inyanya ‘tomato/tomatoes’ The class maarker –ru- as examples show changes to –rw- if the stem starts with a vowel. Class 12 and Class 13 : -ka-/-tu-bari, 12/13 akabari/utubari ‘bar/bars’ -bati, 12/13 akabati/utubati ‘cupboard/cupboards’ -gaca, 12/13 agaca/uduca ‘hawk/hawks’ -ciro, 12/13 agaciro/uduciro ‘value/values’ -hinda, 12/13 agahinda/uduhinda ‘sorrow’ -suzuguro, 12/13 agasuzuguro/udusuzuguro ‘contempt/contempts’ -nyamasyo, 12/13 akanyamasyo/utunyamasyo ‘turtle/turtles’ -tsinsino, 12/13 agatsinsino/udutsinsino ‘Achilles heel’ -domo, 12/13 akadomo/utudomo ‘dot/dots’ -kato, 12/13 agakato/udukato ‘apostrophe/apostrophes -katuzo, 12/13 akatuzo/utwatuzo ‘punctuation/punctuations’ -bago, 12/13 akabago/utubago ‘period/periods’

-gereka, 13 utugereka ‘suspension points’ -sodeko, 13 udusobe ‘quotation marks’ -kubo, 13 udukubo ‘parentheses’ -nyerezo, 12/13 akanyerezo/utunyerezo ‘dash/dashes’ -uguruzo, 13 utwuguruzo ‘open parentheses’ -ugarizo, 13 utwugarizo ‘close parentheses’ -itso, 12/13 akitso/utwitso ‘comma/commas’ -tangazo, 12/13 agatangazo/udutangazo ‘exclamation mark/exclamation marks’ -bazo, 12/13 akabazo/utubazo ‘question mark/question marks’ -yunguruzo, 12/13 akayunguruzo/utuyunguruzo ‘filter/filters’ -seke, 12/13 agaseke/uduseke ‘royal reed basket/royal reed baskets’ --samunyiga, 12/13 agasamunyiga/udusamunyiga ‘skunks’ -vumburamashyiga, 12/13 akavumburamashyiga/utuvumburamashyiga ‘mythological animal used to scare children who refuse to go to bed’ -curama, 12/13 agacurama/uducurama ‘bat/bats’ -rere, 12/13 akarere/uturere ‘region/regions’ -gasendababoyi, 12/13 agasendababoyi/udusendababoyi -zi, 12/13 akazi/utuzi ‘work/works’; ‘job/jobs’ -nyarirajisho, 12/13 akanyarirajisho/utunyarirajisho ‘an eye-attacking fly/eyeattacking flies’ -surira, 12/13 a smelly body-biting insect/smelly body-biting insects’ Both –ka- and –tu- also undergo Dahl’s law, becoming –ga- and –tu- respectively if the stem starts with a voiceless consonant. The morpheme –ka- can also change to – ke- because of vowel coalescence, and –tu- becomes –tw- if the stem starts with a vowel. Class 14 : -bu-onko, 14 ubwonko ‘brain’ -anwa, 14 ubwanwa ‘beard’ -ro, 14 uburo ‘millet’ -enge, 14 ubwenge ‘knowledge’ -atsi, 14 ubwatsi ‘grass’ -mwe, 14 ubumwe ‘unity’ -rozi, 14 uburozi ‘poison’ -genge, 14 ubugenge ‘tricks’ -sa, 14 ubusa ‘nothing’

-te, 14 ubute ‘laziness’ -goro, 14 ubugoro ‘chewing totacco’ -gari, 14 ubugari ‘cassava dough’ -jeni, 14 ubujeni ‘tree sieve’ -uso, 14 ubuso ‘size’ -retwa, 14 uburetwa ‘forced labor’ -hake, 14 ubuhake ‘servitude’ -kire, 14 ubukire ‘wealth’ -kene, 14 ubukene ‘povery’ -zima, 14 ubuzima ‘life’ -uki, 14 ubuki ‘honey’ -ugi, 14 ubugi ‘sharpness’ -uzu, 14 ubwuzu ‘warmth’ -oba , 14 ubwoba ‘fear’ -to, 14 ubuto ‘vegetable oil’ -yanja, 14 ubuyanja ‘freshness’ -irakabiri, 14 ubwirakabiri ‘eclipse’ -oya, 14 ubwoya ‘body hair/feather(s)’ -oko, 14 /6 ubwoko/amoko ‘race/ethnicity/type/genre’ -ra, 14/6 ubura /amara ‘intestines’ -ato, 14/6 ubwato/amato ‘canoe/canoes’; ‘ship/ships’ The allomorph of –bu- is –bw- if the stem starts with a vowel. Class 15 and Class 6 -boko, 15/6 ukuboko/amaboko ‘arm/arms’ -guru, 15/6 ukuguru/amaguru ‘leg/legs’ -aha, 15/6 ukwaha/amaha ‘armpit/armpits’ -ezi, 15/6 ukwezi/amezi ‘moon/moons’; ‘month/months’. -twi, 15/6 ugutwi/amatwi ‘ear/ears’ -ri, 15 ukuri ‘truth’ There are very few words found in Class 15. The class marker changes to –kw- if the stem begins with a vowel. Class 16 -ntu, 6 ahantu ‘place’

The word ahantu is the only one found in this class. Others temporal and locative adverbs such as : hambere ‘recently’ hanyuma ‘after’ hagati ‘in the middle’ hino ‘closer’ hirya ‘farther’ hakuno ‘this side of the river’ hakurya ‘the other side of the river’ hepfo ‘below’ haruguru ‘above’ hejuru ‘on top’ hato ‘soon’ hafi ‘near’ hanze ‘outside’ The –ha- morpheme undergoes vowel coalescence as well.

3. 1.3. Grammatical Categorization in Kinyarwanda: From natural categories to grammatical categories. The majority of these class markers occur in pairs 1/2; 1a/2a,, 3/4; 5/6; 7/8; 9/10; 9a/10a 11/10; 12/13, 15/6., to mark singularity and plurality, respectively. Class 14 has few words which pluralizes in class 6. Class 16 doesn’t have a pair. The human category, class 1/2, marked by prefixes -mu- and -ba- and class 16, the place category, marked by the prefix -ha-, are the only ones in Kinyarwanda and in other Bantu languages, which exclude nouns referring to other semantic categories. Other classes include nouns which don't have any semantic relationship whatsoever. 3. 1..3.1. Natural categories A large number of nouns in Kinyarwanda belong to what might be said as their natural classes. For instance, what is referred to by Bantuists as class 1/2 marked by the prefixes -mu-/-ba-, respectively is, in all Bantu languages, restricted to human beings only: Most of plant names belong to class 3/4 and are marked by the respective prefixes mu- and -mi-:

Class 5, which is marked either by the lack of classifier (-) or the prefix -ri- is found with some nouns referring to body parts as shown in 3a. Other nouns referring to body parts are found in 15 whose marker is the morpheme -ku- as shown in 3b although other classes such as 3/4 or 7/8, have them. Most of mass nouns such as liquids or nouns referring to other uncountable objects belong to class 6 which is marked by the prefix -ma-: Nouns referring to inanimate objects or dangerous animals are found in class 7 and class 8 whose respective class markers are -ki- and -bi- for singular and plural.. The majority of nouns referring to the animal word (animals, reptiles, birds, insects...) are found in classes 9 and 10. The class marker is -n- or -ø- before fricative: A lot of non-countable nouns are also found in class 11. The class marker for this category is the prefix -ru-: Class 14 marked by the prefix -bu- includes also non-countable nouns and names referring to countries or Rwandan provinces (8b) or to time expressions (8c): The majority of names of rivers and hills belong to class 12 and take the prefix -ka-: Class 16 which is marked by the prefix -ha- is exclusively for locative and temporal expressions : 3.1.3.2 Morphological Homonymy: Class 1 -mu- (singular for human category) and class 3 maker -mu- which pluralizes in -mi- look exactly the same, which results in confusing language learners and sometimes in creating regional dialects based on this homonymy. Class 5 which is marked in the great majority by a zero marker because of the loss of the class marker -ri- ressembles class 9 which also lost its marker -n-, this being phonetically conditioned. Most of the words starting with voiceless fricatives have lost this marker: 14. isha (9i) 'gazelle' iyi sha 'this gazelle' ishamii (5) 'branch' iri shami 'this branch' ihene (9i)'goat' iyi hene'this goat' ihema (5) 'tent' iri hema ifu (9i) 'flour' iyi fu 'this flour' ifaranga (5) 'franc' iri faranga ipasi (9i) 'iron' iyi pasi 'this iron' ipeta (5) 'medal' iri peta

This derivational function of prefixes and loan-words have made them polysemous. This polysemy is responsible for the grammaticalization of the class markers in Kinyarwanda and other Bantu languages. 3. 1,3.3. Polysemy with class markers: The same class marker or prefix can have different functions. As said earlier, most of these classes occur in pairs (singular and plural). Some of these prefixes serve as plural markers for more than one class. Thus class 6 -ma- serves as plural for class 5, class 9, class 14 and class 15. Class 8 whose classifier is -bi- serves as plural marker for class 7 and class 11 if the derived pejorative or augmentative nouns with -ruprefix; class 10 also is the plural marker for class 9 and 11. Whereas class 12 can pluralize either in class 13 -tu- or class 14 -bu-. The following examples illustrate the use of the prefix -ma- (class 6 marker). 15. itama (5)'cheek'>amatama 'cheeks' ibuye (5) 'stone'>amabuye 'stones' ifi (9) 'fish'>a-ma-fí 'fish' ipasi (9) 'iron'>a-ma-paási 'irons' ubura (14) 'intestines'>amara 'intestines' ubwato (14)'canoe'>amato 'canoes' ukuguru (15) 'leg'>amaguru 'legs' ukuboko (15) 'arm'>amaboko 'arms' 3. 1.3.4. Doublets: The same stem can appear with different class markers without any effect on the meaning, as examples below show. This lexical variation is found not only with class prefixes but with tones and phonological rules as well. 16.-bura, 14/6 ubura/amara 'intestines' -rozi, 14/6 uburozi/amarozi 'poison' -ato, 14/6 ubwato/amato 'boat' -gabo, 13/14 utugabo/ubugabo 'small men' -tabo, 13/14 udutabo/ubutabo 'small books' -gabo, 7/11 urugabo/ikigabo 'big man' -gore, 11/7 urugore/ikigore 'big woman' -senge, 7/11 igisenge/urusenge 'attic'

-tugu, 7/11 igitugu/urutugu 'shoulder' A lot of nouns in class 9 can also pluralize in either class 10 or 6: 17. ifu 'flour' >ifu/amafu 'flours' >i-fu nyinshi/amafu menshi 'a lot of flour' isuka 'hoe'>isuka/amasuka 'hoes'>isuka nyínshi/amasuka menshi 'a lot of hoes' imodoka 'car'>imodoka/amamodokáa'cars' >imodoka nyinshi/amamodoka menshi 'a lot of cars' This is due to the fact that stems starting with voiceless consonants lost the class marker -n-: 18. isiha 'mole'; ihene 'goat'; ihuku 'cat'; ishishi 'black ant'; itaríki 'date'; isahane 'plate'; isazi 'fly'; ifi 'fish'; isekurume 'he-goat'; isake 'rooster'; iswa 'ant'; The loss of the nasal class marker is common to many Bantu languages spoken in East Africa including Kiswahili. 3. 1.4. Metonymic derivation with the prefix Class prefixes are used very productively to create new lexical items which have a metonymic relationship (semantic association) with the initial nouns they are derived from. This association between the basic lexical item and the new derived one can be that of cause and effect; possessor and possessed; container and content,... Below numerous examples illustrating this prefix or zero-derivation in which a metonymic association is seen are presented. 19.

-ntu:

umuntu, 1 'person'; ikintu, 7 'object/thing'; akantu, 12 'embarrassing situation'>kugwa mu kantu 'to be embarrassed' (lit: to fall in a small thing); ubuntu, 14 'generosity'; uruntu(runtu) , 11 'human smell';ahantu, 16 'place'; ukuntu , 15 'manner/way' -uzi uruzi, 11 'river'; icyuzi , 7 'lake' -kwe umukwe, 1 'son-in-law'; ubukwe, 14 'wedding' -hanga igihanga , 7 'skull'; uruhanga, 11 'forehead';umuhanga, 1 'intelligent' -rimi ururimi, 11 'tongue/language'; uburimi, 14 'stuttering'

-ti -riri

igiti, 7 'tree/plant'; umuti, 3 'medicine'; uruti, 11 'handle' uburiri , 14 'bed'; ikiriri, 7 'the time the mother on the bed after the

baby is born' -si isi, 9 'earth'; agasi, 12 'desert' -soro igisoro , 7 'igisoro game board'; urusoro, 11 'stone used to play in igisoro -shyi urushyi, 11 'palm'; amashyi, 6 'clappings' -saya umusaya, 3 'side of the face'; urusaya, 11 'stiff neck’ -tsi umutsi, 3 'vein'; imitsi, 4 'strength'; itsí, 9 type of plant'; urutsi, 11 Achilles heel', agatsí 'part of a hill' -zuba izuba , 5 'sun'; uruzuba , 11 'drought' -totsi ibitotsi , 8 'sleep'; igitotsi, 7 'eyesore'; agatotsi , 12 'light sleep' -ezi ukwezi, 15 'moon/month'; umwezi , 3 'moonlight' -oko igikoko, 7 'animal'; agakoko, 12 'insect' -uma icyuma , 7 'iron/knife'; urwuma/inzuma, 11/10 'stiches' -papayi ipapayi, 9 'papaya'; igipapayi , 7 'papaya plant' -kondo umukondo, 3 'navel'; inkondo, 9 'ring' -byimba umubyimba , 3 'body'; ikibyimba, 7 'lump' -teka iteka, 5 'law/always'; amateka, 6 'news' -songa umusonga, 3 'chest pain'; isonga , 9 'tip/elite'; igisonga , 7 'leader' -hembe ihembe, 5 'horn'; uruhembe, 11 'on the front' -rwa umurwa , 3 'capital'; ikirwa, 7 'island' -nyanja inyaanja, 9 'ocean'; uruyaanja, 11 'breeze' -renge ikireenge, 7 'foot'; umureenge , 3 'hill' -guru ukuguru, 15 'leg'; umuguru, 3 'footwear' -ciro igiciro, 7 'price'; agaciro, 12 'use/value' -tungo itungo, 5 'domestic animal'; umutungo, 3 'monetary value of property' -go urugo, 11 'compound-fence/home'; ikigo, 7 'appartment complex/a group of houses with the same fence/a lot of houses having the same function' -are igare , 5 'bicycle'; ikigare, 7 'cart/wheelchair' -gingo urugiingo, 11 'body joint'; ingiingo, 9 'argument'; ubugingo, 14 'life' 3. 1.5. Derivational class markers

Some classes 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, and 14 serve as emotive classes (showing the attitude and feelings of the speaker: likes, dislikes), augmentatives, diminutives and abstract nouns. Any noun can be shifted in any one of these derivational classes. Class 6, -ma-, when used as derivational morpheme shows the speaker's indignation: 22.

igitabo 'book' >amatabo 'worthless books' umugore 'woman'>amagore 'worthless women' umukobwa 'girl' > amakobwa 'worthless girl'

Class 7, -ki- (plural 8, -bi-), as a derivational class functions as both emotive (pejorative or ameliorative) and augmentative: 23.

umugore >ikigore'attractive woman, disgusting woman or big woman' umukobwa >igikobwa 'attractive girl, disgusting girl or big girl'

The same morpheme is also used to refer to languages or national customs : 24. ikinyarwanda ‘Kinyarwanda’, ikirundi, ‘Kirundi’ igifaransa ‘French’, icyongereza ‘English’, igiswayire ‘Swahili’, ikilatini ‘Latin’, ikigereki ‘Greek’, igishinwa ‘Chinese’, ikirusi ‘Russian’, igifurama, ‘Flemish’ ikidagi ‘German’, igikuyu ‘Kikuyu’ ikinyankore, ‘Kinyankore’ ikigande, ‘Luganda’ igihunde ‘Hindi’, ikirega ‘Lega’, ikizulu ‘Zulu’, igihosa ‘Xhosa’ This same class marker when used without a preprefix, serves as an adverb marker: 25.

umugore 'woman' > ki-goré 'womanly' umugabo 'man' >kigabo 'manly' umwana 'child' >cyana 'like a child' umuswa 'ignorant' >giswa 'like an ignorant person' umuhanga ‘scholar,> gihanga ‘like a scholar’ umunyamerika ‘American’>kinyamarika ‘like an American’

The other classes which are used to derive adverbs are class 6 marker -ma- and class 14 -bu-, but they are not as productive as ki- marker. Adverbs in -ma- are used idiomatically: 26a.

guheka mapfisi 'to carry on the back upsidedown' >literally 'to carry like a

hyena'(i-m-pyisi 'hyena') kugenda masare 'to walk shaking legs' > literally 'to walk like a sailor' (u-mu- sare sailor') kwitaba masare 'to respond to somebody's call negligently' kuba mahwi 'to have the same size' kwifata mapfubyi 'to look sad' (to hold oneself as an orphan) b.

kwicisha bugufi 'to be humble' > -gufi short' (adjective) gukora buke 'to work a little' > -ke ‘small quantity/number of' (adjective)

Class 9 , -n- prefix, is used to derive nouns from verbs which express qualities and these nouns can modify nouns in any category without changing the class marker of the head: 27. inkotanyi 'great fighter' (gukotana : to fight); indashyikirwa ‘the inaccessible’ (gushykira : to reach), indahemuka ‘the one who can’t betray’ (guhemuka : to betray) indatwa 'worth praises' (kuratwa : to be praised) ; imparirwa-kurusha 'champion' (guharirwa : to be reserved; kurusha : to surpass), ; inkomere ‘wounded'; (gukomereka : to be wounded); indwanyi 'fighter' (kurwana : to fight) intinyi 'frigid' (gutinya : to fear) intore 'dancer'/'page' (gutora : to choose). This class is sometimes used with certain nouns to show contempt: 28.

abana 'children'>inzana 'bad children' abasore 'young men'>insore 'bad young men'

Class 11, -ru- (plural 8, -bi-), as derivational class marker also functions as both emotive and augmentative: 29.

umugore >urugore 'attractive woman, disgusting woman, big woman' umukobwa >urukobwa 'attractive girl, disgusting girl, big girl'

Class 12, -ka- (plural marker 13, -tu-, or 14, -bu-), as a derivational marker also has an expressive or diminutive function: 30.

umugore > akagore 'attractive woman, disgustingwoman or small woman' umukobwa >agakobwa 'attractive girl, disgusting girl or small girl'

Finally, any noun or adjective can go into Class 14, thus taking the class marker –buand the augment u- to create abstract nouns : umugabo, 1/2 ‘man’ ubugabo ‘manhood’ umwana, 1/2 ‘child’ ubwana ‘childhood’ -gufi, adj. ‘short’ ubugufi ‘shortness’ -nini, adj. ‘big’ ubunini ‘bigness’ -bi’ adj ‘ugly’ ububi ‘ugliness’ igicucu, 7/8 ‘stupid’ ubucucu ‘stupidity’ umugome, 1/4 ‘cruel’ ubugome ‘cruelty’

3.1.4. The use of the preprefix The preprefix or augment usually doesn't have any semantic function. It is deleted, after demonstratives, in the vocative case and in onomastics (name creation). Within certain words, however, its absence marks definetess and its presence indefiniteness. umugabo ‘man’ uno mugabo ‘this man’ (demonstrative) mugabo! ‘man!’ (vocative) Mugabo. ‘name of Mugabo’ (anme) Definiteness versus Indefiniteness muganga 'the doctor' >umuganga 'a doctor' mugenzi 'the friend' >mugenzi 'a friend' perezida 'the president' >umuperezida 'a president' papa 'the pope'>umupapa 'a pope purefe 'the prefect' >umupurefe 'a prefect' padiri 'the priest' >umupadiri 'a priest' mwarimu 'the teacher' >umwarimu 'a teacher' The preprefix is used with adjectives also if they don’t have head nouns. mwiza ‘good/beautiful’ >umwiza ‘the good/beautiful one’ beza ‘good/beautiful’>abeza ‘the good/beautiful ones’

kigufi ‘short’>ikigufi ‘the short one’ bigufi ‘short’ >ibigufi ‘the short ones’ mukuru ‘important/old’>umukuru ‘the important/old one’ bakuru’important/old’>abakuru ‘the important/old ones’ Infinitive verbs (which are marker by the prefix ku-) also get the preprefix when they occur after the copular verbs ni ‘it is’ or si ‘it is not’ in main clauses, and ari and atari in subordinate clauses. kwiba ‘to steal’ ibyo ni ukwiba ‘that is stealing’ gukora ‘to work’ uko si ugukora ‘that is not working’ gukosa ‘to make mistakes’ ndabona ari ugukosa ‘I see that is making mistakes’ gukina ‘to play’ ndabona ibyo atari ugukina ‘I see that is not playing’ The preprefix is also deleted in compound nouns which consists of a verb and a noun : igitambambuga ‘toddler’ /i-ki-tamb-a+i-n-buga/ AU-CL7-crawl-IA+AU-CM9-floor ‘he who crawls the floor’ umwangavu ‘teenage girl’ /u-mu-ang-a+i-vu/ AU-CM3-hate-IA+AU-ashes/ ‘s/he who hates ashes’ The presence of the preprefix or augments feeds tone rules such as tone deletion,tone addition, tone movement, etc. whereas its absence bleeds them.

3. 1.7. Nominal suffixes Kinyarwanda nouns are poor in derivation. Only zero-derivation or prefix derivation is used mostly for metonymic derivation. In very few cases, however, noun stems are added to certain words to show gender. These noun stems are -gabo 'man'; -rume 'man (archaic)', -gore 'woman' 31a. b.

igishegabo 'virago' igitsinagabo 'masculine' nyokorume 'your mother's brother' isekurume 'male goat' impwerume 'male dog'

c.

umukomagore 'type of tree' igitsinagore 'feminine gender'

The noun stem -ana 'child' is also found in a handful of words to refer to a young thing. 32.

ikibwana 'puppy' umukazana 'son's wife'

The only productive suffix is -kazi from Proto-Bantu 'wife' which is added to any noun to mean female of : 33.

umwarimu 'teacher' > umwarimukazi umunyarwanda 'Rwandan' > umunyarwandakazi

The only true suffix whose etymology is unknown is -azi which conveys a pejorative meaning: 34.

ikiyoga 'drink'>ikiyogáazi 'bad drink' ikintu 'thing' >ikintazi 'a bad thing' ikigore 'woman' > ikigorazi 'woman of low character' ikibuga 'field' > ikibugazi ‘an ugly field’ ikigabo 'man' >ikigabazi ‘a non-dignified man’ igikoma 'broth' > igikomazi ‘bad broth’ igitindi 'a hopeless individual' >igitindaazi ‘a very hopeless individual’ ikivura 'rain' >ikivurazi 'heavy rain' ikiyaga 'wind' >ikiyagazi 'wind with rain drops'

3.B. Verb

The verb morphology is more complex than that of the noun. It consists of the preprefix (PPX), the subject marker (SM), tense-aspect-modality morphemes (TAM), direct object pronoun markers (OM), reflexive pronoun (REF), reduplication (RED), the stem, the lexical or derivational extensions (LE), grammatical or inflectional extensions (GE), the passive morpheme (PASS), the aspect morpheme (ASP and the postsuffix morpheme (PSFX). The verb can have multiple tenses, multiple object

markers, multiple derivational extensions and multiple inflectional suffixes. The verb morphology is also affected by whether the verb occurs in the main clause, the subordinate clause, the negative or the affirmative or if it has a complement or not. This is illustrated by the following phrase structure rule. V= (PPX)-SM-TAMn-(OPn)-(Refl)-(Red)-Stem-LEn-(GEn)-(Pass)-Asp-(PSFX) Parentheses mean optional elements, the superscript multiple elements in the same slot. The obligatory morphemes are the subject agreement prefix and the final vowel which most of the time is the aspect marker. This is illustrated in one 1a. Abana basoma ibitabo. 'The children read books' /ba-som-a/ children they-read-asp books b. Abana basomye ibitabo. 'The children have just read books' ba-som-ye chidlren they-read-asp books c. Abana basome ibitabo. 'The children should read books' ba-som-e children they-read-subj books In (1a) the verb ends with the imperfective aspect marker -a, in (1b) the perfective aspect morpheme -ye and (1c) the subjunctive marker -e. The optional morphemes are the proclitics nti- 'not' and ni- 'if/when', the tense-aspectmodality morphemes, the morpheme -na- 'also', the object pronouns which can be one or many, lexical verb extensions, grammatical suffixes and the enclitics -ga and locative postclitics: -mo, -ho and –yo. 3.B1. The proclitics nti- and niThe negative marker nti- precedes the whole verb complex and is used in all verbs in main clauses regardless of mood whereas in subordinate clauses -ta- which immediately follows the subject marker is used. Ntiis a tone neutralizing morpheme.

The morpheme ni- is used optionally with verbs in the subjunctive mood and in realis conditionals.It can thus be translated as 'if' or 'when'. a.

Abana bakore 'The chidlren should work'. ba-kor-e children they-work-subj b. Abana nibakore. 'The children should work'. ni-ba-kor-e chirldren ni-they-work-subj c. Abana nibakora, ubahembe. ni-ba-kor-a u-ba-hemb-e children ni-they-work-asp you-them-pay-subj 'If the children work pay them'/'When the children work pay them' 3.B. 2. The tense-aspect-modality (TAM) morphemes The tense-aspect-modality refers not only to tenses in the traditional sense but to other aspects such as mood, inchoativity, progressivity, etc. Semantically, Kinyarwanda has only five referential tenses, namely present, habitual, early today, past, late today and future. Morphologically, however, the present tense, the habitual tense and the late today tense look the same. 3. Abana barasom-a. ‘The children read’ ba-ra-som-a children they-TAM-read-asp 'The children are reading'/'The children read'/'The children will be reading'. (today' 4. Umugore avuze ko abana basoma a-vug-ye ba-som-a woman she-say-asp that children they-read-asp 'The woman just said that the children are reading'/'The woman just said that the children read'/'The woman just said that the children will be reading'. Below are some of Kinyarwanda tenses which occur on the TAM slot : -0- : zero tense used for no-focused habitual -ka- : consecutive/narrative tense -racya- : still tense

nti-ra- [ráa] : not-yet tense nti-ki- : not-anymore tense -za- : future tense -oka [óoká]- : wish tense -raka- : hortative tense -ra- : focus marker Examples : -0- : basoma (buri munsi) ‘they read (every day) -ra- : barasoma ‘they read’ -ka- : bagasoma ‘then they read’ -racya- : baracyasoma ‘they are still reading’ -raga- : baragasoma ‘may they read’ -oga- : bogasoma ‘may they read’ -za- : bazasoma ‘they will read’ nti-…-ra- : ntibarasoma ‘they have not read yet’ The Spell Checker can’t distinguish, however, the morpheme -a- which marks the conditional, today’s past and remote past, because the Kinyarwanda orthography doen’t mark tone and vowel length. Phonetically this morpheme is not the same. The – a- of today’s past doesn’t have a tone, the remote past has a high tone and the conditional is a long –a-. basomaga [baasomaga] ‘they were reading (early today)’, [baásomaga] ‘they were reading (yesterday or in remote past)’, [báasomaga] ‘if they could read’ Multiple tenses : It is possible in Kinyarwanda to have multiple tenses. The most common are the futire and conditional and the future and consecutive : -som- ‘read’ : bazasoma /ba-za-a-soma/ ‘they would read’ they-fut-cond-read-IA -som-‘read’ : bakazasoma /ba-ka-za-som-a/ ‘they would then read’ they-cons-fut-read-IA The morpheme –naThe morpheme –na- which means also can follow the TAM morphemes. -som- ‘read’ ex. baranasoma ‘they also read’

3.B.3. Object pronouns

Objects pronouns follow the morpheme –naEx. baranabisoma ‘they also read them’ Kinyarwanda is among Bantu languages which allow multiple object incorporated pronouns.Unlike some languages such as Swahili in which the pronoun is used an object agreement, in Kinyarwanda these objects are strictly used as pronouns only. Thus the whole VP of the following English sentence is translated into one single agglutinative verb as shown by the example in (6) The woman is also making them read it with them to you for me there (The woman is also making them read the book with eyeglasses to you for me in the house). Umugore a-ra-na1-ha2-ki3-zi4-ba5-ku6-n7- som-esh-esh-er-er-eza woman she-pres-also1-there2-it3-it4-them5-you6-me7-read-caus-caus-applappl-asp umugore aranahakizibakunsomeshesherereza ‘the woman is also making them read it with them to you for me there’ 3.B.4 The reflexive pronoun. The reflexive pronoun which is marked by the morpheme –i- and which becomes –iyif the verb stem starts with a vowel is the last morpheme which comes directly in front of the verb stem after TAM morphemes and objects pronouns : gusoma ‘to read’ >kwisoma ‘to read oneself’ kubona ‘to see’>kwibona ‘to see oneself’ kwanga ‘to hate’>kwiyanga ‘to hate oneself’ kwemera ‘to believe’>kwiyemera ‘to believe oneself’ 3.2.5. Reduplication

Verb reduplication is very active in Kinyarwanda. There are two types of reduplication : the initial syllable reduplication and the verb stem reduplication. Only bisyllabic verb stesm can reduplicate. Initial syllable redupliclation : -tumb- ‘swell’ gutumba >gututumba ‘to start swelling’ -tan- ‘to separate’gutana>gutatana ‘to separate in diverse directions’ Verb stem reduplication : -gend- ‘go’ kugenda>kugendagenda ‘to walk around’ -hond- ‘pound’ guhonda >guhondahonda ‘to keep pounding’ -vang- ‘mix’ kuvanga >kuvangavanga ‘to keep mixing’ -tang- ‘cordon’ gutanga>gutangatanga ‘to cordon from all sides’ 3.2.4. Lexical extensions (LE). The most common lexical suffixes which are either lexical (part and parcel of the verb stem) or derivational are -am-, -ang-, -iriz-, -agur-, -anur-, -ur-/-uk-, -ur/-uk-, -ir-, -arar-. It is also possible sometimes to find multiple lexical suffixes within the same verb. -iriz- : guhamiriza ‘to dance’; guhumiriza ‘to close one’s eyes’; gutekereza ‘to think’ -ir- : kurindira ‘to wait for’, kugundira ‘to hold , kuvomera ‘to water’, gusinzira ‘to sleep’, -ur-/-uk- : gukingura/gukinguka ‘to open’, gufungura/gufunguka ‘to unlock’, gutinyura/gutinyuka ‘to lose fear’ -ang- : gukomanga,’to knock’ gucuranga ‘to play a the cithare’, kurumanga, ‘to eat without drinking or relish’, gukemanga ‘to criticize’ -am- : gusutama ‘to squat’, kugarama ‘to lie on the back’, kurarama ‘to look in the air’, gucurama ‘to hang or lie upside down’ gusinsiriza, guhamiriza, gutekereza, -agur : gutemagura ‘to cut into pieces’, gucagagura ‘to break into pieces’, kuryagagura ‘to eat without stopping’ kuvunagura ‘to break into pieces’, -anur : gusobanura ‘to explain’, kurobanura ‘to sort out’, gusiganura ‘to explain a poem’ -arar- : kwandarara, ‘to spread disorderly’ kugambarara ‘to refuse to move from a position’,

3.B.5. Grammatical suffixes Grammatical suffixes are the causative/instumental morpheme -ish- and the applicative -ir- which are realized as –esh-, and –er- if the last vowel of the verb stem is a mid vowel e or o because of vowel harmony, the comitative/reciprocal -an-, the stative -ik- which also undergoes vowel harmony, and the passive morpheme -w-. They differ from the lexical ones not because they come last but also because they are productive. Any verb can occur with them. They are thus in a sense like inflectional morphemes. The passive morpheme is inserted between the last consonant after consonant mutation has taken place and the final vowel. a. kwandika a 'to write' « kwandikisha'to cause to write/to write with' >kwandikira ‘to write for' >kwandikana ‘to read together', kwandikika ‘to be writable’ b. kwandikwa 'to be read' >kwandikishwa 'to be cause to be written >kwandikirwa 'to be written to' >kwandikanwa 'to be written with' 3.B.6. The aspect marker Kinyarwanda has two aspect markers: the imperfective marked by -a and the perfective marked by -ye. The imperfective is found with habitual tenses, future tenses, progressive tenses, "not yet" tenses because it shows an event or an action not yet over. Interestingly, however, stative verbs have to take the perfective marker to show that the state has not changed. When suffixed with the imperfective aspect morpheme, stative verbs have a habitual reading only. The verbs -som- 'read' and -rwar- 'be sick', active and stative verbs respectively are used below for illustration. 8a. Abana barasoma 'The children are reading'. ba-ra-som-a they-TAM-read-IA b. Abana barasomye 'The children have just read'. ba-ra-som-ye they-TAM-read-PA 9a. Abana bararwara 'The children get sick' ba-ra-rwar-a

they-TAM-be sick-IA b. Abana bararwaye 'The children are sick' ba-ra-rwar-ye they-TAM-be sick-PA -ga which is used in past tenses to mark imperfective aspect is really a clitic and not part of the verb stem, first because it comes at the end, secondly because Kirundi doesn't have it and lastly because vowel lengthening doesn't take place when the verb ends with w as part of the stem or as a passive marker. The perfective aspect –ye usually changes the last consonant of the verb stem. This is referred to in Bantu linguistics as consonant mutation or the modified form of the verb stem. It is also the reason why many Bantu dictionaries put both the regular form and the modified form in the dictionary. In Kinyarwanda, the perfective aspect is realized as –ye with monosyllabic verb stems such as –gi- ‘go’, --ri- ‘eat’, -nyo- ‘drink, -pfu- ‘die’, etc and bilabial consonts namely p, b, m. The letter d, r and g change to z, k to ts, t to s (except the verbs –fit- ‘have and –twit- ‘get pregnant’ which keep the final consonant), s to sh. This rule will be found in the section on rules. 3.B.7. The locative postsuffixes The locative enclitics, ho, mo and yo correspond respectively to the prepositions ku, mu and i. They are not yet completely part of the verb morphology. They don't affect its phonology, segmentally or suprasegmentally. Native speakers are always aware of this because in orthography there are those who use them as part of the verb and there are who write them separately. Nothing, however, can be inserted between them and the verb. 10. gusigaho 'to stop' kwigirayo 'to push' guhitamo 'to choose' kwisumamo 'to do odd jobs' kubaoó 'to live/exist' kurushaho 'to do more' kwiisubiraho ‘to change one’s mind’

Examples of some infinitive verbs :

-ak- ‘ask/light/shine’ kwaka -akir- ‘receive’ kwakira -andik- ‘write’ kwandika -end- ‘take’ kwenda -eger- ‘approach ‘kwegera -ib- ‘steal’ kwiba -ig- ‘study’ kwiga -og- ‘swim’ kwoga -onger- ‘repeat’ kwongera -ogez- ‘cheer’ kwogeza -ang- ‘refuse’ kwanga -umv- ‘hear/feel/understand’ kwumva -urir- ‘climb’ kwurira -emer- ‘accept/believe’ kwemera -egam- ‘lean’ kwegama -imik- ‘put on throne’ kwimika -icar- ‘sit’ kwicara -ic- ‘kill’ kwica -injir- ‘enter’ kwinjira -ambur- ‘to dispossess’ kwambura -gend- ‘leave’ kugenda -gur- ‘buy’ kugura -rir- ‘cry’ kurira -rur- ‘be bitter’ kurura -rer- ‘raise’ kurera -rim- ‘toil’ kurima -mes- ‘wash’kumesa -nyar- ‘urinate’ kunyara -ne- ‘defecate’ kunnya -ri- ‘eat’ kurya -nyo- ‘drink’ kunywa -gi- ‘go’ kujya -gu- ‘fall’ kugwa -ba- ‘be’ kuba -rar- ‘spend the night’ kurara -reg- ‘accuse’ kurega -rum- ‘bite’ kuruma

-byin- ‘dance’ kubyina -byar- ‘give birth’ kubyara -byuk- ‘get up’ kubyuka -bor- ‘rot’ kubora -bir- ‘boil’ kubira -pim- ‘examinine/weigh/measure’ gupima -fat- ‘catch’ gufata -fash- ‘help’ gufasha -fotor- ‘take pictures’ gufotora -for- ‘guess’ gufora -koporor- ‘copy’ gukoporora -tem- ‘cut’ gutema -tum- ‘send’ gutuma -tak- ‘scream’ gutaka -tek- ‘cook’ guteka -tur- ‘offer’ gutura -ter- ‘attack’ gutera -tir- ‘borrow’ gutira -sab- ‘ask’ gusaba -seng- ‘pray’ gusenga -sur- ‘visit’ gusura -cir- ‘gucira ‘to spit’ -cong- ‘sharpen’ guconga -curuz- ‘sell’ gucuruza -cenger- ,penetrate’ gucengera -shyik- ‘arrive’ gushyika -shyuh- ‘get warm’gushyuha -shyingir- ‘give a bride’ gushyingira -ken- ‘be poor’ gukena -kam- ‘milk’ gukama -kund- ‘like/love’ gukunda -kang- ‘scare’ gukanga -king- ‘close’ gukinga -kin- ‘play’ gukina -konj- ‘get cold’ gukonja -shim- ‘thank’ gushima -shir- ‘finish’ gushira -shak- ‘want’ gushaka

-shuk- ‘mislead’ gushuka -shishikar- ‘get excited’ gushishikara Defective verbs -sa, v. gusa ‘to ressemble’ -fite, v. –fite ‘to have’ -ri, v. –ri ‘to be’ -zi, v. –zi ‘to know’ -uzi, v. –uzi ‘to see’ -ti, v. –ti ‘to say’ -oya, v. koya ‘not to do’ The verb –sa never appear with perfective aspect –ye. The verb –fite, -ri, -zi, -uzi and –ti never appear with the infinitive marker ku-. The verb –ti never takes any TAM marker, either. The verb –oya is used before before any verb to ‘prohibit something from taking place’. It always occurs with the perfective aspect –ye noye var.ne ‘I should not’ woye var.we ‘You should not’ yoye var,ye ‘s/he should not’ twoye var.twe ‘we should not’ mwoye var.mwe ‘you (pl) should not’ boye var.be ‘they should not’

3.B. 3. Adjectives The number of adjectives is very much limited. Kinyarwanda doesn't have any color adjective for instance. They are all nouns and they all occur in the possessive construction as the following color names illustrate: 'green'