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Mous, M.P.G.M. (2021)

Nominal number in Cushitic

Part of book or chapter of book
Cushitic languages have a number of interesting properties in the category of number. None of these are valid for all Cushitic languages. Number is not obligatorily expressed in various Cushitic languages which have a general number form that is unspeci^ed for number. Nonetheless morphological number marking in the noun is often complex in two ways: there are many competing lexically determined morphological markers and many di^erent constellations of derived singular and derived plurals.
Number and gender show complex interactions in Cushitic. Number formatives impose gender and hence di^erent gender values for di^erent number forms in the same lexeme, sometimes apparent gender polarity (singular and plural having opposite values for gender). A theoretically challenging property of some languages is that that there is a third gender, here labelled ‘plural’ because it takes the agreement morphology of 3PL pronouns.
Grammatical Number
Cushitic
All authors
Mous, M.P.G.M.
Editor(s)
Cabredo Hofherr, P.; Doetjes, J.
Date
2021
Title of host publication
The Oxford handbook of grammatical number
Pages
522 - 538
ISBN (print)
9780198795858
DOI
doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198795858.013.25