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BROKSKAT GRAMMAR
N.Ramaswami

2.1.1. Gender:

In Brokskat gender is not morphologically marked in the noun with consistence. Most of the nouns do not have any marker for gender as in the following examples.


u:a ‘brother’
sasu ‘grandson’
eRi ‘sister’s husband’
phodya ‘widower’
moi ‘cobbler’
mu  ‘man’
usta:t ‘teacher’
sa:s ‘younger sister’
mole ‘daughter, girl’
maen ‘first wife’
qa:qye ‘second wife’
tiga  ‘wife’
a:v ‘she-goat’

Though some of the nouns referring to males end in -o, which is the masculine suffix, the noun referring to the corresponding females do not have the feminine suffix.


bo ‘father’ a:ye ‘mother’
byo ‘son’ mole ‘daughter’
baRo ‘husband’ tiga ‘wife’
ba:yc ‘brother’ sa:s  ‘sister’
dudo  ‘grandfather’ dede ‘grandmother’
la:to ‘ox’ go:li  ‘cow’
hatalo ‘he-goat’ a:v ‘she-goat’
mu ‘man’ tiga ‘woman’

It may be seen in the examples that the stems do not recur in the masculine and feminine nouns. Moreover, the masculine nouns have -o ending are very few. Further, if -a is segmented, the remaining root is some cases violated syllabic structure of stems of this language. For example, if -o is segmented from bo ‘father’ one is left with the root b-

which is a single consonant and the roots in this language do not otherwise have this syllabic structure. For these reasons -a is not segmented in the nouns given above.
However, the gender distinction is not morphologically marked in derived nouns, which are derived from nouns and verbs by adding the agentive suffix. There are different suffixes for masculine and femine gender. The masculine agentive suffix is -pa and the feminine agentive suffix is -ma. These two agentive suffixes, viz., -pa and -ma may alter with -po and -mo respectively.

2.1.1.1. Masculine:

gulusdus-pa 
ulithis-pa
kisti-pa 
d
aRzi-pa 

‘washerman’
 ‘sweeper’
 ‘sailor’
 ‘tailor’

2.1.1.2. Feminine:

lumkhan-ma
dzemkhan-ma 
‘singer’
‘dancer’

The number is not marked in the derived nouns.

2.1.2. Number:

The count noun is inflected for number. Brokskat distinguishes between singular and plural. If the noun refers to one being or object it is singular, if it refers to two, then, it is dual, and it refers to more than two, then it is plural.

2.1.2.1. Singular:

This singualr suffix is -k and it is derived from the numeral e:k ‘one’. The singular suffix ‘k occurs with common noun and adjective and gives the sense of one.


hamo go:li-k bet
1          2 3 4
‘this is a cow’
1   4  3  2
hamo bilu-k bet
1        2 3 4 
‘this is a cat’
1  4  3  2

       

                                       

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