| (iii)
The Demonstratives |
|
The Demonstratives in Sema also show a two-way opposition in number,
viz; singular and plural. In the case of the demonstratives, the plural
morpheme is not directly attached to it, rather an empty morph, viz;
pa intervenes between the demonstrative root and the plural morphemes,
as in : |
| hi |
`this’ |
hipaqó |
`these’ |
| ti |
`that’ |
tipaqó |
`those’ |
|
|
hipaqóye
ac kini
`these are two dogs’, etc. |
| We
have so far seen that though plurality in Sema is basically the property
of the noun phrase, it is applicable to the nouns, pronouns and the
demonstratives in Sema. In addition, duality is applicable to personal
pronouns human being class andoccurs occasionally with the nouns.
It might now be pertinent to mention here that the grammatical category
of number is not an obligatory grammatical category, in as much as
the number of a noun/pronoun functioning as the subject/object of
a sentence does not show any concord/agreement in number with any
other grammatical class in Sema, for instance : |
| niye
śwa |
`I
went’ |
| nikuzoye
śwa |
`we
(dual) went’ |
| ni´ł
ye śwa |
`we
went’ |
apu
lakhģ no k pkamihu
k ae |
`a
boy caught the robber’ |
| apuqó
kpkamihu
kae |
`the
boys caught the robber’ |
| apuqó
kpkamiqóhu
kae |
`the
boys caught the robbers’ etc. |
|
|
| (iv)
Allomorphs of the plural morpheme |
| (a)
Singular : As mentioned earlier, the singular is left unmarked. |
| (b)
Dual : kuzo It has a positional variant ma occurring after the
III person personal pronouns, kuzo occurs after I and II person personal
pronouns. köma and pama also occur after nouns non-human being class
in some dailects and nouns human being class respectively. |
| (c)
Plural : qó It has three positional variants, viz; |
| (i)
li occurs in free variation with qó after anu `child’ as in : anuli
~ anunoqó `children; |
| (ii)
´ ł occurs with the personal pronouns. In this there is
a slight overlapping in that the plural for the nouns usually refers
to two or more persons/objects while the plural for the personal pronouns
refers to three or more persons. This overlapping however, is ignored
here. |
| (iii)
qó occurs as the last constituent in a noun phrase including a demonstrative
pronoun. The only particles that can follow the plural marker qó are
the conjunctive particles, the particles showing the case relationships
including the focus markers and the emphatic particles. |
| 3.2.4.2.
Gender |
| The
grammatical category of gender is applicable in Sema only to some
nouns and to the third person pronoun in the singular. The nouns in
Sema show a three-way opposition in gender, viz. common, masculine
and feminine. While the base form itself indicates the common gender,
the masculine and feminine gender, wherever applicable are marked
overtly. The gender of the noun/pronoun, however, does not show any
agreement in gender with any other grammatical class in a sentence
in Sema. A detailed discussion of the occurrence of the grammatical
category of gender in Sema follows: |
| (i)
Nouns |
|
Personal names. - While personal names referring to the male beings
are not marked by any separate gender marker, all original Sema names
of the women/girls take the feminine gender suffix /li/ as in : |
| Hatoli,
Ekili, Tokhali etc. |
| Under
the influence of Christianity, most of the children in the present
generation are given various Christian names like : |
| Mary,
Rita, Joan etc. |
| Hence
the earlier pattern of differentiating the personal names of the males
from the females by looking at the phonemic shape of the name (i.e.
whether or not they carry the feminine gender suffix li) is no more
possible. |
| Names
of professions.- A few names referring to certain professions show
a three-way opposition in gender viz. common, feminine and masculine
genders. The common gender denotes both the males and females engaged
in the profession. While the feminine gender refers to the women engaged
in the profession, the masculine gender refers to the males engaged
in the profession. Wherever the base form itself indicates the common
gender, the word for boy/maid are suffixed to the base form of the
noun. |
