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Of functioning as the nucleus of a noun phrase which, in addition to the noun may consist of adjectives, numerals, demonstratives, postpositions and particles. All the nouns do not share all the features mentioned just now. In the case of some nouns, even when they share amongst themselves certain features at the morphemic level, differences are found at the sub-morphemic level. On the basis of the differences found at various levels, the nouns in Sema can be sub-classified into a few sub-classes. A discussion of these follows.
The nouns referring to the animate being vs. inanimate beings
The nouns in Sema can in the first instance be sub-divided into two, i.e., one group of nouns shares certain features that are not shared by the other group. For instance, one group of nouns shows the following features :
(i) At the sub-morphemic level, the postposition/lawno/ `from’ has an allomorph /lono/ which a group of nouns takes. Similarly the postpositions /law/ `to/towards’ has a total of three allomorphs, of which the group that takes /lono/ `from’ takes the form /lo/ `towards’ and for the locative case this group takes the allomorph /alow/ `in’ as in:

niye asö lono iFiwya `I came from the tree’
ino akģlo wś `I went to the house’
kakuye yakube alow anģ1 `the book is in the table’
aFawye apslo anģ `the bird is in the nest’

(ii) At the syntagmatic level, the same group of nouns takes the adjective /akaw/ `old’ and /k*tla/ `little’ as in :

akaw yekube `old table’
ana aFlo cśnģ `will take some rice’
ana ktla kphalģ `add some more rice (imp)’

As opposed to these features, another group of nouns shares certain other features, viz.,
(i) Taking the allomorphs /lawno/ `from’ and
/law-ködaw/ `to/towards’ and the use of the allomorph

ino hatoli lawno iFiwya `I came from Hatoli’
ino lilaw śwe `I went to her’
ino as tipaw kdawś `I went to that tree’
anuye akģlo wśe `the child went to the house’
anuye akģlo anģ `the child is in the house’

(ii) At the syntagmatic level, the same group takes the adjectives/kicmi/ `old’ and/ kuFrunu/ `little’ as in :

kicmi tim* `old man’
anu kuFunu `small/little child’ etc.

The differences found in between the two sets of nouns may be tabulated as under :

      Group 1 Group 2
(i) Postposition :      
  lawno `from’ lono lawno
  law `to/towards’ lo law/kidaw
  lo `in’ lo ..
(ii) Adjectives :      
  `old’ akaw   kicmi
  `little/some’   aFolo/kötla ku*unu

Incidentally, if the nouns occurring in the two groups are compared, it could be observed that all the nouns taking postpositions in group 1, refer to inanimate beings and the nouns occurring in group 2 refer to animate beings, and that the nouns referring to the animate beings include trees and plants. These two groups of nouns are formally designated respectively as Nouns inanimate being class (abbreviated Nina class of nouns) and Nouns animated being class (abbreviated Nani class of nouns).
The Nina class of nouns is formally defined as that sub-group of nouns which take the allomorphs of the postpositions/lono-lo-low/ meaning respectively `from-towards-in’ and the adjectives/aF olo- kö-tla/and/akaw/ meaning respectively ‘some-little’ and ‘old’.
Nani class of nouns
On the basis of certain shared features, the Nani class of nouns in their turn can be further sub-grouped. For instances, a sub-class of Nani class of nouns show the following features:
(i) When the determined noun (i.e. the possessed item) is a member of Nina class of nouns, and the determiner (i.e)

 

 

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