THE SINGULATIVE MARKER n- IN CHADIC LANGUAGES: A RECONSTRUCTION

Abstract

The Afro-asiatic macro family includes Chadic, Semitic, Egyptian, Cushitic, Omotic, and Berber languages. The Chadic branch consists of about 170 languages spoken in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad. The present paper continues a series of publications on Chadic diachronic morphology, focusing on prefixal derivation morphology. (For the velar prefix k- in different noun groups of Chadic languages and the verbalizing prefix ˀa-, see: [Stolbova 2015; 2018]. We propose a reconstruction of the singulative marker n- in Chadic nouns. As follows from our previous studies, lexicalized (or “frozen”) affixes are typical of unwritten Chadic languages; they can be uncovered only on the basis of lexical comparison. A careful analysis of singular forms derived from collective nouns denoting people, hoofed animals or insects suggests that the initial nasal in singular forms should be identified as a derivational prefix. We argue that in Chadic languages, n-forms precipitated the tendency to prenasalize primary singular nouns with the abovementioned semantics (people, animal, insect names). We also discuss external cognates pointing to the proto-Chadic origin of this prefix. Further research, on other Chadic noun groups (wild animals, birds, snakes) and especially on Semitic and Cushitic could clarify whether this morphological innovation was exclusive to Chadic or was shared by other Afro-asiatic languages.