Lesson 9 : Word formation in Lulogooli
Discussion
A “word” in Lulogooli is known as “iling’ana”. “Iling’ana”, is equivalent to “a message, important information or wisdom”. It is from the verb, “ng’ana”. “Kung’ana” is ‘to speak, to say something meaningful or important’.
Iling’ana (a word) in Lulogooli can be defined in two ways. One is by speech and the other by writing.
By speech, a word is defined as a sound or combination of sounds with a specific meaning. By writing, a word is a letter or group of letters that join in a sequence for a specific or extending meaning.
A letter is either a vowel, V, or a consonant, C. Where a word is a consonant or a vowel only, the representative is C or V respectively. Exclamations a! or m! are example words.
For words with more than one letter, either a vowel or a consonant can start. Example is “imoni” (eye), of word structure VCVCV is vowel-led. “Kala” (cut) has word structure, CVCV.
Having learnt earlier on that Lulogooli words are open ended, a word must end with a vowel. It can be two vowels where the long double vowel is used to signify a continuing action for verbs.
Vowels can succeed each other in a word, even more than two as in “Aaiimi” for “S/he has denied it” of word structure VVVVCV. For more than two consonants, a word as “ng’walanynya” for “roughen up exceedingly” has word structure CCCVCVCCCCV.
With word structure in mind, the sequence of word writing in Lulogooli is simply “Prefix + Rootword + Suffix”. A word as “imileembe” for “greetings” can be divided into the three parts; “imi + leemb+ e” of sequence VCV + CVVCC + V.
A prefix in Lulogooli is "kitivuku kiimilila" plural "vitivuku viimilila". The root is "muli" while the suffix is "kitivuku kikogoti" plural "vitivuku vikogoti".
When one knows prefixes of Lulogooli and able to identify root words, it is easy to write without grammar mistakes. The suffixes are only three vowels for tense for starters.
Because Lulogooli words are akin to a sentence in English, we can compare the sentence formula of “Subject + Verb + Object”. A sentence as “She is smiling” in Lulogooli is “amweenyaa”.
If the sentence broadens a little to “She has been smiling for him continuously” then the equivalent in Lulogooli is “aakamomweenyelelelaa”. It might look complex but in a few lessons time it will be simply explained how.
A common word, Ululogooli, is divided into sequence word parts; “ulu + logool + i”. The prefix and suffix parts can change but the root part cannot – it is a permanent part of a word.
To express the permanent nature of a root word, we can write this way “ulu[logool]i” or “imi[leemb]e”.
And to test how the prefix and suffix can change, these words are applicable in Lulogooli, “izilogoole” and “umuleemba”. The former is the plural form and the latter singular form of the said words.
Comparing “ulu.logool.i” and “izi.logool.e” we can observe that “ulu” has been replaced by “izi”. These are representative morphemes of noun classes for nouns – singular and plural.
Normally the noun class is Lu-Zi for singularity and plural. But the language of Lulogooli is fond of pre-prefixing, adding the vowel before a word. It is evident in other words as A.vaana (kids), u.mulina (a friend), i.kibaga (a cat), i.mileembe (greetings) and others.
The vowel pre-prefix (a,u,i) can first be called a noun-class-agreement and secondly, an article. Articles “a” or “the” as shall be elaborated in Noun Classes lesson.
Apart from noun class morpheme, the other prefix elements of a word are pronouns, tense and negations. They all come before a root word.
After the unchanging root word, the word ends with a suffix. The suffix as earlier said does not carry many elements but tense a, e and i for verbs. At the suffix there is also word conjugation commonly known as “kunyambua” in Kiswahili.
An example verb word as “Akogumilili” to mean “S/he caught for you”. The word is structured as “a.ko.gumil.i.l.i = A (she/he). ko(you). gumil(root-verb, catch). i(past). l(acting for). i(past).
Vowels a,e,i,o,u are applied at noun suffix as of “izilogool.e” and “imileemb.a” to advance several additional noun perception. “Izilogool.e” is more of noun in use or multiple and “izilogool.i” as static, single.
Verbs and nouns are here mainly mentioned because they are the common and extensive Lulogooli parts of speech. Understanding verbs and nouns will make it easy for the rest.
Exercise
- In your notebook, write the word structure for your sir/maiden name
- What is the word structure for words; hyuhwa, ua, gwiikilwa.
- Define a root word and identify root words of; kisiliva, vuyiingu, ayizilwa
Lulogooli syllable and word pattern is characterized by an open end; a vowel has to end the word. A syllable or a word can be a single vowel (V) or a combination of a consonant and a vowel (CV or CVV for long vowel syllables). Whereas a word can be broken down (identifying graphemes) into independent meanings of dependent building morphemes, a word or words resulting from human expression or animal jeers is exempted. By extent the expression can also end with a consonant.
A Vowel as a syllable, word or at the beginning of a word
This is when a vowel is used to form a word (e.g exclamation A! or E!) or used as a dependent grapheme in formation of a word in elaboration of its meaning. Where two vowels follow each other it can be denoted as VV- if starting a word, -VV- if at the middle of the word or -VV if it ends the word. See the examples below.
- A+koli = Akoli he did (where A is pronoun, third person)
- I+nkoli = Inkoli it did me (Where I is pronoun, class 9{i}
- U+A+koli = Uakoli You recently did (where U is pronoun, second person and A represents tense)
- A+kola+aa = Akolaa He is doing (where opening A denotes pronoun and closing A denotes tense)
- Da = CV -no
- Gwa = CCV -fall
- Ngwa = -CCCV -I'm falling
- Nng'wala = CCCCVCV -for kick me with leg
- Liataagwa (CVVCVVCCV)
- Vuadinyaganaanga (CVVCVCCVCVCVVCCV)
- Kuuzyii (CVVCCVV)
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