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Shona is an agglutinative language, employing both prefixes and suffixes. Nouns, verbs, and adjectives are all identifiable, as well as personal pronouns, demonstratives, positional prefixes, and various types of agreement markers. All agreement morphology in Shona is prefixal. Nouns are divisible into a number of classes, based both on the agreement morphology in the verb and on the morphology of the noun itself. Verbs: Finite Verbs The order of elements in the Shona finite verb is shown in (1). (1) (NEG)-SUBJ-(TMA)*-(OBJ)-Ãâ€"-(DERIV. SUFF.)*-(PASS.)-FV-(OBJ2) The asterisk is a convention adopted from syntactic phrase structure rules; however, whereas there it is used to indicate that an element may appear an indefinite number of times, we use it here to indicate that we are unsure of the maximum number of TMA elements and derivational suffixes allowed in a single verb. We are also unsure how stringently the TMA elements and derivational suffixes are ordered. "FV" is a convention borrowed from Bantuist notation. It stands for "final vowel". This vowel is /a/ in the positive indicative for almost all verbs. A few verbs (/ri/ "be", /si/ "not be", /ti/ "say") appear to have an intrinsic final /i/, while some others (/NÆ’ge/~/NÆ’gi/~/NÆ’ga/ [an auxiliary (perhaps a sort of copula)], /ne/~/na/ "have", /Ve/~/Va/ "be") alternate between /e/ and /a/ (and sometimes /i/) in ways we do not yet understand. In the negative indicative, the final vowel for all verbs except those just mentioned is /a/, except in the present habitual, where the final vowel is /e/~/i/ (our consultant indicated that these are in free variation). See the section on the imperative for more about the final vowel. The Shona personal agreement morphemes for the subject are given in Table 1. Person Singular Plural 1p nÆ’d"$- t"$Ãâ€" 2p u$- mu$- 3p a@- ~ wa@- Va@- Table 1: Personal subject prefixes Our consultant indicated that /waÃâ€"/ for the third-person singular conveys slightly more respect than /aÃâ€"/. Respect may also be shown by using second- and third-person plural forms for singular referents. First- and second-person subject prefixes appear to have low tone underlyingly, while third-person subject prefixes have underlying high tone. Subject agreement appears to be absolutely obligatory for all Shona verbs. The personal agreement morphemes for the object are given in Table 2. Person Singular Plural 1p -nÆ’di- -ti- 2p -ku- -ku-†¦-i 3p -mu- -Va- Table 2: Personal object prefixes. Note that the first-person singular and plural and the third-person plural are identical to the subject prefixes, while the rest differ. The second-person plural object marker consists of two parts, /ku/ immediately before the root and /i/ at the end of the verb, after the final vowel. the truth :: essays research papers Shona is an agglutinative language, employing both prefixes and suffixes. Nouns, verbs, and adjectives are all identifiable, as well as personal pronouns, demonstratives, positional prefixes, and various types of agreement markers. All agreement morphology in Shona is prefixal. Nouns are divisible into a number of classes, based both on the agreement morphology in the verb and on the morphology of the noun itself. Verbs: Finite Verbs The order of elements in the Shona finite verb is shown in (1). (1) (NEG)-SUBJ-(TMA)*-(OBJ)-Ãâ€"-(DERIV. SUFF.)*-(PASS.)-FV-(OBJ2) The asterisk is a convention adopted from syntactic phrase structure rules; however, whereas there it is used to indicate that an element may appear an indefinite number of times, we use it here to indicate that we are unsure of the maximum number of TMA elements and derivational suffixes allowed in a single verb. We are also unsure how stringently the TMA elements and derivational suffixes are ordered. "FV" is a convention borrowed from Bantuist notation. It stands for "final vowel". This vowel is /a/ in the positive indicative for almost all verbs. A few verbs (/ri/ "be", /si/ "not be", /ti/ "say") appear to have an intrinsic final /i/, while some others (/NÆ’ge/~/NÆ’gi/~/NÆ’ga/ [an auxiliary (perhaps a sort of copula)], /ne/~/na/ "have", /Ve/~/Va/ "be") alternate between /e/ and /a/ (and sometimes /i/) in ways we do not yet understand. In the negative indicative, the final vowel for all verbs except those just mentioned is /a/, except in the present habitual, where the final vowel is /e/~/i/ (our consultant indicated that these are in free variation). See the section on the imperative for more about the final vowel. The Shona personal agreement morphemes for the subject are given in Table 1. Person Singular Plural 1p nÆ’d"$- t"$Ãâ€" 2p u$- mu$- 3p a@- ~ wa@- Va@- Table 1: Personal subject prefixes Our consultant indicated that /waÃâ€"/ for the third-person singular conveys slightly more respect than /aÃâ€"/. Respect may also be shown by using second- and third-person plural forms for singular referents. First- and second-person subject prefixes appear to have low tone underlyingly, while third-person subject prefixes have underlying high tone. Subject agreement appears to be absolutely obligatory for all Shona verbs. The personal agreement morphemes for the object are given in Table 2. Person Singular Plural 1p -nÆ’di- -ti- 2p -ku- -ku-†¦-i 3p -mu- -Va- Table 2: Personal object prefixes. Note that the first-person singular and plural and the third-person plural are identical to the subject prefixes, while the rest differ. The second-person plural object marker consists of two parts, /ku/ immediately before the root and /i/ at the end of the verb, after the final vowel.