Noon vowel harmony shows the remarkable property of invariance in the affixes while exposing ATR variation in roots only. We show that the ATR harmony is no longer active and that the variation in... Show moreNoon vowel harmony shows the remarkable property of invariance in the affixes while exposing ATR variation in roots only. We show that the ATR harmony is no longer active and that the variation in stems due to dominant suffixes is best analysed as lexical stem variants for different derivational suffixes. This is shown to be the relict of an erstwhile fuller vowel harmony system. Show less
This book provides a grammatical description of Noon, an Atlantic language spoken by fewer than 32,000 people in 33 villages and neighborhoods in the outskirts of Thiès. The study, based primarily... Show moreThis book provides a grammatical description of Noon, an Atlantic language spoken by fewer than 32,000 people in 33 villages and neighborhoods in the outskirts of Thiès. The study, based primarily on new data collected by the author, provides an analysis on phonology, morphology, nominal classification, verbal system, ideophones, interjections and linguistic routines, syntax and divination systems. This work constitutes an important step forward in the nominal classification system. There are two nominal class systems in Noon: a Niger-Congo agreement system for modifiers that are attached to the head noun and another system for independent modifiers. The second nominal class system, based on human and diminutive semantic features, has an additional agreement singular/plural class pair for human nouns. The author also describes the divination practices in Noon by presenting an overview of divination systems in Senegal based on audio/video recordings collected in a natural setting. This empirical work, carried out in a linguistic and multimodal perspective, allows to focus first on the forms of divination of Noon, then on their meanings and expressions, and finally on some characteristic features in divination practices. Show less