Dogon classification

Jeffrey Heath (Univ. of Michigan), Steve Moran (Univ. of Munich), Kirill Prokhorov (Humboldt Univ. of Berlin and MAE RAS)

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Structure of the talk• Dogon languages, basic information

and data• Lexicostatistical data and the

resulting tentative classification• Evidence from nominal morphology • Revised classification and further

issues

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Dogon languages: Trivia 21 language identified

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Dogon languages: Trivia21 language identified (+Bangiime, isolate)

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Dogon languages: Trivia 21 language identified (+Bangiime,

isolate) Up to 1 million speakers

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Dogon languages: Trivia 21 language identified (+Bangiime,

isolate) Up to 1 million speakers Spoken in eastern Mali and (partially)

northern Burkina Faso

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Data Several grammars and dictionaries

done by non-professional linguists (Leger 1971, Prost & Kervran 1986)

Two published reference grammars done by professional linguists (Plungian 1995) and (Heath 2008)

Dogon project materials (www.dogonlanguages.org)

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Dogon Project Started in 2004 Supported by NSF (grant BCS-

0537435) Website: www.dogonlanguages.org Data on more than 20 Dogon idioms,

incl. comparative lexical spreadsheet with more than 7 thousand entries

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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100 Swadesh word list: cognacy rates

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Family depth: the lowest rate

Bunoge – Tomo Kan ~ 32%

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Family depth: the highest rate

Ben Tey – Nanga ~ 88%

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Family Tree: Lexicostatistics

Calculated using Starling (starling.rinet.ru)

?1

?2

?2

3

2

1

4

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Problems 1:Tiranige?1 Even from the lexicostatistical perspective

Tiranige may equally be attributed to the Western group (Mombo, Penange, Ampari, Bunoge)

Cf. Tiranige – Mombo (West) ~ 65%Tiranige – Najamba-Kindige (North-East) ~ 66%

Cf. also morphological evidence below

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Problems 2: Bigger groups?2 question whether the 4 branches identified

form bigger groups remains problematic:

- lexicostatistical data are not definitive cf. rather short period between the supposed

major split and following splits into the four branches on the tree)- some morphological isoglosses go across these groupings

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Nominal Morphology 1: East Eastern-type class-number system

HumSg HumPl NonhJamsay: -n -m -Toro Tegu: -rⁿu ~ -n(u) -m(u) -Tommo so: –nɛ -m -Proto-East: *-nu ‘person’ *-n-bu *-

Found in: East

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Nominal Morphology 2: North-East Najamba-Kindige class system

suffixes final-vowelanimate Sg -Ø Eanimate Pl -mbo Oinanimate Sg -ŋgo/-go (O/E class) O (O/E class)

-ŋge/-ge (E/E class) E (E/E class)inanimate Pl -Ø E

Other languages of North-East group have simpler systems, cognate to that of Najamba-Kindige.

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Nominal morphology 3 Western-type system of plural making:

Sg PLMombo Ø -ŋge/-ge Penange Ø -geAmpari Ø geBunoge Ø ge

Also found in Tiranige (see below)

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Nominal morphology 4: North-WestAnSg AnPl Inan

Nanga -Ø (-ŋ) Ø ØBen Tey -m Ø ØBankan Tey -m Ø Ø

In Nanga only ya-ŋ ‘woman’ (pl. ya: ‘women’) has singular nasal suffix

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Plural marking in Tiranige?1 Tiranige shows clear affinities with Western group

(Mombo, Penange, Ampari, Bunoge) in nominal morphology

(1) Plural formation: Tiranigena: ‘cow’ na: ge ‘cows’ taŋgile 'side‘ taŋgile ge ‘sides’

(2) Plural formation: Ampari (WEST)ga:wa ‘bone’ ga:wa-ge ‘bones’na: ‘cow’ na:-ge ‘cows’

Cf. Class system in Najamba kindige

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Tiranige: What happened?1. Tiranige is originally North-Eastern (NED)

language that borrowed nominal morphology (and some lexicon) from Western Dogon (WD)

2. Tiranige is originally WD that borrowed lexicon from NED

3. Tiranige is a separate branch, that is equally close to both WD and NED

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Frozen class suffixes in WD and Tiranige

‘peanut’

Najamba ɛlɛ (PL), ɛlɛ-ŋgo (SG)Mombo ɔlɔŋge Tiranige ɛ:lɛ ŋge

NB: disharmonic combinations ɔ/e and ɛ/e in Mombo and Tiranige

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Frozen class suffixes …

‘blood’

Najamba gen (Pl) geŋ-ge (Sg)Mombo ge:ŋge Tiranige je:ŋge

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Conclusion 1 4 groups can be securely identified based on

lexicostatistical and morphological data

East: Toro Tegu, Tomo Kan, Togo Kan, Perge, Jamsay, Donno So, Tommo So, Yorno So

North-East (NED): Najamba-Kindige, Yanda, Tebul, Dogulu

North-West (NWD): Ben Tey, Bankan Tey, Nanga

West (WD): Mombo, Penange, Ampari, Bunoge

Niger-Congo Congress September 18-21, 2012, Paris, INALCO

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Conclusion 2 Tiranige shows some lexical grammatical proximity to

both WD and NED, but none of them is decisive for defining it’s (inner) affiliation

Tiranige (for now) is better considered as separate branch

Common WD-NED-Tiranige features (cf. frozen class suffixes) may indicate that these languages form a bigger group within the family or an intensive mutual contact influence that these language were subject to in the past.