Numération, quantification et accords en classe en kobiana

Abstract

Abstract Kobiana is a Niger-Congo language belonging to the Atlantic language family, mostly spoken in Guinea Bissau by about seven hundred people. This language has a quite typical Niger-Congo noun class system with 16 classes for singular, 11 classes for plural and 6 classes non-sensitive to any number contrast. This language also has developed another system of number marking, different from the noun class system whereby the plural number is marked on nouns by means of a -a suffix. This suffixed plural combines with a sizeable part of Kobiana nouns. Such nouns also trigger agreement within the noun phrase, with both singular and plural agreement markers. After presenting the two types of number marking on Kobiana nouns, we observe the morphological behavior of these nouns when they combine with numerals. We also describe how the agreement markers enable us to account for the syntactic analysis of numerals and to show how numerals can be ascribed to different parts of speech. We also discuss several striking morphosyntactic peculiarities of Kobiana numerals.