TAM and deixis marking in Tira

Abstract

In this talk, I present novel data illustrating the organization of the verbal morphology of Tira, a Kordofanian language of the Heiban group spoken in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. The verbal system in Tira allows us to explore several dimensions of morphological complexity, such as complexity of exponence, inflection classes, and morphomic distributions. I show how morphosyntactic property sets are realized on lexemes through a combination of tonal exponents, morphomic final vowels, prefixes and auxiliaries. Furthermore, the distributions of forms across inflection classes reveal patterns of organization that allow for inferences about inflection class membership. Finally, I will show how the system is organized in a maximally discriminable way, without the need to identify classic morphemes to achieve unambiguous paradigmatic contrasts among the verb forms.

Nina Hagen Kaldhol is a PhD Candidate in Linguistics at the University of California San Diego. In collaboration with native speakers of Tira, Rere and Somali, she works on language documentation while also aiming to advance our theoretical understanding of tone and morphological complexity.