Table of Noun Preformatives and Pronominal Prefixes

§39–44. MEANING, CORRESPONDENCE AND CASE FORMS TABLE OF SUBSTANTIVE PREFORMATIVES WITH CORRESPONDING PRONOMINAL PREFIXES: CLASS | SINGULAR PREF | PLURAL PREF | PRON. SG | PRON. PL | MAIN MEANING 1 | u- / omu- | a- / oma- | u- | va- | persons, animate 2 | u- / omu- | ovi- / omi- | u- | vi- | inanimates, plants 3 | e- / i- | a- / ova- | li- | va- | large objects, abstracts 4 | ochi- | ovi- | chi- | vi- | instruments, tools 5 | o- | olo- | i- | vi- | animals, loans 6 | olu- | olo- | lu- | vi- | extension, length 7 | oka- | otu- | ka- | tu- | diminutives 8 | ou- | au- | u- | va- | abstracts 9 | oku- | ova- | ku- | va- | body parts, verbals LOCATIVE PREFORMATIVES: mu- (here/in) → pronominal: mu- pa- (there/at) → pronominal: pa- ku- (yonder) → pronominal: ku- §40. TABLE OF NOUNS (examples for each class): Class 1: u-lume/a-lume (man/men), u-kai/a-kai (woman/women), u-pika/a-pika (slave/slaves) Class 2: u-ti/ovi-ti (tree/trees), u-tima/ovi-tima (heart/hearts), u-songo/ovi-songo (arrow/arrows) Class 3: e-kapa/a-kapa (potato/potatoes), e-kamba/a-kamba (friend/friends), i-su/ova-su (eye/eyes) Class 4: ochi-pa/ovi-pa (skin/skins), ochi-ndele/ovi-ndele (white man/white men) Class 5: o-ngombe/olo-ngombe (ox/oxen), o-njila/olo-njila (bird/birds), o-mbua/olo-mbua (dog/dogs) Class 6: olu-si/olo-si (fish), olu-kata/olo-kata (anvil/anvils), olu-mbala/olo-mbala (chain/chains) Class 7: oka-ndimba/otu-ndimba (little hare/hares), oka-pamba/otu-pamba (little eagle/eagles) Class 8: ou-esi (laziness), ou-ato/au-ato (canoe/canoes) Class 9: oku-tui/ova-tui (ear/ears), oku-lu/ova-lu (leg/legs), oku-oko/ova-oko (arm/arms) §41. EXPLANATION OF FORMS The pronominal prefix is derived from (or identical to) the noun preformative but undergoes phonetic reduction: omu- → u- (singular), oma- → va- (plural) ochi- → chi- (singular), ovi- → vi- (plural) o- → i- (singular of Class 5) §42. RELATION TO ANCIENT FORMS Stover notes that the Umbundu preformatives correspond to the reconstructed Bantu proto-prefixes: Bantu *mu-/*ba- → Umbundu u-/a- and omu-/oma- Bantu *ki-/*vi- → Umbundu ochi-/ovi- Bantu *i-/*di- → Umbundu i-/ova- (Class 3b) or e-/a- (Class 3a) §43–44. CASE FORMS Umbundu does not inflect nouns for case (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative). Grammatical relations are expressed by: — word order (subject precedes verb) — the genitive particle -a- (with concordant prefix) — prepositions: ku, mu, pa, lu, te — the pronominal infixes in the verb