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CHAPTER ONE

          INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

1.1 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND ITS JUSTIFICATION FOR
THE STUDY

Man’s interaction with his speech community can only be effectively enhanced through
communication, that is to say, language is always seen as an inseparable partner of man from
cradle to grave: whenever man finds himself, he is always accompanied by language which
underlined the significance of it to man, because it is seen as an instrument through which man
express his emotions, thought, feelings and even finds comfort in times of discomfort and
emotional grief.

Mandingo is one of the many languages predominantly spoken in the West African sub-region. It
is arguably the language with the biggest historical effect on the West African sub-region.
Despite this impact on the region, researchers have proved that, the, the Mandingo language is
still a minority language in sierra Leone and much of what has been said about the Mandingo
people in sierra Leone are from oral tradition, little have been written down.

But even though this is the case, it is still a vital sierra Leonean language that is contributing
linguistically and none linguistically, that is to say, it has impacted greatly on other local
languages, especially the krio language in enriching and increasing it lexicons. That is more the
reason it is extremely necessary that a comprehensive and critical study about the lexical items of
the Mandingo language, with a focus on it nouns, verbs (main), adjectives, and adverbs is done,
so that linguistics student, native and non native speakers of Mandingo will have the opportunity
to learn and understand Mandingo lexical items and appreciate the rich nature of the language’s
lexicons and also observe the way this concept is attested in Mandingo.




                                                 1
1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objectives are as follows:

   i. To identify and establish the elements that make up the lexical items in the Mandingo
       language

   ii. To make a critical and linguistic analysis of the operational system of lexical items in
       Mandingo.

   iii. To show how the lexical items in the Mandingo language are formed and how they are
       used syntactically in the language in order to enhance semantic impact.

   iv. To stimulate and foster research in Mandingo.

   1.3 HYPOTHESIS

   This research shall prove that the Mandingo language like any other language constitute of
   lexical items and can be syntactically arranged to enhance effective and meaningful
   communication.

   1.4 MOTIVE OF THE STUDY

   This study is done with the intention that it will serve as a beneficial and significant help to
   students and linguistics researchers as it could be use as a source of reference in the
   Mandingo language on the following:

       i. Lexical items in Mandingo.

       ii. Internal structure and arrangement of Mandingo Lexicon.

       iii. Word classes.

       iv. Lexical variation in Mandingo.

Also the researcher is with the notion that this research will be useful to non-linguistics students
and researchers in the area of historical background and life of the Mandingo people in general.
It is intended that others will equally find comfort in reading and understanding this research, as


                                                 2
how people could normally read and understand other literatures. Hence, this research will serve
as a vital source for further research not only for linguistic student but for all.




1.5 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH

As the topic implies, this research examine the lexical items in Mandingo, within the context of
which the researcher mainly focus on nouns, adjectives, main verbs, and adverbs. This research
reviewed findings about the operational aspect of the Mandingo lexical items as they relate to
noun classes, verb tenses and aspect, various adjectives and the formation and types of adverbs.

1.6 SOURCES OF DATA AND METHODOLOGY

This research sourced data from both literate and illiterate L1 speakers of Mandingo with the
variation of both young and elderly speakers.
Data are collected from the above source with a tape recorder and whiles notes were also taken
down from interviews and perfunctory discussion on the topic of the research.

Also the research made used of data related to the topic on textbook, dissertations, theses,
published materials on the internet and lectured notes.
The data collected from textbooks, dissertations and etc, are used to explain the concept of the
topic, as examples, and some are quoted directly from the above sources.

1.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE METHODOLOGY AND THE STUDY

Firstly, most of the people interviewed especially the uneducated lack linguistic knowledge.
Thus, it was difficult to find out about some of the necessary details. For instance the uneducated
people interviewed cannot tell the researcher head-on what are the Mandingo adverbs and nouns,
or how Mandingo attested verb tense and aspect and whether nouns got possessive or not.

This limitation was overcome by the researcher by breaking down the linguistic terms to simple
words and phrases like action words for verbs and names of places, things, and animals for
nouns. And for some difficult concepts, the researcher asked the uneducated people interviewed
lots of Mandingo sentences to puzzle out the concept in Mandingo.



                                                   3
Secondly, most of the writings available in the library on the Mandingo language are extensively
done in French. This pose another big challenge to the researcher to either finding an English
version or preferably getting a linguistic copy accurately translated to maintain it originality.
This challenge was curbed by the researcher through the help of French colleagues that are vast
in translation.

Thirdly, another limitation faced was the fact that the researcher is not a L1 speaker of the
language understudy. Being a non-native speaker was problematic for the researcher because the
researcher has to depend heavily on various native speakers, who were almost impossible to get
in one place at a time to ensure correct and confirm source.


This limitation was repressed by a simple handwriting questionnaire in both English and
Mandingo put together by the researcher and other colleagues that are L1 speakers of Mandingo.
And finally, another major constraint met during the research was finance. Being a student
researcher with little financial support was very hard to produce and reproduce photo copy or
even go to the internet café and get materials. Transportation was also a constraint.
The above constraint were overcome by producing and reproducing chapters by handwriting and
also the researcher make sure much was done in a day to cut down on the cost.



1.8 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE MANDINGO

The Mandingo or Mandinka people are one of the largest ethnic groups in the African sub-
continent, based in West Africa. The ethnic group is represented today by approximately eleven
million people. The history of the people is as interesting as their culture and belief system.

In Sierra Leone Mandingo is a major ethnic group officially constitutes 7.8% of Sierra Leone’s
population. The Mandingo in Sierra Leone shares the same culture and language with the
Mandinka people in West Africa. The Mandingo language also known as Mandinka is their
native language. This language is also spoken by millions of Mandinka people is Mali, Senegal,
The Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Guinea Bissau and Chad; it is the main
language of the Gambia.



                                                  4
The Mandingo language belongs to the Mande Tan sub group of the Mande group which is also,
a sub family of languages in the Niger-Congo component of the Niger-Kordofanian family of
languages and is thus fairly similar to Bambara. In Sierra Leone and a majority of other areas it
is a tonal language with two tones: low and high, but the particular variety spoken in The
Gambia and Senegal is a non-tonal and uses a pitch accent.

The origin of the Mandingo language can be limned as far back as to the people of the ancient
empire of Mali. This bunch of a language is said to have its origin in Kita, in the North West of
Bamako.

Historically, it is believed that the Mandingo people in Sierra Leone migrated from neighboring
Guinea through the northern borders of Sierra Leone. This could be traced back between 1840 to
about 1900, when a Mandinka warrior called Samori toure had defeated the Limba led by
Alimamy Suluku and had conquered a large territory in Limba areas in Northern Sierra Leone.
The Mandinka, who were called and known as Mandingo by the colonial master – British, were
later amalgamated with the other natives and were        found in many parts of Sierra Leone
including the capital – Freetown which was largely dominated by the Creole people.

The Mandingo population is largely concentrated in Koinadugu District in the north, particularly
in Kabala and Falaba where they form the largest ethnic group. The Mandingo also makes up the
majority of the population of Yengema, the second largest town in Kono District in the eastern
Sierra Leone.

1.9 LIFE OF THE MANDINGO

Mandingos in Sierra Leone live in family-related compounds in traditional rural villages. Their
villages are fairly autonomous and self-ruled, being led by a council of upper class elders and
chief who function as a first among equals.

Traditionally, Mandingo society is hierarchical or “caste”-based with three divisions: nobles;
(families of former kings and generals), the artisans (musicians and other freeborn) at the middle
class and finally, the vassals (“Jonw”/Jongo) at the bottom. In modern days this difference has
eroded, corresponding to the economic fortunes of the group.



                                                5
The Mandingo societies are patrilineal, patriarchal and of clan culture. The people are
predominantly traders and rural subsistence farmer who rely on groundnut, rice, millet and small
scale husbandry for their livelihood. During the raining season men plant peanut as their main
cash crop; peanut is also the staple diet of the Mandingos.

The Mandingos are predominantly Muslim since the 13 th century. Today, 99% of the Mandingos
in Sierra Leone are Muslims. Many in the rural areas combine Islamic beliefs with certain pre-
Islamic, animistic beliefs, such as the presence of the spirits, the use of Qur’anic verses written
on slip of paper (sɛbɛ) and amulet for protection.

In rural areas western education’s impact is minimal; the literacy rate in Roman script among
these people I is quite low. However, more than half of the adult population can read the local
Arabic script; Qur’anic school for children where this is taught are quite more common.

The Mandingo culture includes varied rich musical and spiritual traditions. They continue a long
oral tradition of educating their children about their history through stories, proverbs and songs
handed down through time. This cultural value and tradition has been kept alive by the musical
families known as the Jeliba. The Jelibas serve as the cultural and traditional ambassadors of
Mandingos. They are “praise” singers that play drums and the Kora – an exclusive Mandingo
traditional instrument with twenty one strings or more.

In Mandingo land marriages are traditional arranged by family members instead of the bride and
groom. This practice is particularly prevalent in the rural areas. Kola nuts are formally sent by
the suitor’s family to the male elders of the bride-to-be and if accepted, the courtship begins.

1.10 THE SOUND SYSTEM OF MANDINGO

The sound system of a language is simply referred to the orthography of the language. Like most
other African language, the Mandingo orthography is phonemic by nature, that is to say, the
transcribed symbols and the letters are the same. Both the sound and the letter is the same.
Before the advent of the Europeans the Arabic alphabet-based orthography was widely used by
the Mandingos because of the fact that the Mandingos are predominantly Muslims and the
subsequent learning of the Arabic scripts as part of their religious education. After colonialism
the Arabic alphabet-based orthography was replaced by the Latin orthography. The basis of


                                                  6
Latinized Mandingo orthography was established at the UNESCO expert meeting in Bamako,
(Mali) in 1966. Various governments with Mandingo population have standardized variants of
this orthography. However even though this was the case, majority of the native Mandingo
speakers who are literate in Arabic phonology can approximate the Latin orthography and the
Arabic-based orthography.

In addition, the Pan-Mande writing system, the N’ko alphabet, invented in 1949, is often use in
north-east Guinea, and bordering community in Ivory coast and Mali but not in Sierra Leone.

The Mandingo sound system is made up of twenty-seven (27) symbols; seven (7) vowels, sixteen
(16) consonants and four (4) diphthongs.




Mandingo vowels

Mandingo vowels are the speech sounds that are produced without an audible friction in the flow
of air in the oral cavity. In other words, there is no direct contact of the articulators in the
production of the sound.

Here is the linguistic                                         representation of the Mandingo
vowels.




                                                               Front              Central
Back




            Close – i u

       Mid close – e o

       Open mid – ɛ ɔ




                                                   7
Open – a




Below is an illustration of phonetic of Mandingo vowel phonemes.

[i] = front close vowel as in
[i] = you.
[Ji] = water.

[e] = front mid half close vowel as in
[kelen] = one
[fen[ = thing.

[ɛ] = front mid half open vowel as in
[kɛmɛ] = a hundred.
[Gbɛ] = white.

[a] = front open vowel as in
[saba] = three.
[Bara] = work.

[u] = back close vowel as in
[julu] = rope.
[Kuru] = gem stone.
[o] = back mid half open vowel as in
[folon] = play.
[Bon] = house.




                                              8
[ɔ] = back mid half open vowel as in
[bɔrɔ] = bag
[tɔɔ] = name

Note: generally the Mandingo vowels have the same sounds as the Italian vowels. Double
vowels are use as a mere indication for emphasis and to indicate longer sound of the particular
single vowel. For example these vowels;

/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, is made long by doubling the vowels as in taa, lee, sii, soo and muu.

The doubling of vowels is important in distinguishing two words which might otherwise be
ambiguous of confusing as in:

Fo = to say
Foo = to miss
Ye = to see
Yee = there

Mandingo diphthongs

A diphthong is a combination of two vowels, (one gliding towards the other usually involving a
quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another) which are realized as a single phonetic
unit. The following below are the Mandingo diphthongs.

au = diphthong beginning with front opened vowel move to the back closed vowel as in
      ‘sauda’ (kettle)

ai = diphthong beginning with front opened vowel and move to the front closed vowel as
in
      ‘sani’ (basket)

oi = diphthong beginning with back mid half opened vowel and move to the front closed as
     in ‘soiyinia’ (this morning)

ei = diphthong beginning with front mid closed vowel and move to the front closed vowel
     as in ‘sei’ (to return)


                                                   9
Mandingo consonants

A consonant is a speech sound with or without vibration of the vocal cords in which the escape
of air through the mouth or nose is at least partly obstructed by the articulators.




Below are the Mandingo consonants and their realization.

CONSONANTS             PHONETIC DESCRIPTIONS                 EXAMPLE AND MEANING

/p/                    voiceless bilabial plosive              pani (pan)
/b/                    voiced bilabial plosive                  bori (run)
/t/                    voiceless alveolar plosive              taa (fire)
/d/                    voiced alveolar plosive                 deni (kid)
/k/                    voiceless velar plosive                  kasi (cry)
/g/                     voiced velar plosive                     gato (lake)
/f/                    voiceless labio-dental fricative       fani (clothes)
/v/                    voiced labio-dental fricative
/s/                     voiceless alveolar fricative            saa (sheep)
/z/                     voiced alveolar fricative              zamzam (zamzam)
/m/                     voiced bilabial nasal                   mɔɔ (a person)
/n/                     voiced alveolar nasal                   ninsii (cow)
/ŋ/                     voiced palatal nasal                    ŋ (I)
/j/                     voiced palatal lateral                  julu (rope)
/l/                     voiced alveolar lateral                 lii (honey)
/r/                    voiced alveolar trill                   kɔrɔ (old)
/h/                    voiced glottal trill                     haj (hajj)
/w/                    labio-dental approximant              waa (to go)




                                                    10
Note: The phonemes /p/, /z/, lack full phonemic status. For /p/ it is more present now due to
borrowing. It is only nearly characterized with respect to idiophones. Also /h/ is borrowed from
Arabic. The phonemes /v/, /z/, /g/, and /q/ are not present in Mandingo. They are only used in
Mandingo in borrowed words




                                        CHAPTER TWO

                                    LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 INTRODUCTION

This chapter entails the review of the literature. Here, the researcher would critically discuss the
views of the authors on the issue of lexical item and the open class category.

By critical discuss, the researcher means giving credits where credits is due, and pointing out
flaws where flaws are discovered in the process of this review. Having done so, the researcher
would then give his own points of view – an attempt to rectify the flaws discovered.

However, the review does not attempt to cover all literature on the study of lexical item and the
open class category. It is of course impossible to do so in an undergraduate dissertation chiefly
concerned with the study to the lexical items in the Mandingo language. This means that one has
to be selective in one’s choice of materials; works of authors which are not all that relevant to the
study are not considered. Those that have some direct bearings to the topic and available are
reviewed.

The works that would be reviewed are as follows:

Carson berndsen (1993)
R. D. Huddleston: (1984)
Wallwork J.F (1985:68)
R.H. Robin (1989:214)
Joe Pemagbei (1997:6)
George Yule (1985:19)

                                                 11
Penny Ur (1988:21)
Wikipedia (2011)
encyclopedia Britannica (2011)
Britannica dictionary




2.2 LEXICAL ITEM

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia:

               A lexical item (or lexical unit) is a single word or chain
               of words that forms the basic elements of a language’s
              lexicon (vocabulary)… “Cat”, “traffic light”… and “it’s
              raining cats and dogs” lexical items can be generally
              understood to convey a single meaning, much as a
              lexeme, but are not limited to single words.

It could be understand that lexical item from the above definition are any word or words
conveying a single meaning and to which an affix could be attached to form a derivation or an
inflection, or to which another word is attached to form a compound word. The above definition
gives a lot about lexical item but what is lacking is the fact that lexical item is not just limited to
a word or chain of words.

The term lexical item is wide and covers other items which are not actually words but give
meaning. For instance the affixes: “-er”, “-ment”, “re-” and “-ly” are not words but convey
meaning in the following words – establisher, establishment, recent and recently. Thus, the
researcher agrees with this definition partially due to the fact that this definition only considered
words as lexical items.

Looking at lexical items from semiotics (sign language) point of view, berndsen has maintained
that:


                                                  12
The notion lexical is used to convey any lexical sign type but also other inventorisable
         items such as affixes and phonemes, whose lexical status in linguistics is controversial.

                                                           Carson berndsen: (1993)

Lexical items as far as berndsen is concerned transcends beyond words. They are items that are
signs and also all other details such as affixes and phonemes that create meaning in languages.
The limitation of this definition is that even though it gives more insight into the term lexical
items, it fails to indicate that it could also includes word or chain of words that are considered as
a item due to it communication value.



R. D Huddleston also presented his definition on the term lexical items:

“A lexical item … may contain more than one lexeme or word: these are idioms such as bury the
hatchet ‘renounce a quarrel’… lexical item may also be the preferred term for a word, words, or
a phrase whose meaning is not deducible from the meaning of its parts; e.g. greenhouse, bucket
shop (normally dealt with as compounds)..” Lexical item may also be used to mean a word form,
such as an irregular inflectional form (of a lexeme) that would be expected to have a separate
dictionary entry.”

                                                      R. D. Huddleston: (1984)

Huddleston’s definition like the definition from Wikipedia place emphases on words, but also
went further with the addition of lexeme, which in most cases are interchangeably used as lexical
items. Huddleston however made it clear that lexeme and lexical item are two distinct concepts
in linguistic. According to him, lexical item is a word, words, or a phrase whose meaning is not
derived from the meaning of it parts whiles lexeme reserved for the ‘word’ which has a group of
variants (e.g. see, saw, seen, etc.).

This definition is in place according to the researcher to some extent but this definition also
limits the wider concept of lexical item.

For instance in Mandingo language the lexical item “kɛ” which means man in isolation and in
another context, is actually not a word in the sentence below but help the adjective “jona”
(quick) in the sentence to be an adverb – quickly.

                                                 13
Damuni kɛ jona
                                           /eat/  /quick/

                                           (Eat quickly)

In the basic concept of syntax ……………………. Maintain that:

        Part of our linguistic knowledge involves knowledge of a large number
        of words. Which constitute our vocabulary…lexicon… the elements of
        lexicon are what we might think of as words...Syntactic theories have
        slightly different conceptions of what a ‘lexical item’ is, and so it is not
        always safe to think of the lexicon as just a stock of words… the lexicon
        of a generative grammar may contain a listing of various affixes, such as
        … (the affix that distinguishes the sheep walks from the sheep walk).

                                                            Basic concept of syntax



According to ……………… lexical item are all the element of the lexicon of a language and not
necessary words or chain or words but all items that contribute to the morphological and
syntactic structure that enhance meaning. The researcher extremely agrees with… even thought
he fails to mention sign and other gesture that contribute to meaning.

According to J.F Wallwork (1985:68) maintained that, there are two categories of lexical items.

            It is necessary to make a distinction between two different types
            of words; sometime called lexical and grammatical words…

                                         Wallwork J.F (1985:68)

In his book Wallwork was trying to make a dichotomy of lexical items. Indeed there are two
categories of lexical items – grammatical words which are also called function words, due to
their performance in syntactic structure and lexical words which are called content words.
Content words are words that belong to the open class category of lexical items. These are the
words that are responsible to convey the meaning of sentence whiles the function words are
responsible to modify these meanings conveyed by the content words.



                                                 14
2.3 OPEN CLASS CATEGORY

The term open class category is also referred to as open endedness or open word class. This
covers lexical items that are a sub-group under the lexical system of a language. An open is class
is a word that accepts the addition of new items, through such process as compounding,
derivation, coining, borrowing etc. open classes are the flexible side of a language. They can be
changed, replaced, or dropped from the lexicon.

R.H. Robin (1989:214) propounded on the word classes, thus

                Word classes may be closed in membership; all languages
                have open class… an open class is one whose membership
                is in principle unlimited varying from time to time and
                between one speaker and another most loan words ( word
                taken from foreign languages) and newly created go into
                classes… nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs are open
                classes

Beyond all reasonable doubts, the researcher agrees with Robin. The open class is potentially
infinite, since it is continually being expanded and language exchange continues to flourish
among individuals and speech communities.

In English the open class category includes;

Nouns

Main verbs (not auxiliary verbs)

Adjectives

Adverbs

Interjections

Interjections are normally formed as new words standing in for sounds and are added not only
from technical background but also from comics and subtitling. It is on these cases we encounter
such – the noise of motor revving, sirens, mechanical sounds. Examples here are vroom, va-va-
voom, zoom, grrh and so on.

In Mandingo, the open class includes the following:

Nouns

                                               15
Verbs (main)

Adjectives

Adverbs

Interjections are not attested as belonging to class category in the Mandingo language.

                Lexical words belong to an open set it is virtually
                impossible to list them exhaustively, and it is
                always possible to replace them by other and
                to make new ones. They will usually be nouns
                verbs, adjectives, or adverbs.

                                        Wallwork J. F. (1985:68)

To a great extent, Wallwork is right. The Mandingo language agrees with him completely that
only these four word classes listed are flexible enough to be replaced by other classes; from one
particular class of word a new word can emerge. This gives the language freshness as new words
are readily available to be changed, replaced to make new ones. For instance, in English the noun
suffix (-ian) can be suffixed to the verb ‘guard’ to suddenly change it from verb to a noun.

This is also applicable in the Mandingo language. Examples are as follows:

Noun                                Noun                          Derived word

lɔkɔli             +                 de           =               lɔkɔlide (noun)
(school)                           (child)                          (pupil)

Noun                               Suffix                         Derived word

Yele              +                   li          =               yeleli (verb)
(laugh)                             (ing)                          (laughing)

Verb                               Noun                           Derived word

Gbodo              +               diya           =           gbododiya (noun)
(cooking)                          (place)                     (kitchen)

Noun                             Adjective                        Derived word

De                +                 kuda          =             dekuda (adjective)
(child)                             (new)                      (newborn)

                                                 16
Adjective                           Noun                          Derived word

Saya            +                   kɔndɔ              =                sayakɔndɔ
(funeral)                            (greeting)                         (condolence)




Joe Pemagbei: (1997:6) also tries to advance a detail analysis of the open class category. He state
that:

                     Some word classes are open, that is, new words
                     can be added to the class as the need arises. The
                     class of nouns, for instance, is potentially infinite,
                     since it is continually being expanded as new
                     products are developed and new ideas, in the 20th
                     century, development in computer technology have
                     Given rise to many new nouns… internet, website,
                     email, newsgroup, bitmap, modem and new verb such
                    as download, upload, reboot, right click, double click…

In this regards, the researcher totally agrees with Pemagbei even though the processes through
which this words are incorporated into the open class category are not being highlighted, but he
succeeds in giving a through explanation of the features of the open class category: the open
class will be potentially infinite since it is continually being expanded as new discoveries, new
products and ideas explored.

George Yule (1985:19) has advanced his concept about the open class category as he says:

                    Open endedness is an aspect of language which is linked
                    to the fact that the potential number of utterance in any
                    given language is infinite

In Yule’s definition of the open class category, open endedness (open class category) is not
restricted to a number of language. He established that, there are open endedness to any given


                                                  17
language. The researcher agrees with him for the fact that based on his explanation, the
Mandingo language can be attested to open endedness. However looking at open class category
on a different scale, it can be noticed that Yule concentrated on the unlimited utterances on
language and speech, whilst other linguist were specifically naming the word classes which
could actually be considered as an open class category.

                   A task that is open ended allows for lots of different learner
                   response during its performance, and is therefore conducive
                   to the production of varied and original ideas.

                                                              Ur, penny (1988:21)

Ur and Yule to some extent share similar views which have to do with language and speech.

In Ur’s definition the use of ‘different learner responses’ is a total break away because he was
concentrating on language learning in which case unlimited learners responses can be classified
as open endedness.

Conclusively, it could be noted that all the works of the various linguist quoted above make a
significant impact on attesting the open class category in languages generally and on the
Mandingo language to be specific. It is as a result of the open class in any language that makes
the language to be dynamic.

It must be noted however that, there are open classes which are known as lexical category to
generative grammarian in Mandingo for which members of these category are nouns, adjectives,
adverbs and verbs. And there are closed word classes which are referred to as grammatical
words. They are word classes that performed as functional word to enhance the grammar of the
language. These take the form of prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, and article and to some
extent interjection.




                                                 18
CHAPTER THREE

                                       NOUNS AND ADJECTIVES

3.1 NOUN

The lexical item – noun is very vital in almost all the languages of the world for which the Mandingo
language cannot be an exception. As stated in chapter two of this dissertation, noun is a word class that
account for on the open class category in the Mandingo language. Therefore nouns are content words.
They have meaning as independent words and new words can be generated in Mandingo with this part of
speech by word formations, which contribute immensely to the freshness of the Mandingo language.

According to Glencoe (2002);

            A noun is a word that names a person,
             a place, a thing or an idea
                                    Glencoe (2002:81) grammar and composition handbook

Noun can also be defined as according to Betty Kirkpatrick (2009)

             Noun is used to refer to a person,
             thing, or quality
                                      Kirkpatrick B (2009:72)

The definition of noun is simple put in the MacMillan English; thinking and writing process

             A noun can name a person, place
             or thing (living and non living)
             that occupies space.

 The aforementioned definitions of a noun by the various authors are almost the same except for the
difference for ‘idea’ and ‘quality’ in the first and second definitions.




                                                      19
A noun in Mandingo can be defined as a name of anything – a person, an animal, a place, a thing, an idea
or a concept. Mandingo nouns assume various shapes depending on whether they are: definite or
indefinite and singular or plural.




For easy understanding of the Mandingo noun as according to the various definitions, a list of examples is
as follow:

                                          NOUNS (PERSON)

              MANDINGO                                            ENGLISH EQUIVALENT

Fudumuso                                              Wife
Deni                                                  Kid
Kee                                                   Man
Nfa                                                   Father
Nnaa                                                  Mother
Mbori                                                 Uncle
Mansa                                                 chief


                                           NOUNS (PLACE)

           MANDINGO                                                    ENGLISH EQUIVALENT

Sɛnɛ                                                  Farm
Bon                                                   House
Sila                                                  Road
Kɔgidada/Kɔgida                                       Waterside


                                     NOUNS (LIVING THINGS)

           MANDINGO                                                  ENGLISH EQUIVALENT

Baa                                                   Goat
Saa                                                   Sheep
Nisi                                                  Cow
Bamba                                                 Crocodile
Ulu                                                   Dog


                                            NOUNS (IDEA)



                                                   20
MANDINGO                                                    ENGLISH EQUIVALENT

Boribori                                               Chaos
Manamanah                                              not serious
Keleya                                                 Jealousy
sayakɔndɔ                                              Condolence




A noun can also be used as subject and object of a Mandingo sentence. This could be confirmed by the
examples below:

     1. Boŋ tit ii yeŋ a bara wa sɛnɛdɔ.
         /house/owner/is not/here/he/went/to the farmland/
         the house owner are not around he has gone to the farm.

     2. Deŋninlu di wa lɔ kɔ lila
         children/will go/school/to
         the children will go to school.

In sentence 1 the bold underlined Mandingo noun “boŋ tit” (the house owner) is attested as the subject of
the sentence, while in sentence 2 the bold underlined Mandingo noun “l ɔk ɔlila’ (school) is the subject of
the sentence.

3.2 NOUN CLASS

Noun is one of the most significant word classes in many languages and Mandingo is one such languages.
Many nouns in Mandingo are derived from verbs through suffixation. Some other nouns are obtained
from borrowing from other languages.

In the Mandingo language, unlike the English language, there is the attestation of noun class system,
which is also a linguistic phenomenon in the Fula, Themne, and Kiswahili languages. Mandingo is a class
language with varied agreement system. It uses suffixes on the nouns. These suffixes indicate the definite
and the indefinite singular and plural forms of nouns. These suffixes are called “noun classes”.

This is a concept in which each noun class carries a particular suffix or affixation to identify the class to
which that noun belongs.




                                                     21
The following are some of the commonest noun classes in the Mandingo noun class system:

    - Ti                   possessor of/ ownership

    - La                   occupation or character of person and place

    - Ka                   place of origin or where a person comes from

    - Du                   place of or land of

    - Diya                 place of something or occupation and instrument

    - IA                   abstract concept

    - Nii                  diminutive forms

    - Fɔɔ                  illness; both mental and physical

    - Fee                  names of crops

    Examples illustrating the uses of the above noun classes are as follows:

    The ‘-ti’ class comprised nouns that indicate possessor of or ownership.

      WORDS                                               MEANING
    Woditi                                                Owner of money
    Mansati                                               A leader
    Fankati                                               Owner of a power/ authority
    Boŋti                                                 Owner of a house
    mɔbiliti                                              Owner of a car


    The ‘-la’ class is concerned with person and place. It shows occupation or character.

    WORDS                     MEANING                     WORDS                   MEANING
    Kamarala                  A place of kamara           Kamaralalu              A placeof karmas
    Borila                    Runner                      Borilalu                Runners
    Tamala                    Walker                      Tamalalu                Walkers
    Kelela                    Fighter                     Kelelalu                Fighters
    sɛnɛhkɛla                 Farmer                      sɛnɛhkɛlalu             Farmers



                                                     22
The ‘-ka’ class shows place of origin or where a person is from.

WORDS                     MEANING                    WORDS                       MEANING
Sefaduka                  A person from sefadu       Sefadukalu                  People from sefadu
Kabalaka                  A person from kabala       Kabalakalu                  People from kabala
Kissiduka                 A person from kiss         Kissidukalu                 People from kissi
fadagbɛka                 An European                fadagbɛkalu                 Europeans


The ‘-du’ class is particularly concerned with “place of” or “land of”

WORD                                                 MEANING
Kissidu                                              The land of kissi


The ‘-diya’ class shows place of something or occupation and instruments.

     WORDS                 MEANING                    WORDS                      MEANING
Kharandiya                 A tailor shop              Kharandiyalu               Tailor shops
kuumatɛdiya                A barber shop              kuumatɛdiyalu              Barber shop
kelɛkɛdiya                 War front                  kelɛkɛdiyalu               War fronts


The ‘-ia’ deals with abstract forms.

WORDS                                                 MEANING
Hadamaia                                              Politeness
Simaia                                                Long life
Teria                                                 Friendship
Kolobalia                                             Indiscipline


The ‘-nii’ class deals mainly with diminutive forms.

WORDS                     MEANING                     WORDS                      MEANING
Denii                     a child                     Deniilu                    children
kɛnii                     A young man                 kɛniilu                    Young men
Mɔni                      A tiny person               Mɔnilu                     Tiny people
Baanii                    A kid                       Baaniilu                   Kids


The ‘-tɔɔ’ class deals particularly with illness, mental disorder and physical illness.

WORDS                                                 MEANING
Faatɔɔ                                                A lunatic
Jankarotɔɔ                                            A sick person
Nagbatɔɔ                                              A restless or trouble person


The ‘-fee’ class indicates names of crops – vegetables.


                                                23
WORDS                                                  MEANING
     Tiyafee                                                A groundnut field
     Malofee                                                A grain field




3.3 PLURAL

The word plural means two or more. It is a marker that is used with reference to mean more than one.
Plural is a noun feature that indicates it is more than one person, animal, place or thing (the noun is more
than one). Examples are streets, potatoes, analyses, women, mice, etc.

In the English language there are several inflections or markers for different cases to indicate the plurals
of nouns.

     CASE 1

     To make most nouns plural, ‘-s’ is suffixed to the nouns. For examples:

     SINGULAR                                                PLURAL
     One pen                                                 Two pens
     One street                                              Two streets
     One rose                                                Two roses


     CASE 2

     ‘-es’ is used for nouns ending in ‘-sh’, ‘-ch’, ‘-ss’, and ‘-x’.

     SINGULAR                                               PLURAL
     One dish                                               Two dishes
     One match                                              Two matches
     One class                                              Two classes
     One box                                                Two boxes


     CASE 3

     If the noun ends in a consonant + ‘-y’, the ‘-y’ is change to ‘I’ and ‘-es’ is added.

     SINGULAR                                               PLURAL
     One baby                                               Two babies
     One city                                               Two cities


     Note: if ‘-y’ is preceded by a vowel, add only ‘-s’ boys, days and keys.

                                                       24
CASE 4

If a noun ends in ‘-fe’ or ‘-f ‘, change the ending to ‘-ves’ (exceptions: beliefs, chiefs, roofs, cuffs,)

SINGULAR                                               PLURAL
One knife                                              Two knives
One shelf                                              Two shelves


CASE 5

The plural form of nouns that end is ‘-o’ is sometimes ‘-oes’ and sometimes ‘-os’.

SINGULAR                                               PLURAL
One tomato                                             Two tomatoes
One zoo                                                Two zoos
One zero                                               Two zeroes/zeros


CASE 6

Some nouns have irregular plural forms (note: the singular form of people can be person. For
example one man and child = two people)

SINGULAR                                               PLURAL
One child                                              Two children
One foot                                               Two feet
One goose                                              Two geese
One mouse                                              Two mice


CASE 7

The plural form of some nouns is the same as the singular form.

SINGULAR                                               PLURAL
One deer                                               Two deer
One fish                                               Two fish
One species                                            Two species


CASE 8

Some nouns that English has borrowed from other languages have foreign plural.

SINGULAR                                               PLURAL
One crisis                                             Two crises
One bacterium                                          Two bacteria
One phenomenon                                         Two phenomena



                                                  25
In the Mandingo language, on the other hand, there is only one inflection use to indicate plural of
      nouns. The plural is indicated by the suffixing the inflection ‘-lu’ to nouns.




      Below are some illustrated examples of Mandingo plural

      SINGULAR                  ENGLISH                                                ENGLISH
                                EQUIVALENT                  PLURAL                     EQUIVALENT
      Saa                       Sheep                       Saalu                      Two sheep
      Musoo                     Woman                       Musoolu                    Women
      Lemunu                    Orange                      Lemunulu                   Oranges
      Muru                      Knife                       Murulu                     Knives
      Kɔni                      Key                         Kɔnilu                     Keys
      Mɔnbili                   Car                         Mɔnbililu                  Cars
      Da                        Door                        Dalu                       Doors
      Banaku                    Cassava                     Banakulu
      Sambara                   Shoe                        Sambaralu                  Shoes
      jɛ                        Fish                        jɛlu                       Two fish
      Deni                      Child                       Denilu                     Children
      Tamati                    Tomato                      Tamatilu                   Tomatoes
      Fani                      Clothe                      Fanilu                     Clothes
      Baa                       Goat                        Baalu                      Goats
      Mansa                     Chief                       Mansalu                    Chiefs
      Tasa                      Dish                        Tasalu                     Dishes
      Matralila                 Beggar                      Matralilalu                Beggars
      Sife                      Chair                       Sifelu                     Chairs


3.4    POSSESSSIVES


The possessive (or genitive) is the case which denotes the owner or possessor of a thing. Examples:
daddy’s car; ladies’ bags; children’s toys etc. the possessive case is very important in languages.

In the English language the possessive of noun is formed by an apostrophe ( ‘ ) and an “-s” or just the
apostrophe ( ‘ ) in some case. These are used with nouns to show possession. Examples:

      (a) I know the student’s name. (singular)

      (b) I know the students’ names. (plural)

      (c) I know the children’s names. (plural)


                                                      26
Notice the patterns:

    i.   Singular possessive nouns are:
         noun + apostrophe ( ‘ ) + “-s”
         Examples:

          A man = A man’s name.
          My baby = my baby’s name.

    ii. Plural possessive noun are:
         noun + “-s” + apostrophe ( ‘ )



    iii. Example :




         My babies = my babies’ name.
         The students = the students’ name.




    iv. Irregular plural possessive nouns.
         noun + apostrophe ( ‘ ) + “-s”
         Examples:

         Men = Men’s names.
         The children = the children’s names.




                                                27
Unlike the English language, in the Mandingo language, the possessive in noun is not attested by an
apostrophe ( ‘ ) + “-s” or just the apostrophe ( ‘ ). The Mandingo singular possessive in noun is attested
by the singular possessive noun Marker “la” or “ta” depending on the dialect.

The following sentences illustrate the singular possessive in Mandingo nouns.

         1. Mohamed la sɛnɛdiya ye miŋ?
           Mohamed/his/farmland/is/where
           (where is Mohamed’s farmland?)

         2. Saran la boŋ ye miŋ?
            Saran/his/house/is/where
            (where is saran’s house?)

         3. John la baradiya ye miŋ
            john/his/office/is/whose
            (where is john’s office?)

Note: the above Mandingo singular possessive noun marker “la” is an auxiliary in the sentence not an
affixation like the English apostrophe ( ‘ ) + “-s”. .

In the case of Mandingo plural possessive noun marker, this is indicated by the plural of the noun “-lu”
and the possessive marker “-la”.

Below are illustrated examples of the Mandingo plural noun possessive case is a sentence.

         1. Konatelu la boŋ ye miŋ
            konates/’s/house/are/where
            (where are the konate’s house?)

         2. Dinilu la tolonfelu ye miŋ?
           Children/’s/toys/are/where
           (where are the children toys?)

         3. Meŋlu ye keelu la fani dedi
            those/are/men/’s/clothes/there
            (those are men’s clothes?)

For easy and clearer Mandingo sentence, the possessives are normally expressed by the following
possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives.

                                                         28
Possessive pronouns

PERSON                                  SINGULAR                                PLURAL
First person                            ŋtaa (mine)                             Ntaa (ours)
Second person                           Itaa (yours)                            Altaa (yours)
Third person                            Ataa (his/her/its)                      Altaa (thiers)


Examples:

Singular                                                                     plural

ŋtaa le (its mine)                                                       Ntaa le ( it’s ours)
itaa le (it’s yours)                                                      itaa le (it’s yours)
ataa le (it’s his/hers)                                                 altaa le (it’s theirs)

Note: a possessive pronoun is used alone without a noun following it, as it is shown above.

Possessive adjectives

PERSON                                  SINGULAR                                PLURAL
First person                            Nna (my)                                Ana (our)
Second person                           Ila (your)                              ila (your)
Third person                            Ala (his/her/its)                       Alla (their)
Examples:

Nna wɔdi (my money)                                                ana bik (our pens)
ila kee (your husband)                                           ila keelu ( your husband’s)
ala jida ( his/her water pot)                                   alla bik (their pens)

Note: a possessive adjective is used only with a noun following it, as shown above.

4.5 ADJECTIVE

The word we use to describe people, place, and things are called adjectives. According to Glencoe:

                       An adjective is a word that describes,
                       or modifies, a noun or a pronoun

                                Glencoe: Grammar and composition Handbook

The word “modifies” in the above definition of Glencoe means to change a little. An adjective give a little
different meaning to a noun. It describes or gives information about a noun.




                                                          29
An adjective tells us something about
                    a noun or a pronoun.

                                   Sheku kamara: English language key topics

According to this other definition we could deduce that an adjective can “tells us something about a noun
or a pronoun” by limiting the meaning of the noun. This could be indicating what kind? Which one? How
many? or how much?

Examples:

    a) Round window

    b) Six oranges

    c) That hat

    d) Adult cat

    e) Romantic story

Like the English language, all other languages have words to describe a person and some other things,
even though it may be attested in a way or form different from the English language.

In Mandingo, an adjective is also used to describe a noun and a pronoun, but the only thing is that, there
is a slight difference in position and some other aspect different from the English language.

The following are some examples of Mandingo adjectives and how they are realized in Mandingo.

         Adjectives                                                       used

    1) kɔrɔ (old)                                                        k ɛ k ɔr ɔ ( old man)
                                                                            man/old

    2) fhiŋ (black)                                                       muso fhiŋ (dark woman)
                                                                            woman/black

    3) gbɛ (fair)                                                          muso gb ɛ (fair woman)
                                                                            woman/fair

    4) ba (big)                                                             boŋ ba (big house)
                                                                             house/big

    5) fitini (small)                                                      kini fitini (small rice)
                                                                             rice/small


                                                    30
6) kuda (new)                                                             k ɛkuda ( new son)
                                                                                 male/new

    7) fadafhiŋ (African)                                                   fadafhiŋ muso (African woman)
                                                                                African/woman

    8) kuduni ( short)                                                      muso kuduni (short woman)
                                                                               woman/short

    9) jan (tall)                                                              k ɛ jan (tall man)
                                                                                  man/tall

    10) kalmia (warm/hot)                                                   ji kalima (hot water)
                                                                                  water/hot

From the above example data of the Mandingo adjective, it could be observed that the adjectives in
Mandingo are post-nominal attributive position, just like the Spanish and Arabic adjective and also in
front of the noun they modify, in some case just like the English language.

The similarity between the English language and the Mandingo language is that in both languages
adjectives are neither singular nor plural. An adjective do not have a plural form.

Nouns can also be used as adjectives in Mandingo just like the English language. They tell what kind? Or
which one, about the noun they modifies.




Examples:

       Adjectives (noun)                                             used

    a) muso (woman)                                                 muso sambaralu (woman shoes)
                                                                        woman/shoes

    b) bolo (hand)                                                   bolola b ɔr ɔ (hand bag)
                                                                        hand/bag

    c) kɔɔ (salt)                                                      k ɔji (salt water)
                                                                         salty/water




                                                     31
d) mɔnbili (car)                                                 mɔnbili k ɔŋi (car key)
                                                                        car/key

Possessive pronouns such as “our” and “his” can be considered as adjectives because they modify nouns
in addition to their usual function as pronouns.

Examples:

    1) ana lɔkɔli (our school)

    2) ala jida ( this water pot)

    3) alla boŋ (his house)

    4) nna wɔdi (my money)



Similarly possessive nouns can be considered adjective in English but this is not so in Mandingo because
the possessive nouns in Mandingo are attested differently from the way is done in English.

3.6 DISCRIPTIVES

Descriptive adjectives are the adjectives that describe a noun by indicating the quality and the quantity of
the noun. Examples: sad story, ugly Betty, interesting book, enough cups and many ideas.

Illustrated examples of descriptive adjectives in Mandingo are below.

    1) Keŋi (beautiful)
        ŋ keŋi = I am beautiful
        /i/beautiful/

    2) Ba (big)
        alla boŋ ba = his big house
        his/house/big/
        alla boŋ ka bon = his house is big
        /his/house/is/big/

    3) dɔman (small)
        musa la kini dɔman = musa rice is small.
        /musa/’s/rice/small/

                                                    32
4) Kaŋi (nice)
        boŋ kaŋi = nice house
        /house/nice/

    5) Ju (bad)
        kɛju = bad man
        /man/bad/
        sun ju = bad habit
        /habit/bad

    6) Ŋuma (fine)
        sun ŋuma = good habit.
        /habit/good/

    3.7 DEMONSTRATIVES

    Basically, demonstrative adjective are demonstrative pronoun used as an adjective just as the way a
    noun can be use as an adjective to modify a noun by pointing out the specific person or thing and
    showing his or its position or location and at the same time, it or his singular or plural status.

    Neŋ = this

    Meŋ = that

    Examples:

    1) kɛ neŋ = this man

    2) muso meŋ keŋi = that woman is beautiful

    3) wɔdi neŋ ta = take this money

    4) den meŋ gbasi = beat that child

As mentioned earlier, demonstrative locates or show position whether proximal or distal from the speaker
or context of the situation.

3.8 COMPARATIVES AND SUPERLATIVES




                                                      33
An adjective can also be comparative and superlative. The comparative form of an adjective indicates the
greater extent to which the normal form of the adjective applies, whiles the superlative form indicate the
maximal extent.

In another sense comparative make it comparison between two people or things whiles on the hand the
superlative one part of a whole group as against the rest of the group.

Below are illustrated examples of comparative and superlative.

Normal form                             comparative form                     superlative form

Great                                Greater                              Greatest
Full                                 Fuller                               Fullest
Good                                 Better                               Best


From the above examples it is clear that English has a specific suffix marker for the comparative and the
superlative forms, except on exceptional irregular form.

In Mandingo adjective do not have a suffix marker to indicate the comparative form or the superlative
form. What is used in Mandingo is the word “ta + di”or just “di” which means more than, for the
comparative marker, and “bɛ +di” which means pass all or than all, for the superlative marker.

3.8.1 COMPARATIVE FORM

Ta + Di = more than

Examples:

    1. saran dɔma marie di
        saran/small/marie/than
        (saran is smaller than marie)

    2. ala mɔnbili kaŋi musa ta di
        his/car/good/musa/more/than
        (his car is more beautiful than musa’s)

    3. ŋ deŋkɛ karani ata di
        i/son/educated/his/more/than
        (my son is more educated than his)



                                                     34
4. ala kogbɛlɛlan ŋ ta di
         his/difficult/i/more/than
         (he is more difficult than I am)




3.8.2   SUPERLATIVE FORM

bɛ + di = pass all.
or this one
al +bɛ + di = pass all.

Examples:

    1. ŋ dɔma al bɛ di
        i/small/pass all
        (I am the smallest)

    2. a keŋi al bɛ di
        he/beautiful/pass all
        (he is the most beautiful)

    3. ali juma al bɛ di
        ali/worst/pass all
        (ali is the worst)

    4. sheku karani bɛ di
        sheku/educated/pass all
        (shehu is the most educated)

Note: “bɛ di”in the above examples could be understand as the short form or contracted form of the
Mandingo superlative marker “al bɛ di”

Also in Mandingo the superlative form can equally be expressed with the use of the absolute form of
adjective “tamini” which literally means the best or the highest degree of something and the superlative
marker “bɛ di”

Examples:




                                                  35
1. hussain bolt tamini borila bɛ di
   (hussain bolt is the fastest runner)

2. saran la taa de tamini bɛ di
   (saran’s child is the best)




                                          36
CHAPTER FOUR

                                   VERBS (MAIN) AND ADVERBS



4.1 MAIN VERB

A verb is a word that expresses action (walk, talk, read) or a state of being (be, exist, and stand) and is
necessary to make a statement. In most languages, verbs are inflected to encode tense, aspect, mood and
voice. A verb may also agree with the person, gender and number of some of it argument, such as its
subject and object.

A verb in Mandingo tells what a noun or a pronoun does in a sentence. The actions or activities of persons
or things are made known through the use of verbs.

Below are examples of some Mandingo verbs and how they are used in a sentence.

    1) Tama (walk): Abu tama ta karandiya loŋ-o-loŋ
                      Abu/works/to/school/everyday
                      (Abu walks to school every day)




                      Fanta tamara karandiya kunuŋ.
                      Fanta/walked/to school/yesterday
                      (Fanta walked to school yesterday)

                       Ali di tama karandiya sini
                       ali/will/walk/to school/tomorrow
                       (Ali will walk to school tomorrow)

    2) Bara (work): ŋ bara la bakɛ
                      i/work/ very hard/
                      (I work very hard)

                       Al barala bakɛ kunuŋ.
                      They/worked/a lot/yesterday/
                      (they worked a lot yesterday)




                                                      37
Al di bara bakɛ sini
                       they/will/work/a lot/tomorrow/
                       (they will work a lot tomorrow)

With close examination of the above Mandingo examples, the Mandingo language unlike the English
language does not have any subject verb agreement. That is to say, there is no agreement between the
Mandingo verbs and the subject in terms of singular or plural, or agreement on number or persons.

3.2 TENSE

The primary characteristic of verb is its ability to express time by means of tense. Tense is a grammatical
expression of time reference. The idea of time is frequently perceived as a continuum of three main
categories or division –past, present and the future.

Depending on the language, a verb may express grammatical tense by the use of auxiliary verbs or
inflections to convey whether the action or state is before (past), simultaneous with (present) or after
some reference point (future). The reference point could be the time of utterance, in which case the verb
expresses absolute tense, or it could be a past, present, or future time of reference previously established
in sentence, in which case the verb expresses relative tense.

In Mandingo, the concept of time, even though expresses by the verb and its auxiliary or just the main
verb, it is sometime only made crystal clear by the time adverbials such as, the list below.

    Ten-ten (just now)

    Siseŋ (now)

    Sɔnyima (earlier today)

    Keleŋ keleŋ (occasionally/once in a while)

    Loŋ-o-loŋ (every day)

    Kunuŋ (yesterday)

    Bii (today)

    Sini (tomorrow)

    Kunaŋ siniŋ (day before yesterday)

    A bara miŋ




                                                        38
The illustrated examples below would explain the concept further. Observe the illustrated examples for
confirmation.

         1. ŋ wara bii
             i/go/today
             (I go today)

         2. ŋ wara kunuŋ
             i/went/yesterday/
             (I went yesterday)

         3. ŋ wara yeŋ siseŋ
             /I/went/there/awhile ago/
             (I went there awhile ago)

         4. ŋ di wa sini
             I/will/go/tomorrow/
             (I will go tomorrow)

Note: the above verb “wara” is used not only for present but also for the past tense. So in that sense the
tense is only made clear by the time adverbials or the context in which the verb is use.

         4.3 PRESENT TENSE

The simple present expresses daily habits or usually activities, general statement or fact, and the used for
event or situation that exist always.

Examples are:

    1. David takes shower every day.

    2. The earth revolves around the sun.

    3. The sky is blue.

    4. Babies cry.

In English the simple present tense may be formed by the inflection plural “-s”, depending on the subject
and verb agreement. If the subject is singular the verb takes the plural “-s”, and if the subject is plural the
singular verb is use to expressed the simple present tense.


                                                      39
Unlike English, the Mandingo language do not have subject and verb agreement so the simple present
tense is form with just the verb (unmarked) and sometime with the time adverbial.

Below are illustrated examples of the simple present tense.

THE SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE

    1. Musa tama karandiya lombɛ
         musa/walks/to school/everyday/
         (musa walks to school every day)

    2. Fanta ye barala lombɛ
         Fanta/is/works/everyday/
         (Fanta works everyday)

    3. Al wara
       he or she/goes/
       (he/she goes)




4.4 PAST TENSE

The simple past is used to talk about activities or situations that began and ended in the past. In English
most simple past verbs are formed by adding “-ed” to the verb, as in (a) and (b) below.

    A. Abu worked downtown yesterday

    B. Our car arrived on time.

And some have irregular past forms, as in (c) and (d) below.

    C. She ate breakfast this morning.

    D. Marie took a taxi to the airport.

In Mandingo, most simple past verb tens is formed by suffixing “-ra” on the main verb. This is illustrated
below.




                                                    40
1. Abu tamara karandiya kunuŋ
        /abu/walked/to school/yesterday/
        (abu walked to school yesterday)

    2. A nara watidɔ
        he/came/very long time ago/
        (he came very long time ago)

    3. Ali borira kunuŋ
        ali/ran/yesterday/
        (ali ran yesterday)

However not all verbs in Mandingo follow the above illustration, that is to say, the “-ra” suffix to form
their past form. For examples:

    A. Ten ten de a tambida
        just now/he/passed/
        (he passed her just now)

    B. Ba (to finish) bana (finished)

    C. John ka damonikɛ kunuŋ
        /john/ate/yesterday/
        (john ate yesterday)

The above examples of the past tense used the suffix”-da”, “-na”and the ‘ka” auxiliary working with the
“-kɛ” suffix to indicate the past tense because of dialectal variation and irregular verb forms.

4.5 FUTURE TENSE

On the time line, future locates a situation or even t subsequent to the present moment. In English, the
future tense is formed by the auxiliary verb will/shall or the verb phrase “be going to” as in the following
examples:

    A. I am going to leave at nine tomorrow morning.

    B. I will leave at nine tomorrow morning.

    C. I shall leave at nine tomorrow morning.



                                                     41
In Mandingo, the future tense is equally straight forward but more fixed than the English language’s
future tense. The future tense in Mandingo is expressed by a fixed auxiliary verb “di” which means will,
and thus, no controversy of interchanging with an alternative.




Below are illustrated examples of sentences of the Mandingo future tense.

    1. A di na
        he/she/will come/
        (he/she will come.)

    2. Deŋninlu di wa lɔkɔlila
        children/will/go/school to/
        (the children will go to school.)

    3. A di wa lɔkɔlila
       he/she/will walk school to/
       (he/she will walk to school.)



4.6 ADVERB

An adverb is any word that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun (modifiers of nouns are
primarily adjectives and determiners). Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives 9inluding numbers), clauses,
sentences, and other adverbs.

The above explanation is supported by Bas Aarts in his book: English syntax and argumentation

                                  Adverbs modify verbs adjective
                                  or other adverbs.

Adverbs are words like slowly, tomorrow, now, suddenly and etc. adverbs provide information about the
manner, place, or circumstances of the activity denoted by the verb phrase.


                                                      42
Examples:

    1. She walked slowly. (Here the adverb slowly provides information about the manner in which she
        walked)

    2. The kids are playing upstairs. (Here the adverb upstairs provides information about the place of
        activity.)

In Mandingo, adverbs are modifiers. They modify verbs in sentences. They explain and describe the
action in a construction.

Below are some illustrated examples of Mandingo adverbs and how they are used in a sentence.

    1. Bii (today): ŋ din a bii
                      /I/will/come/today/
                      (I will come today)

    2. Dafɛ (near): a sini dafɛ
                       /he/sitting/near/
                       (he is sitting near me.)

    3. Lododon (sometimes): lododon a di na
                                   /sometimes/he/will/come/
                                    (he comes sometimes.)

    4. Sanfɛ (up): kɛ ye yiri sanfɛ
                     /man/is/tree/up/
                     (the man is up the tree.)

    5. kunuŋ (yesterday): a wara sɛnɛdɔ kunuŋ
                               he/she/went/the farmland/yesterday
                               (he/she went to the farmland yesterday)

4.7 POSITION

Adverbs are the most mobile element in a sentence construction. However the most common position of
adverbs in Mandingo is at the end of a sentence. Adverbs in Mandingo take the final position. Below are
illustrated examples of Mandingo adverbs at sentence final positions.

    1. Sini (tomorrow): ŋ di wa sini

                                                    43
I/will/go/there/tomorrow

                             (I will go there tomorrow)

    2. Teledɔ (afternoon): ŋ di wa a bada teledɔ

                              I/will/go/you/place/afternoon

                               (I will go to your place in the afternoon)

    3. lombɛ (usually); ŋ wala karandiya lombɛ

                             I/ go/ school/ usually

                             (I usually go to school)

However this is not constant as in other cases it could be unpredictable. That is to say, it could take
different position within a given syntactic construction, as illustrated below.

    1. Sini (tomorrow) sini ŋ di wa

                             Tomorrow/i/will/go

                             (I will go tomorrow)

    2. Sumamani(quietly) ama sumamani sini

                             He/is/quietly/sitting

                            (He is quietly sitting)

        3. Londodɔ (sometimes) londodɔ a di na

                                    Sometimes/he/will/come

                                    (He comes sometimes)

4.8 TYPES

There are many kinds of adverbs in Mandingo.

ADVERBS OF MANNER IN MANDINGO

    1. Jona( quickly) damuni kɛ jona

                                                      44
Eat/quickly

                      (Eat quickly)

2. Aŋumala(beautifully): a di donkilila aŋumala

                                  He/can/sing/beautifully

                                  (He can sing beautifully)




3. kaliya (fastly): a la kaliya

                    Do/it/fastly

                    (Do it fastly)

4. Sumamani (quietly): ama sumamani sini

                           He/is/quietly/sitting

                            (He is sitting quietly)

ADVERBS OF TIME IN MANDINGO

1. Sini (tomorrow): sini ŋ di wa

                       Tomorrow/I/will/go

                       (I will go tomorrow)

2. Kunu(yesterday): aŋ wara yen kunu

                        We/went/there/yesterday

                         (We went there yesterday)

3. Siseŋ (now): ŋ di wa siseŋ

                   I/will/go/now



                                                   45
(I will go now)

   4. Bi(today): a kɛ bi

                 Do/it/today

                 Do it today




       ADVERBS OF PLACE IN MANDINGO

   1. Dafɛ (near): a sini ŋ dafɛ

                    He/sitting/near

                   (He is sitting near me)

   2. Jan (afar) a ka jan na

                  He/afar/me

                (He is a far from me)

   3. Sanfɛ (up) kɛ ye yiri sanfɛ

                   Man/is/tree/up

                   (The man is up the tree)

     4. Dula (down) muso ye dula

                    Woman/is/down

                     (The woman is down)

ADVERBS OF FREQUENCY IN MANDINGO

1. Londodɔ (sometimes) londodɔ a di na

                           Sometimes/he/will/comes

                           (He comes sometime)


                                                 46
2. Abadan (never) a ma damuni kɛ Abadan

                       He/ate/never

                       (He never ate)

    4. lombɛ (usually/always)

                 ŋ di wa karandiya lombɛ

                 I/go /to/school/usually/always

                 (I always go to school)



                                            CHAPTER FIVE

                                             CONCLUSION

                              SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 SUMMARY

This chapter would show the number of chapters the work contains and what each chapter discusses. It
would go on to discuss the findings made in the study Mandingo of lexical items. Having done that, it
would then conclude the work and make recommendations based on the findings made.

This dissertation examined the lexical items in the Mandingo language. The entire dissertation was
divided into five chapters.

CHAPTER ONE

This basically constituted the introduction to the study. The introduction gave the general background to
the study and the reasons for undertaking such study. It went on to explain the scope of the study, the
objectives of the study, the hypothesis, the research methodology, limitations of the proposed
methodology, motives of the study, historical background of the Mandingo, the life of the Mandingo, It
also looked at the Mandingo language by illustrating the Mandingo orthography, which is made up of 7
Vowels, 16 consonants, and 4 diphthongs.


CHAPTER TWO

This chapter reviewed some literatures available on the subject understudy. Topics reviewed are lexical
item and the open class category. In the review some propositions, assertions, and postulations were
supported, agreed with, or partially agreed with by the researcher. In this chapter the researcher put

                                                    47
forward his argument for supporting and partially disagreeing with the various authors. The works
reviewed were those of Carson berdsen (1993), R. D. Huddleston: (1984), Wallwork J.F (1985:68),
R.H. Robin (1989:214), Joe Pemagbei (1997:6), George Yule (1985:19) and Ur, penny
(1988:21).

CHAPTER THREE

This chapter entailed an examined nouns and adjectives in Mandingo. In the case of nouns specific
attention was given to nouns generally, noun classes, plural case, and possessives. And on the other hand,
adjectives were looked at from descriptive, demonstrative, comparative and superlative point of view.
From analyses of this chapter, it was discovered that nouns in Mandingo have classes, the noun
possessive is formed by the noun plural and the suffix “-la”, and also noun plural is only formed by the
suffix”-lu”. Also from analyses of this chapter it was made to understand that in Mandingo, the
comparative and superlative adjectives are not expressed by affixation like the English language but
rather by the words better than (ta di) and pass all (b ɛ di).

CHAPTER FOUR

This chapter dealt with main verbs in Mandingo with specific attention to tense, present, past, and the
future tense. This chapter also looked at adverbs in Mandingo with specific consideration to position and
types of Mandingo adverbs.

CHAPTER FIVE

This chapter summarized and concluded the word. The conclusion was followed by recommendations
which were in turn followed by a bibliography.

5.2 RECOMMENDATION

The major focus of this research is based on the lexical items in the Mandingo language. Mandingo, if
given the necessary attention could be the official regional local language because it is widely spoke in
West Africa, almost all the West African countries have members of the Mandingo ethnic group. The
researcher therefore recommends that more research on the language in bid to promote mother tongue
literacy in the country and to continue the emphasis of the language and it possibility to become official
regional local language.

Based on the importance of the language stated above, the researcher also recommends that the
government of Sierra Leone should give more funds and encourage language planners to give attention to
the language.

                                                        48
And generally, the researcher recommends that, native speakers, the language studies department,
especially the linguistic unit and the government of Sierra Leone should give more attention to local
languages especially the Mandingo language because of its wide spoken factor in the sub-region.




                                           BIBLOGRAPHY

    1. Aarts Bas English                               syntax and argumentation
                                                       Palgrave Macmillan, united kingdom

    2. Alie J.A.D. (1990)                              Anew History of Sierra Leone
                                                       Macmillan Publisher

    3. Azar Betty Schrampfer (1992)                    Fundamentals of English Grammar – 2nd Ed
                                                       Printice- Hall, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

    4. Berndsen carson (1993)                          structural semiotics
                                                       internet.

    5. Best Wilfred D (1990)                           The Students’ companion
                                                       Long man group UK Ltd

    6. Britannica Dictionary (2011)                    website

    7. Delfosse Maurice (1901)                         Essai de Manuel Practique
                                                       de la Langue Mande



    8. Delafosse Murice (1904)                         Vocabularie Comparatifs de plus
                                                       De 60 langue et Dialects
                                                       Parle a la Lêted Voire
                                                       Press universite de Lyon

    9. Encyclopedia Britannica (2011)                  Website

                                                  49
10. Glencoe (2002)                            Grammar and Composition Handbook
                                              McCray – Hill, New York

11. Hall R.A. Jr. (1950)                      Linguistic and Your language
                                              Doubleday company Inc, New York.

12. Huddleston .R.D. (1984)                   A students’ introduction to English

13. Internet Grammar of English (2011)        The survey of English
                                              usage 1996- 1998
                                              supported by Ring john
                                              online Marketing UK
                                              website.

14. Johnson .V.G.(2010)                       (dissertation unpublished)
                                              An examination of open
                                              words in Mende and loko
                                              Fourah Bay college

15. Kamara .M.S. (2008)                       (Dissertation unpublished)
                                              An examination of language
                                              system in Mandingo
                                              Fourah Bay college

16. Kamara Sheku:                             English language key topics
                                              apex educational center.

17. Kirkpartrick .B. (2009)                   Better English
                                              Scotland: Geddes and Grossed

18. Macmillan English                     Thinking and writing process
                                              Macmillan publish inc

19. Pemagbei .J. (1971)                       An orthography of Mende language
                                              government printing. Freetown




                                         50
20. Robin .R.H (1971)             General linguistics
                                  An introductory survey (2nd edition)
                                  Longman Group Limited

21. Tejan .M.H. (1994)        (seminar paper unpublished)
                              word formation in Mandingo
                              Fourah Bay college

22. Ur, penny (1988:21)            grammar practice activities
                                       a practical guide for teachers
                                       Cambridge university press

23. Wallwork .J.F. (1985)     Language and linguistics
                                  an introduction to the Study of language
                                  Heinemann Educational books London.

24. Wardaugh Roland (1972)        Introduction to linguistics
                                  McGraw – hill Inc

25. Wikipedia (2011)          website

26. Yule G (1985)             the study of language
                                  Cambridge university press, UK.




                             51

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Lexical items in mandingo (dissertation) new1

  • 1. CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1.1 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND ITS JUSTIFICATION FOR THE STUDY Man’s interaction with his speech community can only be effectively enhanced through communication, that is to say, language is always seen as an inseparable partner of man from cradle to grave: whenever man finds himself, he is always accompanied by language which underlined the significance of it to man, because it is seen as an instrument through which man express his emotions, thought, feelings and even finds comfort in times of discomfort and emotional grief. Mandingo is one of the many languages predominantly spoken in the West African sub-region. It is arguably the language with the biggest historical effect on the West African sub-region. Despite this impact on the region, researchers have proved that, the, the Mandingo language is still a minority language in sierra Leone and much of what has been said about the Mandingo people in sierra Leone are from oral tradition, little have been written down. But even though this is the case, it is still a vital sierra Leonean language that is contributing linguistically and none linguistically, that is to say, it has impacted greatly on other local languages, especially the krio language in enriching and increasing it lexicons. That is more the reason it is extremely necessary that a comprehensive and critical study about the lexical items of the Mandingo language, with a focus on it nouns, verbs (main), adjectives, and adverbs is done, so that linguistics student, native and non native speakers of Mandingo will have the opportunity to learn and understand Mandingo lexical items and appreciate the rich nature of the language’s lexicons and also observe the way this concept is attested in Mandingo. 1
  • 2. 1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The objectives are as follows: i. To identify and establish the elements that make up the lexical items in the Mandingo language ii. To make a critical and linguistic analysis of the operational system of lexical items in Mandingo. iii. To show how the lexical items in the Mandingo language are formed and how they are used syntactically in the language in order to enhance semantic impact. iv. To stimulate and foster research in Mandingo. 1.3 HYPOTHESIS This research shall prove that the Mandingo language like any other language constitute of lexical items and can be syntactically arranged to enhance effective and meaningful communication. 1.4 MOTIVE OF THE STUDY This study is done with the intention that it will serve as a beneficial and significant help to students and linguistics researchers as it could be use as a source of reference in the Mandingo language on the following: i. Lexical items in Mandingo. ii. Internal structure and arrangement of Mandingo Lexicon. iii. Word classes. iv. Lexical variation in Mandingo. Also the researcher is with the notion that this research will be useful to non-linguistics students and researchers in the area of historical background and life of the Mandingo people in general. It is intended that others will equally find comfort in reading and understanding this research, as 2
  • 3. how people could normally read and understand other literatures. Hence, this research will serve as a vital source for further research not only for linguistic student but for all. 1.5 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH As the topic implies, this research examine the lexical items in Mandingo, within the context of which the researcher mainly focus on nouns, adjectives, main verbs, and adverbs. This research reviewed findings about the operational aspect of the Mandingo lexical items as they relate to noun classes, verb tenses and aspect, various adjectives and the formation and types of adverbs. 1.6 SOURCES OF DATA AND METHODOLOGY This research sourced data from both literate and illiterate L1 speakers of Mandingo with the variation of both young and elderly speakers. Data are collected from the above source with a tape recorder and whiles notes were also taken down from interviews and perfunctory discussion on the topic of the research. Also the research made used of data related to the topic on textbook, dissertations, theses, published materials on the internet and lectured notes. The data collected from textbooks, dissertations and etc, are used to explain the concept of the topic, as examples, and some are quoted directly from the above sources. 1.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE METHODOLOGY AND THE STUDY Firstly, most of the people interviewed especially the uneducated lack linguistic knowledge. Thus, it was difficult to find out about some of the necessary details. For instance the uneducated people interviewed cannot tell the researcher head-on what are the Mandingo adverbs and nouns, or how Mandingo attested verb tense and aspect and whether nouns got possessive or not. This limitation was overcome by the researcher by breaking down the linguistic terms to simple words and phrases like action words for verbs and names of places, things, and animals for nouns. And for some difficult concepts, the researcher asked the uneducated people interviewed lots of Mandingo sentences to puzzle out the concept in Mandingo. 3
  • 4. Secondly, most of the writings available in the library on the Mandingo language are extensively done in French. This pose another big challenge to the researcher to either finding an English version or preferably getting a linguistic copy accurately translated to maintain it originality. This challenge was curbed by the researcher through the help of French colleagues that are vast in translation. Thirdly, another limitation faced was the fact that the researcher is not a L1 speaker of the language understudy. Being a non-native speaker was problematic for the researcher because the researcher has to depend heavily on various native speakers, who were almost impossible to get in one place at a time to ensure correct and confirm source. This limitation was repressed by a simple handwriting questionnaire in both English and Mandingo put together by the researcher and other colleagues that are L1 speakers of Mandingo. And finally, another major constraint met during the research was finance. Being a student researcher with little financial support was very hard to produce and reproduce photo copy or even go to the internet café and get materials. Transportation was also a constraint. The above constraint were overcome by producing and reproducing chapters by handwriting and also the researcher make sure much was done in a day to cut down on the cost. 1.8 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE MANDINGO The Mandingo or Mandinka people are one of the largest ethnic groups in the African sub- continent, based in West Africa. The ethnic group is represented today by approximately eleven million people. The history of the people is as interesting as their culture and belief system. In Sierra Leone Mandingo is a major ethnic group officially constitutes 7.8% of Sierra Leone’s population. The Mandingo in Sierra Leone shares the same culture and language with the Mandinka people in West Africa. The Mandingo language also known as Mandinka is their native language. This language is also spoken by millions of Mandinka people is Mali, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Guinea Bissau and Chad; it is the main language of the Gambia. 4
  • 5. The Mandingo language belongs to the Mande Tan sub group of the Mande group which is also, a sub family of languages in the Niger-Congo component of the Niger-Kordofanian family of languages and is thus fairly similar to Bambara. In Sierra Leone and a majority of other areas it is a tonal language with two tones: low and high, but the particular variety spoken in The Gambia and Senegal is a non-tonal and uses a pitch accent. The origin of the Mandingo language can be limned as far back as to the people of the ancient empire of Mali. This bunch of a language is said to have its origin in Kita, in the North West of Bamako. Historically, it is believed that the Mandingo people in Sierra Leone migrated from neighboring Guinea through the northern borders of Sierra Leone. This could be traced back between 1840 to about 1900, when a Mandinka warrior called Samori toure had defeated the Limba led by Alimamy Suluku and had conquered a large territory in Limba areas in Northern Sierra Leone. The Mandinka, who were called and known as Mandingo by the colonial master – British, were later amalgamated with the other natives and were found in many parts of Sierra Leone including the capital – Freetown which was largely dominated by the Creole people. The Mandingo population is largely concentrated in Koinadugu District in the north, particularly in Kabala and Falaba where they form the largest ethnic group. The Mandingo also makes up the majority of the population of Yengema, the second largest town in Kono District in the eastern Sierra Leone. 1.9 LIFE OF THE MANDINGO Mandingos in Sierra Leone live in family-related compounds in traditional rural villages. Their villages are fairly autonomous and self-ruled, being led by a council of upper class elders and chief who function as a first among equals. Traditionally, Mandingo society is hierarchical or “caste”-based with three divisions: nobles; (families of former kings and generals), the artisans (musicians and other freeborn) at the middle class and finally, the vassals (“Jonw”/Jongo) at the bottom. In modern days this difference has eroded, corresponding to the economic fortunes of the group. 5
  • 6. The Mandingo societies are patrilineal, patriarchal and of clan culture. The people are predominantly traders and rural subsistence farmer who rely on groundnut, rice, millet and small scale husbandry for their livelihood. During the raining season men plant peanut as their main cash crop; peanut is also the staple diet of the Mandingos. The Mandingos are predominantly Muslim since the 13 th century. Today, 99% of the Mandingos in Sierra Leone are Muslims. Many in the rural areas combine Islamic beliefs with certain pre- Islamic, animistic beliefs, such as the presence of the spirits, the use of Qur’anic verses written on slip of paper (sɛbɛ) and amulet for protection. In rural areas western education’s impact is minimal; the literacy rate in Roman script among these people I is quite low. However, more than half of the adult population can read the local Arabic script; Qur’anic school for children where this is taught are quite more common. The Mandingo culture includes varied rich musical and spiritual traditions. They continue a long oral tradition of educating their children about their history through stories, proverbs and songs handed down through time. This cultural value and tradition has been kept alive by the musical families known as the Jeliba. The Jelibas serve as the cultural and traditional ambassadors of Mandingos. They are “praise” singers that play drums and the Kora – an exclusive Mandingo traditional instrument with twenty one strings or more. In Mandingo land marriages are traditional arranged by family members instead of the bride and groom. This practice is particularly prevalent in the rural areas. Kola nuts are formally sent by the suitor’s family to the male elders of the bride-to-be and if accepted, the courtship begins. 1.10 THE SOUND SYSTEM OF MANDINGO The sound system of a language is simply referred to the orthography of the language. Like most other African language, the Mandingo orthography is phonemic by nature, that is to say, the transcribed symbols and the letters are the same. Both the sound and the letter is the same. Before the advent of the Europeans the Arabic alphabet-based orthography was widely used by the Mandingos because of the fact that the Mandingos are predominantly Muslims and the subsequent learning of the Arabic scripts as part of their religious education. After colonialism the Arabic alphabet-based orthography was replaced by the Latin orthography. The basis of 6
  • 7. Latinized Mandingo orthography was established at the UNESCO expert meeting in Bamako, (Mali) in 1966. Various governments with Mandingo population have standardized variants of this orthography. However even though this was the case, majority of the native Mandingo speakers who are literate in Arabic phonology can approximate the Latin orthography and the Arabic-based orthography. In addition, the Pan-Mande writing system, the N’ko alphabet, invented in 1949, is often use in north-east Guinea, and bordering community in Ivory coast and Mali but not in Sierra Leone. The Mandingo sound system is made up of twenty-seven (27) symbols; seven (7) vowels, sixteen (16) consonants and four (4) diphthongs. Mandingo vowels Mandingo vowels are the speech sounds that are produced without an audible friction in the flow of air in the oral cavity. In other words, there is no direct contact of the articulators in the production of the sound. Here is the linguistic representation of the Mandingo vowels. Front Central Back Close – i u Mid close – e o Open mid – ɛ ɔ 7
  • 8. Open – a Below is an illustration of phonetic of Mandingo vowel phonemes. [i] = front close vowel as in [i] = you. [Ji] = water. [e] = front mid half close vowel as in [kelen] = one [fen[ = thing. [ɛ] = front mid half open vowel as in [kɛmɛ] = a hundred. [Gbɛ] = white. [a] = front open vowel as in [saba] = three. [Bara] = work. [u] = back close vowel as in [julu] = rope. [Kuru] = gem stone. [o] = back mid half open vowel as in [folon] = play. [Bon] = house. 8
  • 9. [ɔ] = back mid half open vowel as in [bɔrɔ] = bag [tɔɔ] = name Note: generally the Mandingo vowels have the same sounds as the Italian vowels. Double vowels are use as a mere indication for emphasis and to indicate longer sound of the particular single vowel. For example these vowels; /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, is made long by doubling the vowels as in taa, lee, sii, soo and muu. The doubling of vowels is important in distinguishing two words which might otherwise be ambiguous of confusing as in: Fo = to say Foo = to miss Ye = to see Yee = there Mandingo diphthongs A diphthong is a combination of two vowels, (one gliding towards the other usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another) which are realized as a single phonetic unit. The following below are the Mandingo diphthongs. au = diphthong beginning with front opened vowel move to the back closed vowel as in ‘sauda’ (kettle) ai = diphthong beginning with front opened vowel and move to the front closed vowel as in ‘sani’ (basket) oi = diphthong beginning with back mid half opened vowel and move to the front closed as in ‘soiyinia’ (this morning) ei = diphthong beginning with front mid closed vowel and move to the front closed vowel as in ‘sei’ (to return) 9
  • 10. Mandingo consonants A consonant is a speech sound with or without vibration of the vocal cords in which the escape of air through the mouth or nose is at least partly obstructed by the articulators. Below are the Mandingo consonants and their realization. CONSONANTS PHONETIC DESCRIPTIONS EXAMPLE AND MEANING /p/ voiceless bilabial plosive pani (pan) /b/ voiced bilabial plosive bori (run) /t/ voiceless alveolar plosive taa (fire) /d/ voiced alveolar plosive deni (kid) /k/ voiceless velar plosive kasi (cry) /g/ voiced velar plosive gato (lake) /f/ voiceless labio-dental fricative fani (clothes) /v/ voiced labio-dental fricative /s/ voiceless alveolar fricative saa (sheep) /z/ voiced alveolar fricative zamzam (zamzam) /m/ voiced bilabial nasal mɔɔ (a person) /n/ voiced alveolar nasal ninsii (cow) /ŋ/ voiced palatal nasal ŋ (I) /j/ voiced palatal lateral julu (rope) /l/ voiced alveolar lateral lii (honey) /r/ voiced alveolar trill kɔrɔ (old) /h/ voiced glottal trill haj (hajj) /w/ labio-dental approximant waa (to go) 10
  • 11. Note: The phonemes /p/, /z/, lack full phonemic status. For /p/ it is more present now due to borrowing. It is only nearly characterized with respect to idiophones. Also /h/ is borrowed from Arabic. The phonemes /v/, /z/, /g/, and /q/ are not present in Mandingo. They are only used in Mandingo in borrowed words CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW 2.0 INTRODUCTION This chapter entails the review of the literature. Here, the researcher would critically discuss the views of the authors on the issue of lexical item and the open class category. By critical discuss, the researcher means giving credits where credits is due, and pointing out flaws where flaws are discovered in the process of this review. Having done so, the researcher would then give his own points of view – an attempt to rectify the flaws discovered. However, the review does not attempt to cover all literature on the study of lexical item and the open class category. It is of course impossible to do so in an undergraduate dissertation chiefly concerned with the study to the lexical items in the Mandingo language. This means that one has to be selective in one’s choice of materials; works of authors which are not all that relevant to the study are not considered. Those that have some direct bearings to the topic and available are reviewed. The works that would be reviewed are as follows: Carson berndsen (1993) R. D. Huddleston: (1984) Wallwork J.F (1985:68) R.H. Robin (1989:214) Joe Pemagbei (1997:6) George Yule (1985:19) 11
  • 12. Penny Ur (1988:21) Wikipedia (2011) encyclopedia Britannica (2011) Britannica dictionary 2.2 LEXICAL ITEM From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia: A lexical item (or lexical unit) is a single word or chain of words that forms the basic elements of a language’s lexicon (vocabulary)… “Cat”, “traffic light”… and “it’s raining cats and dogs” lexical items can be generally understood to convey a single meaning, much as a lexeme, but are not limited to single words. It could be understand that lexical item from the above definition are any word or words conveying a single meaning and to which an affix could be attached to form a derivation or an inflection, or to which another word is attached to form a compound word. The above definition gives a lot about lexical item but what is lacking is the fact that lexical item is not just limited to a word or chain of words. The term lexical item is wide and covers other items which are not actually words but give meaning. For instance the affixes: “-er”, “-ment”, “re-” and “-ly” are not words but convey meaning in the following words – establisher, establishment, recent and recently. Thus, the researcher agrees with this definition partially due to the fact that this definition only considered words as lexical items. Looking at lexical items from semiotics (sign language) point of view, berndsen has maintained that: 12
  • 13. The notion lexical is used to convey any lexical sign type but also other inventorisable items such as affixes and phonemes, whose lexical status in linguistics is controversial. Carson berndsen: (1993) Lexical items as far as berndsen is concerned transcends beyond words. They are items that are signs and also all other details such as affixes and phonemes that create meaning in languages. The limitation of this definition is that even though it gives more insight into the term lexical items, it fails to indicate that it could also includes word or chain of words that are considered as a item due to it communication value. R. D Huddleston also presented his definition on the term lexical items: “A lexical item … may contain more than one lexeme or word: these are idioms such as bury the hatchet ‘renounce a quarrel’… lexical item may also be the preferred term for a word, words, or a phrase whose meaning is not deducible from the meaning of its parts; e.g. greenhouse, bucket shop (normally dealt with as compounds)..” Lexical item may also be used to mean a word form, such as an irregular inflectional form (of a lexeme) that would be expected to have a separate dictionary entry.” R. D. Huddleston: (1984) Huddleston’s definition like the definition from Wikipedia place emphases on words, but also went further with the addition of lexeme, which in most cases are interchangeably used as lexical items. Huddleston however made it clear that lexeme and lexical item are two distinct concepts in linguistic. According to him, lexical item is a word, words, or a phrase whose meaning is not derived from the meaning of it parts whiles lexeme reserved for the ‘word’ which has a group of variants (e.g. see, saw, seen, etc.). This definition is in place according to the researcher to some extent but this definition also limits the wider concept of lexical item. For instance in Mandingo language the lexical item “kɛ” which means man in isolation and in another context, is actually not a word in the sentence below but help the adjective “jona” (quick) in the sentence to be an adverb – quickly. 13
  • 14. Damuni kɛ jona /eat/ /quick/ (Eat quickly) In the basic concept of syntax ……………………. Maintain that: Part of our linguistic knowledge involves knowledge of a large number of words. Which constitute our vocabulary…lexicon… the elements of lexicon are what we might think of as words...Syntactic theories have slightly different conceptions of what a ‘lexical item’ is, and so it is not always safe to think of the lexicon as just a stock of words… the lexicon of a generative grammar may contain a listing of various affixes, such as … (the affix that distinguishes the sheep walks from the sheep walk). Basic concept of syntax According to ……………… lexical item are all the element of the lexicon of a language and not necessary words or chain or words but all items that contribute to the morphological and syntactic structure that enhance meaning. The researcher extremely agrees with… even thought he fails to mention sign and other gesture that contribute to meaning. According to J.F Wallwork (1985:68) maintained that, there are two categories of lexical items. It is necessary to make a distinction between two different types of words; sometime called lexical and grammatical words… Wallwork J.F (1985:68) In his book Wallwork was trying to make a dichotomy of lexical items. Indeed there are two categories of lexical items – grammatical words which are also called function words, due to their performance in syntactic structure and lexical words which are called content words. Content words are words that belong to the open class category of lexical items. These are the words that are responsible to convey the meaning of sentence whiles the function words are responsible to modify these meanings conveyed by the content words. 14
  • 15. 2.3 OPEN CLASS CATEGORY The term open class category is also referred to as open endedness or open word class. This covers lexical items that are a sub-group under the lexical system of a language. An open is class is a word that accepts the addition of new items, through such process as compounding, derivation, coining, borrowing etc. open classes are the flexible side of a language. They can be changed, replaced, or dropped from the lexicon. R.H. Robin (1989:214) propounded on the word classes, thus Word classes may be closed in membership; all languages have open class… an open class is one whose membership is in principle unlimited varying from time to time and between one speaker and another most loan words ( word taken from foreign languages) and newly created go into classes… nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs are open classes Beyond all reasonable doubts, the researcher agrees with Robin. The open class is potentially infinite, since it is continually being expanded and language exchange continues to flourish among individuals and speech communities. In English the open class category includes; Nouns Main verbs (not auxiliary verbs) Adjectives Adverbs Interjections Interjections are normally formed as new words standing in for sounds and are added not only from technical background but also from comics and subtitling. It is on these cases we encounter such – the noise of motor revving, sirens, mechanical sounds. Examples here are vroom, va-va- voom, zoom, grrh and so on. In Mandingo, the open class includes the following: Nouns 15
  • 16. Verbs (main) Adjectives Adverbs Interjections are not attested as belonging to class category in the Mandingo language. Lexical words belong to an open set it is virtually impossible to list them exhaustively, and it is always possible to replace them by other and to make new ones. They will usually be nouns verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. Wallwork J. F. (1985:68) To a great extent, Wallwork is right. The Mandingo language agrees with him completely that only these four word classes listed are flexible enough to be replaced by other classes; from one particular class of word a new word can emerge. This gives the language freshness as new words are readily available to be changed, replaced to make new ones. For instance, in English the noun suffix (-ian) can be suffixed to the verb ‘guard’ to suddenly change it from verb to a noun. This is also applicable in the Mandingo language. Examples are as follows: Noun Noun Derived word lɔkɔli + de = lɔkɔlide (noun) (school) (child) (pupil) Noun Suffix Derived word Yele + li = yeleli (verb) (laugh) (ing) (laughing) Verb Noun Derived word Gbodo + diya = gbododiya (noun) (cooking) (place) (kitchen) Noun Adjective Derived word De + kuda = dekuda (adjective) (child) (new) (newborn) 16
  • 17. Adjective Noun Derived word Saya + kɔndɔ = sayakɔndɔ (funeral) (greeting) (condolence) Joe Pemagbei: (1997:6) also tries to advance a detail analysis of the open class category. He state that: Some word classes are open, that is, new words can be added to the class as the need arises. The class of nouns, for instance, is potentially infinite, since it is continually being expanded as new products are developed and new ideas, in the 20th century, development in computer technology have Given rise to many new nouns… internet, website, email, newsgroup, bitmap, modem and new verb such as download, upload, reboot, right click, double click… In this regards, the researcher totally agrees with Pemagbei even though the processes through which this words are incorporated into the open class category are not being highlighted, but he succeeds in giving a through explanation of the features of the open class category: the open class will be potentially infinite since it is continually being expanded as new discoveries, new products and ideas explored. George Yule (1985:19) has advanced his concept about the open class category as he says: Open endedness is an aspect of language which is linked to the fact that the potential number of utterance in any given language is infinite In Yule’s definition of the open class category, open endedness (open class category) is not restricted to a number of language. He established that, there are open endedness to any given 17
  • 18. language. The researcher agrees with him for the fact that based on his explanation, the Mandingo language can be attested to open endedness. However looking at open class category on a different scale, it can be noticed that Yule concentrated on the unlimited utterances on language and speech, whilst other linguist were specifically naming the word classes which could actually be considered as an open class category. A task that is open ended allows for lots of different learner response during its performance, and is therefore conducive to the production of varied and original ideas. Ur, penny (1988:21) Ur and Yule to some extent share similar views which have to do with language and speech. In Ur’s definition the use of ‘different learner responses’ is a total break away because he was concentrating on language learning in which case unlimited learners responses can be classified as open endedness. Conclusively, it could be noted that all the works of the various linguist quoted above make a significant impact on attesting the open class category in languages generally and on the Mandingo language to be specific. It is as a result of the open class in any language that makes the language to be dynamic. It must be noted however that, there are open classes which are known as lexical category to generative grammarian in Mandingo for which members of these category are nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs. And there are closed word classes which are referred to as grammatical words. They are word classes that performed as functional word to enhance the grammar of the language. These take the form of prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, and article and to some extent interjection. 18
  • 19. CHAPTER THREE NOUNS AND ADJECTIVES 3.1 NOUN The lexical item – noun is very vital in almost all the languages of the world for which the Mandingo language cannot be an exception. As stated in chapter two of this dissertation, noun is a word class that account for on the open class category in the Mandingo language. Therefore nouns are content words. They have meaning as independent words and new words can be generated in Mandingo with this part of speech by word formations, which contribute immensely to the freshness of the Mandingo language. According to Glencoe (2002); A noun is a word that names a person, a place, a thing or an idea Glencoe (2002:81) grammar and composition handbook Noun can also be defined as according to Betty Kirkpatrick (2009) Noun is used to refer to a person, thing, or quality Kirkpatrick B (2009:72) The definition of noun is simple put in the MacMillan English; thinking and writing process A noun can name a person, place or thing (living and non living) that occupies space. The aforementioned definitions of a noun by the various authors are almost the same except for the difference for ‘idea’ and ‘quality’ in the first and second definitions. 19
  • 20. A noun in Mandingo can be defined as a name of anything – a person, an animal, a place, a thing, an idea or a concept. Mandingo nouns assume various shapes depending on whether they are: definite or indefinite and singular or plural. For easy understanding of the Mandingo noun as according to the various definitions, a list of examples is as follow: NOUNS (PERSON) MANDINGO ENGLISH EQUIVALENT Fudumuso Wife Deni Kid Kee Man Nfa Father Nnaa Mother Mbori Uncle Mansa chief NOUNS (PLACE) MANDINGO ENGLISH EQUIVALENT Sɛnɛ Farm Bon House Sila Road Kɔgidada/Kɔgida Waterside NOUNS (LIVING THINGS) MANDINGO ENGLISH EQUIVALENT Baa Goat Saa Sheep Nisi Cow Bamba Crocodile Ulu Dog NOUNS (IDEA) 20
  • 21. MANDINGO ENGLISH EQUIVALENT Boribori Chaos Manamanah not serious Keleya Jealousy sayakɔndɔ Condolence A noun can also be used as subject and object of a Mandingo sentence. This could be confirmed by the examples below: 1. Boŋ tit ii yeŋ a bara wa sɛnɛdɔ. /house/owner/is not/here/he/went/to the farmland/ the house owner are not around he has gone to the farm. 2. Deŋninlu di wa lɔ kɔ lila children/will go/school/to the children will go to school. In sentence 1 the bold underlined Mandingo noun “boŋ tit” (the house owner) is attested as the subject of the sentence, while in sentence 2 the bold underlined Mandingo noun “l ɔk ɔlila’ (school) is the subject of the sentence. 3.2 NOUN CLASS Noun is one of the most significant word classes in many languages and Mandingo is one such languages. Many nouns in Mandingo are derived from verbs through suffixation. Some other nouns are obtained from borrowing from other languages. In the Mandingo language, unlike the English language, there is the attestation of noun class system, which is also a linguistic phenomenon in the Fula, Themne, and Kiswahili languages. Mandingo is a class language with varied agreement system. It uses suffixes on the nouns. These suffixes indicate the definite and the indefinite singular and plural forms of nouns. These suffixes are called “noun classes”. This is a concept in which each noun class carries a particular suffix or affixation to identify the class to which that noun belongs. 21
  • 22. The following are some of the commonest noun classes in the Mandingo noun class system: - Ti possessor of/ ownership - La occupation or character of person and place - Ka place of origin or where a person comes from - Du place of or land of - Diya place of something or occupation and instrument - IA abstract concept - Nii diminutive forms - Fɔɔ illness; both mental and physical - Fee names of crops Examples illustrating the uses of the above noun classes are as follows: The ‘-ti’ class comprised nouns that indicate possessor of or ownership. WORDS MEANING Woditi Owner of money Mansati A leader Fankati Owner of a power/ authority Boŋti Owner of a house mɔbiliti Owner of a car The ‘-la’ class is concerned with person and place. It shows occupation or character. WORDS MEANING WORDS MEANING Kamarala A place of kamara Kamaralalu A placeof karmas Borila Runner Borilalu Runners Tamala Walker Tamalalu Walkers Kelela Fighter Kelelalu Fighters sɛnɛhkɛla Farmer sɛnɛhkɛlalu Farmers 22
  • 23. The ‘-ka’ class shows place of origin or where a person is from. WORDS MEANING WORDS MEANING Sefaduka A person from sefadu Sefadukalu People from sefadu Kabalaka A person from kabala Kabalakalu People from kabala Kissiduka A person from kiss Kissidukalu People from kissi fadagbɛka An European fadagbɛkalu Europeans The ‘-du’ class is particularly concerned with “place of” or “land of” WORD MEANING Kissidu The land of kissi The ‘-diya’ class shows place of something or occupation and instruments. WORDS MEANING WORDS MEANING Kharandiya A tailor shop Kharandiyalu Tailor shops kuumatɛdiya A barber shop kuumatɛdiyalu Barber shop kelɛkɛdiya War front kelɛkɛdiyalu War fronts The ‘-ia’ deals with abstract forms. WORDS MEANING Hadamaia Politeness Simaia Long life Teria Friendship Kolobalia Indiscipline The ‘-nii’ class deals mainly with diminutive forms. WORDS MEANING WORDS MEANING Denii a child Deniilu children kɛnii A young man kɛniilu Young men Mɔni A tiny person Mɔnilu Tiny people Baanii A kid Baaniilu Kids The ‘-tɔɔ’ class deals particularly with illness, mental disorder and physical illness. WORDS MEANING Faatɔɔ A lunatic Jankarotɔɔ A sick person Nagbatɔɔ A restless or trouble person The ‘-fee’ class indicates names of crops – vegetables. 23
  • 24. WORDS MEANING Tiyafee A groundnut field Malofee A grain field 3.3 PLURAL The word plural means two or more. It is a marker that is used with reference to mean more than one. Plural is a noun feature that indicates it is more than one person, animal, place or thing (the noun is more than one). Examples are streets, potatoes, analyses, women, mice, etc. In the English language there are several inflections or markers for different cases to indicate the plurals of nouns. CASE 1 To make most nouns plural, ‘-s’ is suffixed to the nouns. For examples: SINGULAR PLURAL One pen Two pens One street Two streets One rose Two roses CASE 2 ‘-es’ is used for nouns ending in ‘-sh’, ‘-ch’, ‘-ss’, and ‘-x’. SINGULAR PLURAL One dish Two dishes One match Two matches One class Two classes One box Two boxes CASE 3 If the noun ends in a consonant + ‘-y’, the ‘-y’ is change to ‘I’ and ‘-es’ is added. SINGULAR PLURAL One baby Two babies One city Two cities Note: if ‘-y’ is preceded by a vowel, add only ‘-s’ boys, days and keys. 24
  • 25. CASE 4 If a noun ends in ‘-fe’ or ‘-f ‘, change the ending to ‘-ves’ (exceptions: beliefs, chiefs, roofs, cuffs,) SINGULAR PLURAL One knife Two knives One shelf Two shelves CASE 5 The plural form of nouns that end is ‘-o’ is sometimes ‘-oes’ and sometimes ‘-os’. SINGULAR PLURAL One tomato Two tomatoes One zoo Two zoos One zero Two zeroes/zeros CASE 6 Some nouns have irregular plural forms (note: the singular form of people can be person. For example one man and child = two people) SINGULAR PLURAL One child Two children One foot Two feet One goose Two geese One mouse Two mice CASE 7 The plural form of some nouns is the same as the singular form. SINGULAR PLURAL One deer Two deer One fish Two fish One species Two species CASE 8 Some nouns that English has borrowed from other languages have foreign plural. SINGULAR PLURAL One crisis Two crises One bacterium Two bacteria One phenomenon Two phenomena 25
  • 26. In the Mandingo language, on the other hand, there is only one inflection use to indicate plural of nouns. The plural is indicated by the suffixing the inflection ‘-lu’ to nouns. Below are some illustrated examples of Mandingo plural SINGULAR ENGLISH ENGLISH EQUIVALENT PLURAL EQUIVALENT Saa Sheep Saalu Two sheep Musoo Woman Musoolu Women Lemunu Orange Lemunulu Oranges Muru Knife Murulu Knives Kɔni Key Kɔnilu Keys Mɔnbili Car Mɔnbililu Cars Da Door Dalu Doors Banaku Cassava Banakulu Sambara Shoe Sambaralu Shoes jɛ Fish jɛlu Two fish Deni Child Denilu Children Tamati Tomato Tamatilu Tomatoes Fani Clothe Fanilu Clothes Baa Goat Baalu Goats Mansa Chief Mansalu Chiefs Tasa Dish Tasalu Dishes Matralila Beggar Matralilalu Beggars Sife Chair Sifelu Chairs 3.4 POSSESSSIVES The possessive (or genitive) is the case which denotes the owner or possessor of a thing. Examples: daddy’s car; ladies’ bags; children’s toys etc. the possessive case is very important in languages. In the English language the possessive of noun is formed by an apostrophe ( ‘ ) and an “-s” or just the apostrophe ( ‘ ) in some case. These are used with nouns to show possession. Examples: (a) I know the student’s name. (singular) (b) I know the students’ names. (plural) (c) I know the children’s names. (plural) 26
  • 27. Notice the patterns: i. Singular possessive nouns are: noun + apostrophe ( ‘ ) + “-s” Examples: A man = A man’s name. My baby = my baby’s name. ii. Plural possessive noun are: noun + “-s” + apostrophe ( ‘ ) iii. Example : My babies = my babies’ name. The students = the students’ name. iv. Irregular plural possessive nouns. noun + apostrophe ( ‘ ) + “-s” Examples: Men = Men’s names. The children = the children’s names. 27
  • 28. Unlike the English language, in the Mandingo language, the possessive in noun is not attested by an apostrophe ( ‘ ) + “-s” or just the apostrophe ( ‘ ). The Mandingo singular possessive in noun is attested by the singular possessive noun Marker “la” or “ta” depending on the dialect. The following sentences illustrate the singular possessive in Mandingo nouns. 1. Mohamed la sɛnɛdiya ye miŋ? Mohamed/his/farmland/is/where (where is Mohamed’s farmland?) 2. Saran la boŋ ye miŋ? Saran/his/house/is/where (where is saran’s house?) 3. John la baradiya ye miŋ john/his/office/is/whose (where is john’s office?) Note: the above Mandingo singular possessive noun marker “la” is an auxiliary in the sentence not an affixation like the English apostrophe ( ‘ ) + “-s”. . In the case of Mandingo plural possessive noun marker, this is indicated by the plural of the noun “-lu” and the possessive marker “-la”. Below are illustrated examples of the Mandingo plural noun possessive case is a sentence. 1. Konatelu la boŋ ye miŋ konates/’s/house/are/where (where are the konate’s house?) 2. Dinilu la tolonfelu ye miŋ? Children/’s/toys/are/where (where are the children toys?) 3. Meŋlu ye keelu la fani dedi those/are/men/’s/clothes/there (those are men’s clothes?) For easy and clearer Mandingo sentence, the possessives are normally expressed by the following possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives. 28
  • 29. Possessive pronouns PERSON SINGULAR PLURAL First person ŋtaa (mine) Ntaa (ours) Second person Itaa (yours) Altaa (yours) Third person Ataa (his/her/its) Altaa (thiers) Examples: Singular plural ŋtaa le (its mine) Ntaa le ( it’s ours) itaa le (it’s yours) itaa le (it’s yours) ataa le (it’s his/hers) altaa le (it’s theirs) Note: a possessive pronoun is used alone without a noun following it, as it is shown above. Possessive adjectives PERSON SINGULAR PLURAL First person Nna (my) Ana (our) Second person Ila (your) ila (your) Third person Ala (his/her/its) Alla (their) Examples: Nna wɔdi (my money) ana bik (our pens) ila kee (your husband) ila keelu ( your husband’s) ala jida ( his/her water pot) alla bik (their pens) Note: a possessive adjective is used only with a noun following it, as shown above. 4.5 ADJECTIVE The word we use to describe people, place, and things are called adjectives. According to Glencoe: An adjective is a word that describes, or modifies, a noun or a pronoun Glencoe: Grammar and composition Handbook The word “modifies” in the above definition of Glencoe means to change a little. An adjective give a little different meaning to a noun. It describes or gives information about a noun. 29
  • 30. An adjective tells us something about a noun or a pronoun. Sheku kamara: English language key topics According to this other definition we could deduce that an adjective can “tells us something about a noun or a pronoun” by limiting the meaning of the noun. This could be indicating what kind? Which one? How many? or how much? Examples: a) Round window b) Six oranges c) That hat d) Adult cat e) Romantic story Like the English language, all other languages have words to describe a person and some other things, even though it may be attested in a way or form different from the English language. In Mandingo, an adjective is also used to describe a noun and a pronoun, but the only thing is that, there is a slight difference in position and some other aspect different from the English language. The following are some examples of Mandingo adjectives and how they are realized in Mandingo. Adjectives used 1) kɔrɔ (old) k ɛ k ɔr ɔ ( old man) man/old 2) fhiŋ (black) muso fhiŋ (dark woman) woman/black 3) gbɛ (fair) muso gb ɛ (fair woman) woman/fair 4) ba (big) boŋ ba (big house) house/big 5) fitini (small) kini fitini (small rice) rice/small 30
  • 31. 6) kuda (new) k ɛkuda ( new son) male/new 7) fadafhiŋ (African) fadafhiŋ muso (African woman) African/woman 8) kuduni ( short) muso kuduni (short woman) woman/short 9) jan (tall) k ɛ jan (tall man) man/tall 10) kalmia (warm/hot) ji kalima (hot water) water/hot From the above example data of the Mandingo adjective, it could be observed that the adjectives in Mandingo are post-nominal attributive position, just like the Spanish and Arabic adjective and also in front of the noun they modify, in some case just like the English language. The similarity between the English language and the Mandingo language is that in both languages adjectives are neither singular nor plural. An adjective do not have a plural form. Nouns can also be used as adjectives in Mandingo just like the English language. They tell what kind? Or which one, about the noun they modifies. Examples: Adjectives (noun) used a) muso (woman) muso sambaralu (woman shoes) woman/shoes b) bolo (hand) bolola b ɔr ɔ (hand bag) hand/bag c) kɔɔ (salt) k ɔji (salt water) salty/water 31
  • 32. d) mɔnbili (car) mɔnbili k ɔŋi (car key) car/key Possessive pronouns such as “our” and “his” can be considered as adjectives because they modify nouns in addition to their usual function as pronouns. Examples: 1) ana lɔkɔli (our school) 2) ala jida ( this water pot) 3) alla boŋ (his house) 4) nna wɔdi (my money) Similarly possessive nouns can be considered adjective in English but this is not so in Mandingo because the possessive nouns in Mandingo are attested differently from the way is done in English. 3.6 DISCRIPTIVES Descriptive adjectives are the adjectives that describe a noun by indicating the quality and the quantity of the noun. Examples: sad story, ugly Betty, interesting book, enough cups and many ideas. Illustrated examples of descriptive adjectives in Mandingo are below. 1) Keŋi (beautiful) ŋ keŋi = I am beautiful /i/beautiful/ 2) Ba (big) alla boŋ ba = his big house his/house/big/ alla boŋ ka bon = his house is big /his/house/is/big/ 3) dɔman (small) musa la kini dɔman = musa rice is small. /musa/’s/rice/small/ 32
  • 33. 4) Kaŋi (nice) boŋ kaŋi = nice house /house/nice/ 5) Ju (bad) kɛju = bad man /man/bad/ sun ju = bad habit /habit/bad 6) Ŋuma (fine) sun ŋuma = good habit. /habit/good/ 3.7 DEMONSTRATIVES Basically, demonstrative adjective are demonstrative pronoun used as an adjective just as the way a noun can be use as an adjective to modify a noun by pointing out the specific person or thing and showing his or its position or location and at the same time, it or his singular or plural status. Neŋ = this Meŋ = that Examples: 1) kɛ neŋ = this man 2) muso meŋ keŋi = that woman is beautiful 3) wɔdi neŋ ta = take this money 4) den meŋ gbasi = beat that child As mentioned earlier, demonstrative locates or show position whether proximal or distal from the speaker or context of the situation. 3.8 COMPARATIVES AND SUPERLATIVES 33
  • 34. An adjective can also be comparative and superlative. The comparative form of an adjective indicates the greater extent to which the normal form of the adjective applies, whiles the superlative form indicate the maximal extent. In another sense comparative make it comparison between two people or things whiles on the hand the superlative one part of a whole group as against the rest of the group. Below are illustrated examples of comparative and superlative. Normal form comparative form superlative form Great Greater Greatest Full Fuller Fullest Good Better Best From the above examples it is clear that English has a specific suffix marker for the comparative and the superlative forms, except on exceptional irregular form. In Mandingo adjective do not have a suffix marker to indicate the comparative form or the superlative form. What is used in Mandingo is the word “ta + di”or just “di” which means more than, for the comparative marker, and “bɛ +di” which means pass all or than all, for the superlative marker. 3.8.1 COMPARATIVE FORM Ta + Di = more than Examples: 1. saran dɔma marie di saran/small/marie/than (saran is smaller than marie) 2. ala mɔnbili kaŋi musa ta di his/car/good/musa/more/than (his car is more beautiful than musa’s) 3. ŋ deŋkɛ karani ata di i/son/educated/his/more/than (my son is more educated than his) 34
  • 35. 4. ala kogbɛlɛlan ŋ ta di his/difficult/i/more/than (he is more difficult than I am) 3.8.2 SUPERLATIVE FORM bɛ + di = pass all. or this one al +bɛ + di = pass all. Examples: 1. ŋ dɔma al bɛ di i/small/pass all (I am the smallest) 2. a keŋi al bɛ di he/beautiful/pass all (he is the most beautiful) 3. ali juma al bɛ di ali/worst/pass all (ali is the worst) 4. sheku karani bɛ di sheku/educated/pass all (shehu is the most educated) Note: “bɛ di”in the above examples could be understand as the short form or contracted form of the Mandingo superlative marker “al bɛ di” Also in Mandingo the superlative form can equally be expressed with the use of the absolute form of adjective “tamini” which literally means the best or the highest degree of something and the superlative marker “bɛ di” Examples: 35
  • 36. 1. hussain bolt tamini borila bɛ di (hussain bolt is the fastest runner) 2. saran la taa de tamini bɛ di (saran’s child is the best) 36
  • 37. CHAPTER FOUR VERBS (MAIN) AND ADVERBS 4.1 MAIN VERB A verb is a word that expresses action (walk, talk, read) or a state of being (be, exist, and stand) and is necessary to make a statement. In most languages, verbs are inflected to encode tense, aspect, mood and voice. A verb may also agree with the person, gender and number of some of it argument, such as its subject and object. A verb in Mandingo tells what a noun or a pronoun does in a sentence. The actions or activities of persons or things are made known through the use of verbs. Below are examples of some Mandingo verbs and how they are used in a sentence. 1) Tama (walk): Abu tama ta karandiya loŋ-o-loŋ Abu/works/to/school/everyday (Abu walks to school every day) Fanta tamara karandiya kunuŋ. Fanta/walked/to school/yesterday (Fanta walked to school yesterday) Ali di tama karandiya sini ali/will/walk/to school/tomorrow (Ali will walk to school tomorrow) 2) Bara (work): ŋ bara la bakɛ i/work/ very hard/ (I work very hard) Al barala bakɛ kunuŋ. They/worked/a lot/yesterday/ (they worked a lot yesterday) 37
  • 38. Al di bara bakɛ sini they/will/work/a lot/tomorrow/ (they will work a lot tomorrow) With close examination of the above Mandingo examples, the Mandingo language unlike the English language does not have any subject verb agreement. That is to say, there is no agreement between the Mandingo verbs and the subject in terms of singular or plural, or agreement on number or persons. 3.2 TENSE The primary characteristic of verb is its ability to express time by means of tense. Tense is a grammatical expression of time reference. The idea of time is frequently perceived as a continuum of three main categories or division –past, present and the future. Depending on the language, a verb may express grammatical tense by the use of auxiliary verbs or inflections to convey whether the action or state is before (past), simultaneous with (present) or after some reference point (future). The reference point could be the time of utterance, in which case the verb expresses absolute tense, or it could be a past, present, or future time of reference previously established in sentence, in which case the verb expresses relative tense. In Mandingo, the concept of time, even though expresses by the verb and its auxiliary or just the main verb, it is sometime only made crystal clear by the time adverbials such as, the list below. Ten-ten (just now) Siseŋ (now) Sɔnyima (earlier today) Keleŋ keleŋ (occasionally/once in a while) Loŋ-o-loŋ (every day) Kunuŋ (yesterday) Bii (today) Sini (tomorrow) Kunaŋ siniŋ (day before yesterday) A bara miŋ 38
  • 39. The illustrated examples below would explain the concept further. Observe the illustrated examples for confirmation. 1. ŋ wara bii i/go/today (I go today) 2. ŋ wara kunuŋ i/went/yesterday/ (I went yesterday) 3. ŋ wara yeŋ siseŋ /I/went/there/awhile ago/ (I went there awhile ago) 4. ŋ di wa sini I/will/go/tomorrow/ (I will go tomorrow) Note: the above verb “wara” is used not only for present but also for the past tense. So in that sense the tense is only made clear by the time adverbials or the context in which the verb is use. 4.3 PRESENT TENSE The simple present expresses daily habits or usually activities, general statement or fact, and the used for event or situation that exist always. Examples are: 1. David takes shower every day. 2. The earth revolves around the sun. 3. The sky is blue. 4. Babies cry. In English the simple present tense may be formed by the inflection plural “-s”, depending on the subject and verb agreement. If the subject is singular the verb takes the plural “-s”, and if the subject is plural the singular verb is use to expressed the simple present tense. 39
  • 40. Unlike English, the Mandingo language do not have subject and verb agreement so the simple present tense is form with just the verb (unmarked) and sometime with the time adverbial. Below are illustrated examples of the simple present tense. THE SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE 1. Musa tama karandiya lombɛ musa/walks/to school/everyday/ (musa walks to school every day) 2. Fanta ye barala lombɛ Fanta/is/works/everyday/ (Fanta works everyday) 3. Al wara he or she/goes/ (he/she goes) 4.4 PAST TENSE The simple past is used to talk about activities or situations that began and ended in the past. In English most simple past verbs are formed by adding “-ed” to the verb, as in (a) and (b) below. A. Abu worked downtown yesterday B. Our car arrived on time. And some have irregular past forms, as in (c) and (d) below. C. She ate breakfast this morning. D. Marie took a taxi to the airport. In Mandingo, most simple past verb tens is formed by suffixing “-ra” on the main verb. This is illustrated below. 40
  • 41. 1. Abu tamara karandiya kunuŋ /abu/walked/to school/yesterday/ (abu walked to school yesterday) 2. A nara watidɔ he/came/very long time ago/ (he came very long time ago) 3. Ali borira kunuŋ ali/ran/yesterday/ (ali ran yesterday) However not all verbs in Mandingo follow the above illustration, that is to say, the “-ra” suffix to form their past form. For examples: A. Ten ten de a tambida just now/he/passed/ (he passed her just now) B. Ba (to finish) bana (finished) C. John ka damonikɛ kunuŋ /john/ate/yesterday/ (john ate yesterday) The above examples of the past tense used the suffix”-da”, “-na”and the ‘ka” auxiliary working with the “-kɛ” suffix to indicate the past tense because of dialectal variation and irregular verb forms. 4.5 FUTURE TENSE On the time line, future locates a situation or even t subsequent to the present moment. In English, the future tense is formed by the auxiliary verb will/shall or the verb phrase “be going to” as in the following examples: A. I am going to leave at nine tomorrow morning. B. I will leave at nine tomorrow morning. C. I shall leave at nine tomorrow morning. 41
  • 42. In Mandingo, the future tense is equally straight forward but more fixed than the English language’s future tense. The future tense in Mandingo is expressed by a fixed auxiliary verb “di” which means will, and thus, no controversy of interchanging with an alternative. Below are illustrated examples of sentences of the Mandingo future tense. 1. A di na he/she/will come/ (he/she will come.) 2. Deŋninlu di wa lɔkɔlila children/will/go/school to/ (the children will go to school.) 3. A di wa lɔkɔlila he/she/will walk school to/ (he/she will walk to school.) 4.6 ADVERB An adverb is any word that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun (modifiers of nouns are primarily adjectives and determiners). Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives 9inluding numbers), clauses, sentences, and other adverbs. The above explanation is supported by Bas Aarts in his book: English syntax and argumentation Adverbs modify verbs adjective or other adverbs. Adverbs are words like slowly, tomorrow, now, suddenly and etc. adverbs provide information about the manner, place, or circumstances of the activity denoted by the verb phrase. 42
  • 43. Examples: 1. She walked slowly. (Here the adverb slowly provides information about the manner in which she walked) 2. The kids are playing upstairs. (Here the adverb upstairs provides information about the place of activity.) In Mandingo, adverbs are modifiers. They modify verbs in sentences. They explain and describe the action in a construction. Below are some illustrated examples of Mandingo adverbs and how they are used in a sentence. 1. Bii (today): ŋ din a bii /I/will/come/today/ (I will come today) 2. Dafɛ (near): a sini dafɛ /he/sitting/near/ (he is sitting near me.) 3. Lododon (sometimes): lododon a di na /sometimes/he/will/come/ (he comes sometimes.) 4. Sanfɛ (up): kɛ ye yiri sanfɛ /man/is/tree/up/ (the man is up the tree.) 5. kunuŋ (yesterday): a wara sɛnɛdɔ kunuŋ he/she/went/the farmland/yesterday (he/she went to the farmland yesterday) 4.7 POSITION Adverbs are the most mobile element in a sentence construction. However the most common position of adverbs in Mandingo is at the end of a sentence. Adverbs in Mandingo take the final position. Below are illustrated examples of Mandingo adverbs at sentence final positions. 1. Sini (tomorrow): ŋ di wa sini 43
  • 44. I/will/go/there/tomorrow (I will go there tomorrow) 2. Teledɔ (afternoon): ŋ di wa a bada teledɔ I/will/go/you/place/afternoon (I will go to your place in the afternoon) 3. lombɛ (usually); ŋ wala karandiya lombɛ I/ go/ school/ usually (I usually go to school) However this is not constant as in other cases it could be unpredictable. That is to say, it could take different position within a given syntactic construction, as illustrated below. 1. Sini (tomorrow) sini ŋ di wa Tomorrow/i/will/go (I will go tomorrow) 2. Sumamani(quietly) ama sumamani sini He/is/quietly/sitting (He is quietly sitting) 3. Londodɔ (sometimes) londodɔ a di na Sometimes/he/will/come (He comes sometimes) 4.8 TYPES There are many kinds of adverbs in Mandingo. ADVERBS OF MANNER IN MANDINGO 1. Jona( quickly) damuni kɛ jona 44
  • 45. Eat/quickly (Eat quickly) 2. Aŋumala(beautifully): a di donkilila aŋumala He/can/sing/beautifully (He can sing beautifully) 3. kaliya (fastly): a la kaliya Do/it/fastly (Do it fastly) 4. Sumamani (quietly): ama sumamani sini He/is/quietly/sitting (He is sitting quietly) ADVERBS OF TIME IN MANDINGO 1. Sini (tomorrow): sini ŋ di wa Tomorrow/I/will/go (I will go tomorrow) 2. Kunu(yesterday): aŋ wara yen kunu We/went/there/yesterday (We went there yesterday) 3. Siseŋ (now): ŋ di wa siseŋ I/will/go/now 45
  • 46. (I will go now) 4. Bi(today): a kɛ bi Do/it/today Do it today ADVERBS OF PLACE IN MANDINGO 1. Dafɛ (near): a sini ŋ dafɛ He/sitting/near (He is sitting near me) 2. Jan (afar) a ka jan na He/afar/me (He is a far from me) 3. Sanfɛ (up) kɛ ye yiri sanfɛ Man/is/tree/up (The man is up the tree) 4. Dula (down) muso ye dula Woman/is/down (The woman is down) ADVERBS OF FREQUENCY IN MANDINGO 1. Londodɔ (sometimes) londodɔ a di na Sometimes/he/will/comes (He comes sometime) 46
  • 47. 2. Abadan (never) a ma damuni kɛ Abadan He/ate/never (He never ate) 4. lombɛ (usually/always) ŋ di wa karandiya lombɛ I/go /to/school/usually/always (I always go to school) CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 SUMMARY This chapter would show the number of chapters the work contains and what each chapter discusses. It would go on to discuss the findings made in the study Mandingo of lexical items. Having done that, it would then conclude the work and make recommendations based on the findings made. This dissertation examined the lexical items in the Mandingo language. The entire dissertation was divided into five chapters. CHAPTER ONE This basically constituted the introduction to the study. The introduction gave the general background to the study and the reasons for undertaking such study. It went on to explain the scope of the study, the objectives of the study, the hypothesis, the research methodology, limitations of the proposed methodology, motives of the study, historical background of the Mandingo, the life of the Mandingo, It also looked at the Mandingo language by illustrating the Mandingo orthography, which is made up of 7 Vowels, 16 consonants, and 4 diphthongs. CHAPTER TWO This chapter reviewed some literatures available on the subject understudy. Topics reviewed are lexical item and the open class category. In the review some propositions, assertions, and postulations were supported, agreed with, or partially agreed with by the researcher. In this chapter the researcher put 47
  • 48. forward his argument for supporting and partially disagreeing with the various authors. The works reviewed were those of Carson berdsen (1993), R. D. Huddleston: (1984), Wallwork J.F (1985:68), R.H. Robin (1989:214), Joe Pemagbei (1997:6), George Yule (1985:19) and Ur, penny (1988:21). CHAPTER THREE This chapter entailed an examined nouns and adjectives in Mandingo. In the case of nouns specific attention was given to nouns generally, noun classes, plural case, and possessives. And on the other hand, adjectives were looked at from descriptive, demonstrative, comparative and superlative point of view. From analyses of this chapter, it was discovered that nouns in Mandingo have classes, the noun possessive is formed by the noun plural and the suffix “-la”, and also noun plural is only formed by the suffix”-lu”. Also from analyses of this chapter it was made to understand that in Mandingo, the comparative and superlative adjectives are not expressed by affixation like the English language but rather by the words better than (ta di) and pass all (b ɛ di). CHAPTER FOUR This chapter dealt with main verbs in Mandingo with specific attention to tense, present, past, and the future tense. This chapter also looked at adverbs in Mandingo with specific consideration to position and types of Mandingo adverbs. CHAPTER FIVE This chapter summarized and concluded the word. The conclusion was followed by recommendations which were in turn followed by a bibliography. 5.2 RECOMMENDATION The major focus of this research is based on the lexical items in the Mandingo language. Mandingo, if given the necessary attention could be the official regional local language because it is widely spoke in West Africa, almost all the West African countries have members of the Mandingo ethnic group. The researcher therefore recommends that more research on the language in bid to promote mother tongue literacy in the country and to continue the emphasis of the language and it possibility to become official regional local language. Based on the importance of the language stated above, the researcher also recommends that the government of Sierra Leone should give more funds and encourage language planners to give attention to the language. 48
  • 49. And generally, the researcher recommends that, native speakers, the language studies department, especially the linguistic unit and the government of Sierra Leone should give more attention to local languages especially the Mandingo language because of its wide spoken factor in the sub-region. BIBLOGRAPHY 1. Aarts Bas English syntax and argumentation Palgrave Macmillan, united kingdom 2. Alie J.A.D. (1990) Anew History of Sierra Leone Macmillan Publisher 3. Azar Betty Schrampfer (1992) Fundamentals of English Grammar – 2nd Ed Printice- Hall, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 4. Berndsen carson (1993) structural semiotics internet. 5. Best Wilfred D (1990) The Students’ companion Long man group UK Ltd 6. Britannica Dictionary (2011) website 7. Delfosse Maurice (1901) Essai de Manuel Practique de la Langue Mande 8. Delafosse Murice (1904) Vocabularie Comparatifs de plus De 60 langue et Dialects Parle a la Lêted Voire Press universite de Lyon 9. Encyclopedia Britannica (2011) Website 49
  • 50. 10. Glencoe (2002) Grammar and Composition Handbook McCray – Hill, New York 11. Hall R.A. Jr. (1950) Linguistic and Your language Doubleday company Inc, New York. 12. Huddleston .R.D. (1984) A students’ introduction to English 13. Internet Grammar of English (2011) The survey of English usage 1996- 1998 supported by Ring john online Marketing UK website. 14. Johnson .V.G.(2010) (dissertation unpublished) An examination of open words in Mende and loko Fourah Bay college 15. Kamara .M.S. (2008) (Dissertation unpublished) An examination of language system in Mandingo Fourah Bay college 16. Kamara Sheku: English language key topics apex educational center. 17. Kirkpartrick .B. (2009) Better English Scotland: Geddes and Grossed 18. Macmillan English Thinking and writing process Macmillan publish inc 19. Pemagbei .J. (1971) An orthography of Mende language government printing. Freetown 50
  • 51. 20. Robin .R.H (1971) General linguistics An introductory survey (2nd edition) Longman Group Limited 21. Tejan .M.H. (1994) (seminar paper unpublished) word formation in Mandingo Fourah Bay college 22. Ur, penny (1988:21) grammar practice activities a practical guide for teachers Cambridge university press 23. Wallwork .J.F. (1985) Language and linguistics an introduction to the Study of language Heinemann Educational books London. 24. Wardaugh Roland (1972) Introduction to linguistics McGraw – hill Inc 25. Wikipedia (2011) website 26. Yule G (1985) the study of language Cambridge university press, UK. 51