Person markers

Distinctions in personal deixis within the verbal group are expressed either in the form of personal pronouns (3.2.2.1), by subject proclitics (3.2.2.2), object suffixes (3.2.2.3), or by verbal TAM suffixes (3.2.2.4). Concerning personal deixis within the noun phrase, see Section 3.3.2.4.2.²¹

Akie is a “pro-drop” language, that is, personal pronouns need not and most of the time are not used except for specific marking processes such as topicalization or disambiguation. Subject proclitics and object suffixes, as well as verbal TAM suffixes, by contrast, are an obligatory part of the verbal word, they must not be omitted.

3.2.2.1 Personal pronouns

Since both subject and object participants are as a rule indexed in the verbal word by means of subject proclitics and/or object suffixes, the use of personal pronouns is optional in pragmatically unmarked situations.

Like nouns, pronouns are case sensitive, marked by tonal distinctions. The following sentence combines all three singular pronouns, where ànɛ̀ɛ̀ ‘I’ and ìnyèè ‘you’ are in the accusative and nɪ̀nyɛ́ɛ̀ ‘he, she, it’ in the nominative case. Notice that this is an elicited sentence; while being fully grammatical, speakers would not normally use such a sequence of pronouns for economy reasons. Nevertheless, the sentence is perfectly acceptable.

ká ínyim-ch- íín anɛɛ inyee nɪnyɛ́ɛ.

PERF show- DAT- 2.SG.O 1.SG.A 2.SG.A 3.SG.N ‘He introduced me to you.’

The basic forms of personal pronouns are as follows (we have added the forms preceded by ák ‘and’, which are reduced in the third person):

Accusative Nominative Preceded by ák

SG 1 ànɛ̀ɛ̀ ànɛ́ɛ̀ ák ànɛ̀ɛ̀ ‘and I’, etc.

2 ìnyèè ìnyéè ák ìnyèè 3 nɪ̀nyɛ̀ɛ̀ nɪ̀nyɛ́ɛ ák-ɪ̀nyɛ̀ɛ̀

21 Clitic boundaries are treated like word boundaries in this work.

PL 1 àchɛ̀ɛ̀, ɛ̀chɛ̀ɛ̀ àchɛ́ɛ̀ ák àchɛ̀ɛ̀

2 àkwɛ̀ɛ̀ àkwɛ́ɛ̀ ák àkwɛ̀ɛ̀

3 chɪ̀chɛ̀ɛ̀ chɪ̀chɛ́ɛ̀ ák-ɪ̀chɛ̀ɛ̀

The third person pronouns are not restricted to human or animate referents, they may have inanimate ones as well, as in the following examples:

péénta kᴐ nɪnyɛ́ɛ ni. ‘The meat (sg.) is this.’

pányee kᴐ chɪchɛ́ɛ chʊ. ‘The (pieces of) meat (pl.) are these.’

Like with nominal arguments, the order is subject - indirect object - direct object, cf. (a), but the order can be reversed for pragmatic marking, cf. (b), the argument function being frequently, though not always, determined by tonal case marking (see above).

(a) ki taak- é achɛ́ɛ inyee.

1.PL see- I 1.PL.N 2.SG.A or

(b) ki taak- é inyee achɛ́ɛ.

1.PL see- I 2.SG.A 1.PL.N ‘We (will) see you.’

3.2.2.2 Subject proclitics

Akie differs from other Kalenjin languages in using subject proclitics rather than prefixes.

That these are in fact clitics rather than affixes is suggested, first, by the fact that they are separated by the following verb by a phonetic boundary: If a verb begins with a vowel then there is a glottal stop between the clitic and the verb stem (even if the stop may be omitted in fluent speech); note that words beginning with a vowel are obligatorily preceded by a glottal stop. In the following example, the verb am ‘eat’ starts with a vowel, hence it has a glottal stop before the subject proclitics:

kɔ nɛɛ ka- ɪ ʔám?

COP what.A P- 2.SG eat ‘What have you eaten?’

Since the glottal stop is a predictable part of word-initial vowels (see Section 2.2) it is not marked in this study.²²

Second, adverbs can be, and not uncommonly are, inserted between subject proclitics and the verb, e.g.,

22 We have added the word-initial glottal stop here for demonstration only.

ki- r- kó ápa irii kɛ́ɛ́tɪ.

RP- P- 3.P long.ago break.P sticks ‘He has broken sticks long ago.’

And third, the proclitics are not restricted to the verbal group but may also precede adjectives or nouns, e.g.,

kíí ng’ɛ́ɛ́ta ‘we, the men’

1.PL men

kí siing’ow- e ák achɛɛ.

1.PL good- I with 1.PL.A ‘We’re fine (with ourselves).’

This analysis of the verbal subject markers as clitics rather than affixes is also not challenged by the fact that their use is obligatory even in the presence of a full personal pronoun, as in the following example of the topicalization of a personal pronoun:

anɛɛ a láákwɛɛ taapaay.

1.SG.A 1.SG child.A marriageable ‘I am a girl ready to be married.’

As in the topicalization construction of many other languages, a left-dislocated topic constituent requires the topicalized constituent to be pronominally resumed in the following clause.

The proclitics are sensitive to tonal inflection and vowel harmony; we are listing here only the basic, tonally unmarked [+ATR] forms. The segment “(i)” signals that it is here where the verb stem has an initial i-vowel (see Section 3.2.1.4).

Imperfective Perfective

Basic verb i-verb Basic verb i-verb SG 1 a aa aa aa 2 i ii ii ii 3 - - (i) ko koo PL 1 ki kii kee kee, kii 2 o oo oo oo 3 - - (i) ko koo

3.2.2.3 Object suffixes

Unlike Maasai, Akie and other Kalenjin varieties do not distinguish unpredictable subject-object affixes on verbs (cf. e.g. Creider and Tapusubei Creider 1989: 97-9).

Object suffixes are used only for speech participants, that is, first and second person referents, but third person referents are unmarked. This means that transitive verbs having no object suffix have an implicit third person referent (‘him’, ‘her’, ‘it’, ‘them’).

Thus, in the following example, any possible third person object can be implied; if none were implied then the antipassive would be used (3.2.3.2).

ma- aa nyíti.

NEG- 1.SG know

‘I don’t know (him, her, it, or them).’

The object suffixes are the last part of a verb, that is, they follow all verbal derivational morphemes. The suffixes are sensitive to tonal inflection and vowel harmony. We are listing here only the tonally unmarked [+ATR] forms; the corresponding [-ATR] forms are illustrated in the examples below.

SG 1 -aan 2 -iin

3 - PL 1 -eech

2 -aak 3 - Examples

taak- aan ‘he sees me’

ɪ taak- aan ‘you see me’

taak- ɪɪn ‘he sees you’

a taak- ɪɪn ‘I see you’

a taak- e ‘I see him, her, it, them’

(-e is an imperfective marker) taak- ɛ́ɛ́ch ‘he sees us’

ɪ taak- ɛ́ɛ́ch ‘you see us’

taak- aak ‘he sees you (pl.)’

ko lén- chi laakwa nɪ kóón- aan dé kamáy- antɛɛ.

NAR say- DAT girl.A PR.SG give.IMP- 1.SG.O DM fried.meat- SG

‘And (the crow) said to the girl: “Give me (a bit) of the fried meat!”’ (5/20)

3.2.2.4 Verbal TAM suffixes and tone patterns

In addition to the dedicated subject proclitics and object suffixes, distinctions in personal deixis are also expressed by tone patterns and TAM suffixes. As we will see in the paradigms of Section 3.2.3, there is a wide range of suffixes and tone patterns. Suffice it here to list a few generalizations applying to most of the paradigms:

(a) The distinction between speech participants (first and second person referents) and non-participants (third person referents) is paramount; there are generally morphophonological differences between the two in the paradigms.

(b) Compared to the distinction mentioned in (a), that of number is fairly insignificant.

Most paradigms do not distinguish morphologically or tonally between singular and plural referents (except for the subject proclitics and suppletive paradigms).

(c) In accordance with (b), third person forms do not as a rule distinguish number. We nevertheless list them separately in the paradigms below, for the following reasons:

First, there is a range of suppletive distinctions between singular and plural forms and, second, there are a few “irregularities” in the paradigms that affect the number of referents.