Abstract This article discusses the morphology of Degema modifier, demonstrative and interrogative nominals, noting that like most nouns in the language, these nominals consist of a stem and a vocalic element. The vocalic elements of these nominals have been analysed as prefixes based on the fact that (a) they are used to derive such nominals from verbs and non-verbs, and (b) they occur before verbal and non-verbal hosts and mark number and non-human/human attributes of nouns. The article notes that unlike noun class prefixes, which are characterised by a high degree of selection of their stems and arbitrary lexical gaps, modifier, demonstrative and interrogative nominals are characterised by a low degree of selection of their hosts and an absence of arbitrary lexical gaps. Consequently, the article argues that, contrary to previous analysis, these vocalic elements are not genuine morphological prefixes but syntactic clitics. Finally, the article highlights the fact that the behaviour of the vocalic elements of Degema modifier, demonstrative and interrogative nominals represents an interestingly complex morphosyntactic case of inflection and derivation where these vocalic elements perform both inflectional and derivational functions simultaneously.

中文翻译：

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关于Degema修饰语，指示性和疑问性名词的形态

摘要本文讨论了Degema修饰词的形态，指示性和疑问性名词，并指出像这些语言中的大多数名词一样，这些名词由词干和语音成分组成。已基于以下事实对这些名词的语音元素进行了前缀分析：（a）它们用于从动词和非动词派生此类名词，并且（b）它们出现在语言和非语言宿主，标记号和名词的非人类/人类属性。该文章指出，与名词类前缀不同的是，它们的词干和任意词汇空缺程度很高，而修饰语，指示性和疑问名词的特征是其主词的选择程度低且没有任意词汇空缺。 。因此，该文章认为，与先前的分析相反，这些声音元素不是真正的词法前缀，而是语法句法。最后，本文强调了这样一个事实，即Degema修饰语，指示性和疑问名词的人声元素的行为代表了一个有趣的，复杂的词法和句法变调和派生情况，其中这些声调元素同时执行了变位和派生功能。