Revisiting isiZulu noun classes: a lexicalist approach

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Abstract

This article seeks to question the lexical integrity (lexicality) of isiZulu noun classes. A noun is a lexical category, hence it would be expected that a noun classifier be a lexical or derivational affixal morpheme. We view noun classes as grammatical words or forms (noun phrases). We regard initial vowels of the existing isiZulu noun classes as the first layer of nominal inflection, as they repeat the vowel of the basic prefix. Since the ‘plural’ is generally considered an inflectional element, the conclusion we reach is that it cannot be used for noun classification either. Hence, the need to revisit the three systems of Bantu classification and reclassify the nouns according to singular basic prefixes.