Stem Modification in Nuer

Abstract

Nuer is a Western Nilotic language remarkably rich in non-concatenative morphology. This article provides a comprehensive description of those morphological processes in Nuer that are responsible for variations in the form of the stem. Our data shows that all stem-modifying operations have one of the following four targets in the stem: stem vowel quality and quantity, tonal melody, and properties of the stem-final consonant. The vowel quality modification is comprised of two separate processes where either lowering and removal of breathiness is applied or raising and addition of breathiness. Thus, vowel quality modification yields two separate series of mutated vowels. We provide arguments for treating some vowels as basic, while others as derived. We also identify tonal patterns found in verbal morphology, and three types of morphologically triggered consonantal lenition. According to our findings, exactly the same processes apply in both the nominal and the verbal system.