Typological Features Template for Runyankore Rukiga

by Allen Asiimwe and Justus Turamyomwe

Feature	Description
Phonological Features	In the following fields you describe the phonological inventory o [your language]
Vowel inventory	Runyankore-Rukiga has a typical five-vowel system. That is (i,u,e,a,o,u). It has two high vowels /i/ and /u/, /e/ and /o/ as middle vowels, /a/ is the low vowel, /i/ and /e/ are front vowels while /u/ and /o/ are the back vowels. While the high vowel /i/ rarely appears in word initial position, /u/ does not, and the low vowel /a/ is always the word final vowel in verbs which is a derivational catalyst. Runyankore-Rukiga also has a number of diphthongs, and these include; ai ei, oi,ia like in the following examples: ei- eizooba (son), eishomero (school), eirwariro (hospital) ai- omushaija (man), kuhaisa(to have food ready), owaitu (at our home) oi- okuboigora (to bark), kutoija ( to give offerings in church), ia- okunia (to deficate), kuniagiira ( to make funny noise). Note that it is possible for instance in this verbal word 'oine' (you have) for one to think that oi- is a diphthong. It is not: o- is the second person singular pronoun. Morphologically oine = o-in-e
Vowel harmony	Vowel harmony in Akan operates according to a tongue root system. Usually, nominal and verbal prefixes agree in ATR value with the vowels in the verb or noun stem.
Consonant inventory	In this field you describe the consonants of [your language]
Tone	Runyankore-Rukiga is a tonal language, with three kinds of tone: Rising, falling, and rising and falling. This language also has lexical tone.
Syllable Structure	In this field you indicate the basic syllable structures of [your language].
Morpho-syntactic Features
general morphological classification	Runyankore-Rukiga is an agglutinating language, characterised by a complex verbal system.
Nominal Phrases [Direct access to a collection of noun phrases from the TC database]	In general the nominal head precedes the nominal modifiers and determiners. However, in some circumstances, the determiner as well as a quantifier may precede the noun it modifies, as exemplified below:
structural template	NOUN demonstrative adjective+ quantifier deverbal adjective relativiser emphatic particle
nominal modification	The nominal modifiers are demonstratives, adjectives, possessives, relative clauses, appositives. nominal specification deixis is marked by proximal, medial and distal.Deixis or reference is represented by affixes which vary depending on the noun class. The language also has demonstratives, numerals, quantifiers and determiners. The definite determiners are expressed by the initial vowel while the indefinite determiners are not marked.
possession	It is expressed by affixes which vary according to the noun class prefix. therefore the possessives are comprised of the class prefix and the possessive marker.
pronominal system	The language has free pronoun forms e.g emphatics, relative pronouns and self standing pronouns such as nyowe, itwe, iwe, imwe, we, bo and many more, which vary according to the noun class. The language also has bound pronouns which are expressed as object infixes as well as subject prefixes. All these are marked for number
Verbal Phrases	In the following fields serve for the description of some of the basic morpho-syntactic properties of verbal constituents
word order	Runyankore-Rukiga, like all other Bantu languages, the basic word order is SVO, however, it exhibits flexibility. Grammatical subjects can be extraposed, demoted or dropped, while the object can be left dislocated or promoted.
TAM	Tense and aspect are morphologically marked. All tenses are marked apart from the habitual tense. Tense/aspect markers can either precede or follow the verb root, and they are not necessarily distinct. For Instance -ire marks the yesterday tense and the perfective aspect e.g. n-zin-ire (I danced (yesterday)). -ire also marks the stative aspect e.g. n-dwa-ire (I am sick).
infinitival forms	The infinitive marker is -ku-. Follow this link for examples: http://www.typecraft.org/TCEditor/1069/
verbal constructions	In this field you indicate if [your language] has ditransitive constructions, serial verb constructions or complex verb forms composed of several verbs. Does your language have so called light verbs, perhaps only used to indicate a certain tense or aspect?
Adpositions	In this field you indicate if [your language[ makes use of prepositions or postpositions. Does your language have spatial nouns? Does your language use adpositions or particles to indicate grammatical relations between the verb and a nominal argument?
Complementation	In this field you describe complementation strategies. Does [your language] make use of complementizers?
Special Properties of [your language]	In this field you should mention properties of [your language] which did not fit into any of the other categories mentioned in this template
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