The noun class system of Kingoni

This study is concerned with a descriptive analysis; of noun classes of Kingoni. The only studies on this aspect of Kingoni, grammar at present in existence are in German and are not yet translated into Engish. Hawever, in these studies there are peculiarities so striking and so unlike the language spoken today that the author has felt it appropriate to work on this important aspect of language description in the light of recent research and a pproaches to linguistic analysis. The work is organized into four chapters preceded by an introductory section which gives a brief history of the language and presents the system of transcription employed in the study. In chapter one the author first looks at some theories about nouns and noun classification systems in general and then outlines the methods Bantuists have used to set up noun classes of Bantu languages and makes an assessment of these systems with regard to their adequacy and relevance to the classification of Kingoni nouns. Chapter two and three present the noun classes of Kingoni distinguished on grounds by nominal prefixes singular/plural pairing of the prefixes; on the level of syntax by coricordialaffixes that operate grammatical agreement; and on the level of semantic significance. In the last chapter some recent proposals concerning the most satisfactory criteria for setting up noun classes of Bantu languages are considered and applied to the classification of kingoni nouns.