Gender/Definiteness and Number in Kara

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the noun inflection for gender/definiteness and number in the Kara language. which is spoken by approximately 1,000 people. The data for this study were collected using communicative events and elicitation. Kara nouns distinguish gender/definiteness and number. Kara has two-way gender distinctions for animates: the masculine and the feminine, and it is semantically motivated. Some inanimate Kara nouns are feminine by default, and some are masculine by default. The inanimate noun that is feminine by default may sometimes take the masculine gender marker to express smallness or less importance. On the contrary, an inanimate noun that is masculine by default may take the feminine gender marker to refer to largeness or more importance. One of the
fascinating features of the Kara nouns is that it uses feminine gender to express augmentative value, but it uses masculine gender to express diminutive semantic value. The masculine and feminine gender are marked by the suffixes -(t)a and -(to)no respectively. Kara also uses different lexical items to denote feminine and masculine gender, and these lexical items or nouns particularly refer to human entities. Gender and definiteness markers are portmanteau in Kara; in other words, the gender markers mark both gender and definiteness simultaneously. Indefiniteness, contrary, is not morphologically marked. Unlike general nouns, the particular noun forms show the number distinction-. singular and plural. Both animate and inanimate nouns use the suffix -na or -a to mark plural
numbers; however, the singular number is not morphologically marked. Besides, modifiers agree in number with their head.