The Noun in Bilin

Abstract

This study of the nominal forms of Bilin follows the theoretical approach and expositional framework of a previous paper that dealt with the verbal forms of the language, but the linguistic statement is both phonologically and morphologically of a very different type.The forms associated with the scatter of the noun are far less numerous than those of the verb; the maximum number theoretically obtainable from the analysis presented here is 84. Some of the forms could be regarded as composed of three elements (and in some cases four), but for a general statement it is more appropriate to treat Bilin as inflected rather than as agglutinative. For there are again phonetic features that preclude a purely segmental analysis; these include pitch pattern, but not vowel harmony, and two new features, one of reduplication, and the other involving alternating types of consonantal articulation.