Making Nouns with Prefixes ka- and na- in Chichewa: An Alternative View

Abstract

The paper discusses the noun prefixes ka- and na-, specifically those used to derive nouns that trigger the agreement marker  traditionally associated with noun class 1 in Chichewa. The motivation for conducting this study comes from the current partial  understanding of these prefixes in Chichewa and many other Bantu languages. In the existing analyses, the noun prefixes ka- and na- are taken either to be marginal or ceased to be noun prefixes in the synchronic grammars of some Bantu languages. In the present paper, I  show that these two prefixes are productive in the synchronic grammar of Chichewa. I provide three types of evidence to support this  view, namely (i) Chichewa neologisms, (ii) Chichewa names of places and persons, and (iii) nominal lexicon evidence from the Chichewa  Monolingual Dictionary. I conclude that ka- and na- are not marginal prefixes in noun class 1 but productive prefixes of present-day  Chichewa grammar.