Morphological analysis

As always, a preliminary morphological analysis is the first step in solving this phonology problem. Each noun has some prefix that marks noun class, followed by a stem. We also see, comparing nouns in various classes, that the same stems can appear in different classes, so for example class 3 mu-hoomi ‘cow hump’ is clearly related to class 4 mu-hoomi ‘cow humps’ – singulars and plurals are marked by changes in class; class 11 lu-teefu ‘reed mat’ is clearly related to ka-teefu ‘small mat’ and tu-teefu ‘small mats.’ The class prefixes have a number of phonetic manifestations, so we find mu-, mw-, and m- for classes 1 and 3, va, v-, and w- for class 2, mi-, mj-, and m- for class 4, ma- and m- for class 6, ki- and tʃ - for class 7, fi- and fj- for class 8, lu-and lw- for class 11, ka- and k- for class 12, tu- and tw- for class 13, and wu-, w- for class 14.