User:Chrysophylax/Golden Afroasiatic: Difference between revisions

Another possibly ancient and widespread formation of the plural is by infix which per Lipiński <ref>Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar — Lipiński, Edward, p.245, §31.24 “Internal plural”</ref> occurs in Semitic and supposedly has clear parallels in Berber, Cushitic, and Egyptian. Chadic is not mentioned at all and for good reason. Schuch writes on the Chadic language Bade's morphology<ref>Chadic Languages : Bade Morphology — Schuch, Russell G. in ''Morphologies of Asia and Africa'' (Eisenbrauns 2007, ed. Kaye, Alan S.), p. 602, §3.8.4-3.8.5</ref> and mentions that a-infix plurals as postulated by Greenberg and other linguists seem generally to come from a misunderstanding of a Chadic syllabic feature. However, he notes that there does seem to be something similar to an a-infix in a few roots and gives the Bade example ''ə̀tlkùmən'' ‘fool’ → ''ə̀tlkw'''à'''m-cən-ən'' (emphasis mine).