This article describes the morphology of intransitive verbs in the Agar dialect of Dinka, a Western Nilotic language which exhibits an extreme degree of non-concatenative morphology. Intransitive verbs comprise three groups: verbs that are clearly simple, i.e. underived, verbs that are clearly derived, and verbs whose derivational status seems indeterminable synchronically. The basic form of an intransitive verb (and other verbs), whether simple or derived, is an inflectionally unmarked monosyllable. Derivation does not involve affixation but is expressed by phonological alternations in the root, involving vowel length, vowel quality, voice quality of the vowel and/or tone. Derivational categories of intransitive verbs with an intransitive base include centrifugal, centripetal and plural. Derivational categories of intransitive verbs with a transitive base include antipassive, reciprocal, antipassive centrifugal, antipassive centripetal, antipassive iterative, and middle, the latter having meanings which include anticausative and reflexive. Inflection of intransitive verbs is also to a large extent non-concatenative, with the same types of alternation in the root as in derivational processes. Both derivation and inflection are to a large extent predictable.

In Mabaan, a Western Nilotic language, there is a binary inflectional voice contrast in the morphology of verbs. In addition to a morphologically unmarked basic voice, there is a fully productive applicative voice, which is morphologically marked. This applicative voice may be called circumstantial in order to distinguish it from another applicative voice, which is derivational, namely benefactive. The circumstantial voice turns an adjunct into an object, making an intransitive verb transitive and a transitive verb ditransitive. In a main clause, however, a transitive verb needs to be detransitivized via antipassive derivation in order for an adjunct to become object through the circumstantial voice. In some types of subordinate clauses, by contrast, any verb can get the circumstantial voice, whatever its transitivity, derivational status and meaning. This voice is obligatory in relative clauses when the relativized constituent is an adjunct and in some types of adverbial clauses.

Dinka, a Western Nilotic language, has a construction in which a clause with dependent syntactic status is combined with a preceding clause of any type by means of the conjunction kṳ̀ ‘and’, which is also used for coordinating both noun phrases and independent clauses. Dependent kṳ̀-clauses, which all have the same syntactic structure, do not express any particular semantic function and normally have fewer markers of tense, aspect and mood than the clause with which they are combined. But they are interpreted as having the same semantic function and generally also the same tense, aspect and mood as that clause.

Målet om at sikre en selvbærende økonomi for Grønland står centralt i den politiske debat. Den grønlandske økonomi adskiller sig på mange måder fra andre lande grundet geografi og en meget stærk specialisering. Den økonomiske udvikling de senere år har været gunstig, men har også vist, at barrierer på arbejdsmarkedet og uddannelsesområdet bremser mulighederne for yderligere økonomisk fremgang. En proces mod en selvbærende økonomi er derfor i første omgang afhængig af indenlandske politiske initiativer.

This article argues that Kurmuk, a little-described Western Nilotic language, is characterized by a syntacticized topic whose grammatical relation is variable. In this language, declarative clauses have as topic an obligatory preverbal NP which is either a subject, an object, or an adjunct. The grammatical relation of the topic is expressed by a voice-like inflection of the verb, called orientation here. While subject-orientation is morphologically unmarked, object-oriented and adjunct-oriented verbs are marked by a subject suffix or by a suffix indicating that the topic is not subject, and adjunct-orientation differs from object-orientation by a marked tone pattern. Topic choice largely reflects information structure by indicating topic continuity. The topic also plays a crucial role in relative clauses and in clauses with contrastive constituent focus, in that objects and adjuncts can only be relativized or contrastively focalized if they are coded as topics. Moreover, some types of adverbial clauses require adjunct-orientation.

In Dinka, a Western Nilotic language, most adnominal modifiers follow the head noun. Before most of these modifiers, the head noun is in one of two construct states. One construct state, CS1, occurs before, among others, demonstratives, nominal possessors and relative clauses as CS1-modifiers. The other construct state, CS2, which is morphologically more complex, occurs before, among others, possessive pronouns, a few numerals and a diminutivizer as CS2-modifiers. When a construct-state triggering modifier is added to a CS2-modifier, the latter itself gets construct state marking, and the head noun changes from CS2 to CS1. Some CS1-modifiers also get construct state marking when followed by a construct-state triggering modifier. Multiple adnominal modification in Dinka may thus result in a chain of construct states, which is similar to what is found in Iranian languages with so-called ezafe marking.

In Jumjum, a Western Nilotic language, some body-part nouns, and only such nouns, may be externally possessed in transitive and antipassive clauses. In these external possessor constructions, the possessor is either the object of a transitive verb or the demoted patient of an antipassive verb. The externally possessed body-part noun is partly incorporated into the verb, as shown by the following properties: It immediately follows the verb, its tone is determined by the final tone of the verb, it may combine with a nominalized verb in a kind of compound, and it does not exhibit the root-final nasalization that is prevalent in monosyllabic singular nouns in Jumjum, including internally possessed body-part nouns.

In Dinka, a Western Nilotic language, body-part nouns may be externally possessed. External possession is possible and the default option if the body-part noun is semantically part of a transitive object, an unaccusative subject, or a copula subject. With transitive and ditransitive verbs, the external possessor is object, and with intransitive and copulative verbs, it is subject. Externally possessed body-part nouns have no grammatical relation to the verb, and they are restricted to occurring in dedicated syntactic slots of the clause, adjacent to a slot used by the main verb when the finite verb is an auxiliary. In transitive clauses, the body-part noun occurs immediately after that slot. In intransitive and copulative clauses, it occurs immediately before the same slot, and here a phonologically determined subset of the body-part nouns are morphologically marked by tone shift as being externally possessed. These facts suggest that the possessum forms some kind of unit with the verb that is reminiscent of noun incorporation. In Dinka, the referent of virtually any noun can be conceived of a having a body part, and therefore virtually anything can be an external possessor: pronouns, animate nouns, and inanimate nouns, including abstract nouns.

This article shows that in Jumjum, a little-described language belonging to the Southern Burun subbranch of Western Nilotic, subjects and objects are obligatorily cross-referenced in the verb. Only definite patients are coded as objects, while indefinite patients are coded as non-core arguments of antipassive verbs. Jumjum and its sister language Mabaan are morphosyntactically unique among the Western Nilotic languages in three respects. Firstly, the object of a transitive verb always precedes the verb (OV order). Secondly, subjects and objects are always expressed by the inflection of the verb, which thus cross-references subject and object noun phrases. And thirdly, some subject suffixes are deleted before some object suffixes, which gives rise to many cases of segmentally homonymous forms, but these forms are kept phonologically distinct by their tone patterns. The article documents these features by also taking into account the effect of derived verb stems and of tense inflection on the expression of cross-reference. To some extent, the derivational morphemes are expressed by suffixation, but in addition, root-internal altemations play a major role, including alternations in vowel quality, vowel length, and the root-final consonant. (c) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This article deals with clausal constituent order and dislocation constructions in Berta, a Nilo-Saharan language with indicative clauses being verb-second. The preverbal slot is occupied by either an unmarked NP which may have any or no grammatical relation to the verb, a focus constituent, or a particular function word. This slot may be empty, but in that case it implies a zero third person referent. In addition to left-dislocated NPs, which are clause-external and which are resumed pronominally clause-internally, in some cases by zero, Berta also has a construction in which an NP is right-dislocated but remains inside the clause. This "antitopic" is marked by a preposition, and it has a clause-internal pronominal antecedent which may be zero and which is either a subject, an object or an adverbial. The clause-internal status of the antitopic is evidenced by the fact that it may be followed by certain other clause-internal constituents.

In Dinka, a predominantly monosyllabic and highly fusional Western Nilotic language, vowel quality alternation in the root plays a major and systematic role in the morphology of verbs, together with alternations in vowel length, voice quality, and tone. Earlier work has shown that in the inflection of simple, i.e., underived, transitive verbs, the vowel quality alternation conforms to a vowel height gradation system with three vowel grades. The present article shows that this vowel gradation system is also operative in the morphology of derived verbs with a transitive root, but with certain modifications. These include a different distribution of the vowel grades and interaction with a shift in voice quality, to breathy voice.

Dinka, a Nilo-Saharan language, is largely monosyllabic, nevertheless it has a fairly rich morphology. Thus, most of its morphology is expressed by alternations in phonological material of the root. The inflectional categories of nouns manifested in this way include state and case in addition to number. The state category consists of an "absolute" state and two "construct" states. The case category includes a nominative, a genitive, an allative, and an essive/ablative. The present article shows how case inflection is manifested in complex noun phrases consisting of a noun in a construct state and a following modifier. It is demonstrated that the case inflection of such noun phrases is manifested almost exclusively by tonal overlays on the nominative (lexical) tones, and that such overlays may occur either in the head or in the modifier or in both the head and the modifier. In this way, a head noun may simultaneously carry state information and case information. Thus, the case inflection of construct-state constructions in Dinka adds yet another layer of nonlinear morphology to nouns in this language.

Artiklen giver en oversigt over og sammenfatning af lønstrukturkomiteens arbejde og hovedkonklusioner med fokus på analyser af lønstrukturerne og lønudviklingen i den offentlige sektor, effekter og konsekvenser af ændrede lønstrukturer i den offentligesektor, herunder betydningen for den private sektor, samt muligheder for at udvikle løndannelsen i den offentlige sektor inden for rammerne af den danske aftalemodel på det offentlige område.

This article argues that Kurmuk, a little-described Western Nilotic language, is characterized by a syntacticized topic whose grammatical relation is variable. In this language, declarative clauses have as topic an obligatory preverbal NP which is either a subject, an object, or an adjunct. The grammatical relation of the topic is expressed by a voice-like inflection of the verb, called orientation here. While subject-orientation is morphologically unmarked, object-oriented and adjunct-oriented verbs are marked by a subject suffix or by a suffix indicating that the topic is not subject, and adjunct-orientation differs from object-orientation by a marked tone pattern. Topic choice largely reflects information structure by indicating topic continuity. The topic also plays a crucial role in relative clauses and in clauses with contrastive constituent focus, in that objects and adjuncts can only be relativized or contrastively focalized if they are coded as topics. Moreover, some types of adverbial clauses require adjunct-orientation.