The Rules of Plural in Chichangana

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Unversidade Save-Maxixe

Name: Leonardo Armando Teco

The rules of plural in Chichangana

Xichangana is a dialect spoken in Gaza province and somehow in Maputo and also in other sites
of neighbors countries like in Limpopo in South Africa and in Zimbabwe. This dialect belongs to
the Bantu language as others like Ronga and Xitswa. The way speak Chichangana is not the way
as we speak English language there are some different in terms of spelling, pronunciation, and so
on. In English there are rules in terms of number in plural and in chichangana also but are not the
same because in English most of time to form plural name we use affix suffix –s without
changing the word structure and also useless of affix suffix but use the changes of word
structure. As or the notorious problem of the inclusion or exclusion of class preix in the name,
when used in a European language, the tradition concening this Bantu language seems to be not
to use the preix (although ido et al. (1989) use the orms Xitsonga and Xichangana). The aim of
this paper is to analyze how chichangana dialect behaves or what happens in chichangana in
terms of plural forms.

In Chichangana language we don’t use the affix suffix –s as in English to form plural Baumbach,
Erdmann J. M. (1987). Here is different because instead of using the suffix –s, we use many
prefixes va to forms the plural nouns and also to the adjective.

For example:

Vayivi stealers

Vadjohi Sinner

Vanbava fathers

Va dondisi vakarahta the teachers are dangerous

As we said before that we use prefix va- to form changana instead of –s as in English and in
other language as Portuguese also happens.
We use also the prefixes, mi-, ma-, ti-, fswi- to form the plural. These are the most used in
Chichangana to refer to the different things, to the objects, to the animals, and so on.

For example:

MiMova(Cars) of mova(car)

miKwama(bags) of kwama

maBuku(books) of buku

maKondlo(mice) of kondlo

tiHomu(oxen) of Homu

tiyindlo(houses) of Yindlo

fswiTolo(shop) of xitolo

fswiDloko(hats/cape) of xidloko

Here in we have to pay attention on the prefix fsw- because in the singular is very different with
others prefix because the singular noun or object must start with xi- and when it comes to the
plural it will take fswi-, for example, xitulo (chair) in the singular, and when it comes to the
plural it is fswitulo, the other example, xipiga to fswipiga. Always here is like this way, it don’t
change to other rules.

In English there are words that don’t change the word structures and cannot be bounded. In the
other hand, these kinds of words are the same, no matter is in plural or in singular it is still
likewise (Doke, 1954: 204. For example: bread, fish, dice, and others. These kinds of words we
do have in Chichangana these kinds of words don’t accept to be bound because they are free
morphemes for example:

Mhunhu (salt) mhunhu

Mibedu (beds) mibedu

Mibalu (blankets) mibalu

There many words that, are in these situation of useless of affixation prefix and suffix.

What we don’t have in our local language in terms of plural is what happens in English in words
like rate to mice, this kind of situation we do not have, the words it don’t accept.

Just to conclude, in this paper we have been talking about the analyze of class in plural and we
said that the way we form plural English is not the same as we form in Chichangana because in
English many of words used the suffix –s while in Chichangana is too different beause we use
the prefix va-, mi-, ma, ti-, and fswi-. And there are some words that use the same rule with
English of not accepting the bound form because they are free morpheme and at the end there are
not words that don’t change their word structure in the plural differently from English.

Reference

Baumbach, Erdmann J. M. 1987. Analytical Tsonga grammar. Pretoria: University of South


Africa Press.

Doke, C. M. 1954. The Southern Bantu languages. London/New York/CapeTown: Oxford


University Press.

Duarte, Fábio Bonfim. 2006. Aspects of the Changana grammar. Belo Horizonte: Federal
University of Minas

gerais, ms.

https://www.tgoogle. Tsonga/language/rules/plural-words.html.

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