1 Introduction

The status of adjectives as a universal word class is widely debated. For that matter, the existence of universal word classes is equally contentious; opinions differ on whether the ways that different languages express the same concepts can or should be compared. One perspective posits cross-linguistically universal categories—nouns, verbs, and adjectives (cf. Dixon 2004)—arguing that every language must have at least these three categories. Adjectives can be a separate word class, or they can pattern with nouns or verbs. In the latter case, defining distinctions can be quite subtle. This perspective is based on the assumption of a semantically coherent set, which forms the basis for morphological or syntactic properties that are then shared within the set. According to Dixon (1982), this coherence takes the form of property concepts, which are a set of semantic types that are predictably lexicalized as adjectives cross-linguistically. Another perspective (cf. Dryer 1997; Haspelmath 2010) argues that lexical categories cannot be compared cross-linguistically—that comparative concepts based in meaning can be universal, but grammatical behaviour cannot be. Whereas the former perspective argues that subtle differences—as opposed to dramatically different syntactic behaviour, for example—can form the basis for postulating a lexical category or sub-category, the latter perspective argues that subtle differences cannot—that an adjectival subclass of verbs in one language, for example, should not be equated to a separate lexical category of adjectives in another language. In some sense, however, both views of lexical categorization converge on the same questions: are there items that pattern together both syntactically and semantically? Do the same items pattern together across languages?

This paper will demonstrate that the adjective class in Dinka (West Nilotic, South Sudan) is a subclass of intransitive verbs, defined by two morphophonological characteristics: a low-toned finite form and an overlong ‘attributive construct state’ (ACS), which is the form that appears when a postnominal modifier is followed by another modifier. Though they are clearly distinct morphologically, the adjectives are identical syntactically to non-adjectival intransitive verbs, and lack many characteristics posited as universal distinguishers of an adjectival class. For example, both adjectival and non-adjectival intransitive verbs can directly modify nouns, in contrast to what has been suggested as a key difference between verbs and verb-like adjectives (Dixon 2004: 19). Since the adjective class is distinguished without this feature, the Dinka language calls into question assertions that adjectives can be distinguished or defined by their ability to directly modify nouns. The Dinka adjective class also calls into question whether there is a syntax-semantics connection in lexical categorization; the status of a lexical item as a ‘property’ (in contrast to ‘event’ or ‘action’) is not a predictor of adjectivehood, but it should be noted that most adjectives in Dinka are indeed properties—that is, they are stative in meaning, though they should be classified as adjectives, not stative verbs. Dinka adjectives provide evidence that there may be a syntax-semantics connection with regards to adjectives, but also that semantics should not be used as a factor in lexical categorization.

In order to distinguish adjectival intransitive verbs, this paper will also describe a range of intransitive verb morphology in Dinka. Description of the language has focused considerably less on intransitive verb paradigms than on transitive verb paradigms. In addition, references to ‘adjectival verbs’ have appeared in several descriptions of other grammatical phenomena in the Agar dialect of Dinka (Andersen 2014; 2019; 2020), but it has not been categorically stated whether the adjective class in Dinka is a subclass of verbs, whether there is more than one lexical category that contains properties, or whether there are multiple adjective classes in the language. Therefore, to show that adjectives are a subset of intransitive verbs, I must first present some intransitive verb morphology in Dinka, so that the adjectives can be both readily identified as intransitive verbs and differentiated as a subclass. Considering that the intransitive verbs have received little attention, this description is also valuable in relation to the study of Dinka morphology as a whole.

Additionally, literature on Dinka tends to focus on single dialects (e.g. Andersen 1993; Storch 2005; Ladd et al. 2009). Dinka dialects can differ, sometimes considerably, in their morphosyntax. While dialect-specific work is, of course, necessary and important in its own right, I suggest that hypotheses about the morphosyntax of Dinka as a whole should not be made unless cross-dialect evidence exists. This paper focuses primarily on data from the Bor South dialect of Dinka. However, I also present evidence that my classification criteria for adjectives in Dinka hold cross-dialectally, which means that the typological contribution of this paper towards a definition of adjectives can be regarded as coming from the Dinka language as a whole, as opposed to a specific dialect of the language. Any references to data from the Agar dialect of Dinka are from Torben Andersen’s extensive work on Dinka and are cited as such. All other data—from the Bor South, Hol, and Ngok dialects—are my own; data were collected with two speakers of Bor South, one speaker of Hol, and two speakers of Ngok.

The remainder of Section 1 provides background information on Dinka. Section 2 provides a description of aspects of the inflectional morphology and syntactic properties of adjectival and non-adjectival intransitive verbs. Section 3 provides the classification criteria for adjectival intransitive verbs, examines whether vowel grade (cf. Andersen 1993) can be used to classify the adjectival intransitive verbs, and rejects the possibility of grammatical adjectives in other Dinka lexical categories. Section 4 provides a cross-dialect comparison; Section 5 consists of a discussion, and Section 6 contains concluding remarks.

2 Inflectional morphology and syntactic properties of intransitive verbs

This section outlines the syntactic properties and the inflectional morphology of adjectival and non-adjectival intransitive verbs, emphasizing where they pattern together and where they diverge. The section is organized in terms of the base forms (Section 2.1), forms that inflect for person and number (Section 2.2), nominalized forms (Section 2.3), forms that modify nouns (Section 2.4), and plural inflections (Section 2.5). I also examine forms used in negation (Section 2.6), comparison, superlatives, and intensification (Section 2.7).

3 What defines adjectival intransitive verbs?

The descriptive analysis in Section 2 shows that adjectival intransitive verbs pattern with other intransitive verbs, as they behave identically to non-adjectival intransitive verbs in almost all of the contexts discussed. However, while I have consistently separated adjectival and non-adjectival intransitive verbs terminologically, I have not shown why they should be separated. This section shows primarily the defining characteristics of adjectival intransitive verbs, and also secondarily why vowel grade (cf. Andersen 1993; 2017; 2020) cannot be a defining feature of adjectives in Dinka. My classification is based on two conditions that lie entirely in the suprasegmental system of the language; it is not based at all on semantics. Andersen (2020) notes that the finite form of all adjectival intransitive verbs has a low tone in the Agar dialect, and I find this to be true for the Bor South dialect as well. This low tone is the first of the two conditions, which are as follows:

Condition 1: The tone of the finite form of an adjectival intransitive verb is low.

Condition 2: The attributive construct state form of an adjectival intransitive verb has an overlong vowel.

The presence of these two conditions defines the adjectival subclass of intransitive verbs. An intransitive verb in Dinka can only be classified as adjectival if these two conditions are satisfied; both of them are necessary, and neither of them are sufficient alone. The differences between the two classes can be seen in Table 5. In the table, Nos. 1–7 are adjectival intransitive verbs, which satisfy Condition 1 and Condition 2. Nos. 8–14 are non-adjectival intransitive verbs, which may satisfy one of the conditions but do not satisfy both.

Non-adjectival intransitive verbs can fulfill Condition 1; their finite forms can be low, as seen in Nos. 8 and 9 in Table 5. With regards to Condition 2, however, non-adjectival intransitive verbs do not have attributive construct states (ACS); their form in this position (postnominal but followed by another modifier) is identical to the finite form of the verb. Therefore, the length of a non-adjectival intransitive verb in this position can only be overlong if the finite form is over long as well; in this case, the unmarked form of a non-adjectival intransitive verb may superficially appear to be an ACS. In contrast, the ACS of an adjectival intransitive verb is only identical to the finite form in rare cases, and these cases can only occur when the finite form of the adjectival intransitive verb is overlong.

Though most adjectival intransitive verbs have meanings that are canonically adjectival—that is, distinguished as adjectives cross-linguistically (cf. Dixon 2004)—there are no semantic conditions for the classification of adjectival intransitive verbs. I find that meanings associated with adjectival classes in languages that have a small class of adjectives—dimension (long, big, small); colour (white, red, black); and value (good, bad)—are adjectival in Dinka. Other semantic types associated with adjective classes in languages that have a larger adjective class—physical properties, for example—can also be adjectival in Dinka. Human propensity, also cited by Dixon (2004) as a semantic type associated with medium/large adjective classes, generally involves the use of an adjectival verb, such as ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ or ‘sweet,’ along with a noun. For example, ‘kind’ translates literally to ‘sweet of the heart.’

However, not all properties are adjectival intransitive verbs, and not all adjectival intransitive verbs are properties. For example, as seen in Table 6, ‘angry with somebody’ is an adjectival intransitive verb, but ‘proud (in a positive sense)’ is a non-adjectival intransitive verb. Both are properties denoting emotions, and both have low-toned finite forms. They are differentiated in subclass only because ɰò̤ok lengthens to ɰò̤ook, showing that it is an adjectival intransitive verb, whereas njàam does not. In contrast, ‘break’⁴ should be classified as an adjectival intransitive verb, as it fulfills both conditions, but it is not a property. The overlap between properties and grammatical adjectives will be discussed in Section 6.

Given the available evidence, it is not clear that items within the semantic types of ‘properties’ will be classifiable as adjectival, nor is it clear that an item whose meaning is not a property will be non-adjectival. Additionally, properties whose semantic types Dixon (2004) associates with a large adjective class are sometimes adjectival in Dinka, but there does not appear to be regularity with regards to which ones are adjectival and which are not. This seeming semantic instability with regards to the adjectival subclass will be discussed in Section 6.

With regards to vowel ‘grade,’ Andersen (2020: 303) claims that a characteristic of adjectival intransitive verbs in Dinka is a Grade 1 vowel in the finite form and a Grade 2 vowel in the attributive construct state form. The vowel ‘grade’ alternations—systematic combinations of vowel quality and vowel length—are a key aspect of the morphology of transitive verb inflections and derivations (Andersen 1992–1994; 1993; 2017) as well as the nominal system (Storch 2005; Andersen 2014; Ladd & Blum, to appear). Therefore, it makes sense to examine the vowel grade alternations for intransitive verbs. In contrast to Andersen (2020), however, I argue that vowel grade is not a defining characteristic of adjectival intransitive verbs. The verbs discussed in Andersen (2020) clearly are the adjectival intransitive verbs; they have a low tone in their finite (his ‘unmarked’) form and are overlong when preceded by a noun and followed by another modifier. But while Andersen (2020)’s claims about grade may be true for the Agar dialect, they are not true for the Bor South dialect, and therefore not true for Dinka as a whole. Because the intransitive verbs do not exhibit the same regular length alternations as the transitive verbs, it is not possible to consistently analyze their vowel grades.

The basic principle underlying the grade system, a version of which is displayed in Table 7, is that each verb has an underlying ‘root vowel’ upon which various inflections alternate. For example, the unmarked form of the transitive verb màan, ‘hate,’ has a Grade 1 long vowel; the third person singular inflection, mɛ̀ɛɛn, has a Grade 2 long vowel. The unmarked form of every transitive verb has a Grade 1 vowel, and the third person singular inflection of every transitive verb has a Grade 2 vowel. Transitive verbs in Dinka also exhibit regular lexical quantity: they are either ‘lexically short,’ alternating between short (V) and long (VV) vowels, or ‘lexically long,’ alternating between long (VV) and overlong (VVV), in the base paradigm.⁵ The intransitive verb system does not exhibit this regular lexical quantity alternation. It is clear, however, that the same vowel alternations that appear in the transitive verb system (Andersen 1993; 2017) and nominal system (Andersen 2002; 2014) appear in the intransitive verb system.

In Bor South Dinka, the grade of the ACS is not consistently a Grade 2 vowel, as seen in Table 8. Because the ACS is always overlong, it is by default either Grade 2 or 3, which invariably differ in vowel quality. In Table 8, grades of the ACS of four adjectival intransitive verbs are clearly classifiable based on the root vowel. With a verb that has /e/ as its root vowel, an attributive construct state form with /ɛ/ can only be Grade 3; similarly, a root vowel /a/ can only have /ɛ/ as Grade 2.

While the grade of the ACS can be determined in a straightforward manner, classifying the grade of a given finite form is difficult. It is important to note that analysis of these vowel grades, particularly long (VV) vowels, is not possible without more than one inflection of a paradigm. The vowel grades exist in the context of a verbal paradigm; /aa/ could be Grade 1 long just as easily as it could be Grade 3 short. Indeed, some adjectival intransitive verbs have a short finite form and an overlong attributive construct state form, which violates regular lexical quantity. Several examples are presented in Table 9.

It is worth noting that the distinction between long (VV) and overlong (VVV) is potentially lost in Dinka preceding a coda /r/ (Remijsen & Gilley 2008). Therefore, one might consider the attributive construct state forms of ‘white’ and ‘strong’ to be both lexically short and phonetically overlong, and thus not a violation of regular lexical quantity. Even so, ‘black,’ ‘light,’ and ‘weak’ still pose a problem with regards to regular lexical quantity. The finite and non-finite forms of these three verbs fit a lexically short (V/VV) paradigm, and the attributive construct state does not. All three forms—finite, nonfinite, and attributive—should be taken into account, just as multiple forms are taken into account in the transitive verb system. Otherwise, the alternation is analyzed solely on vowel quality, not on the combination of vowel quality and vowel length. In addition, even if lexical quantity between the base forms is treated as regular, and the overlong quality of the attributive construct state is accounted for via a morphophonological lengthening process (cf. Andersen 1993), it is still not possible to have both consistent lexical quantity and an invariably Grade 1 vowel in the finite form. This is because in many cases the finite and non-finite forms of adjectival verbs have the same vowel length and differing vowel quality.

To illustrate the importance of this matter to the classification of Dinka adjectives, I take the example of ‘hot.’ The finite form is lè̤et̪, the non-finite form is lɛ̤̂ɛt̪, and the attributive construct state is lɛ̤̀ɛɛt̪. Relative to the attributive construct state, which can only be analyzed as Grade 3 long, the finite form can be analyzed as Grade 1 long. However, the non-finite form can only be analyzed as Grade 3 short, and relative to the non-finite form, the finite form would be Grade 2 short. This is a consequence of the grade system. While it is true that there is a consistent overlap in the grade system—for example, Grade 2 short of the /e/ root vowel will always be homophonous with Grade 1 long of the same root vowel—the system is described with these homophonous grades because it is so regular in the transitive verbal system, where a given form cannot be analyzed as multiple grades. In adjectival intransitive verbs, however, this is clearly not the case. A finite form might be Grade 1 relative to the attributive construct state form in some cases, and Grade 1 relative to the non-finite form in others. Therefore, while it is the case that the finite form seems to consistently have a vowel quality that could potentially be analyzed as Grade 1, depending on the other forms, a Grade 1 finite form cannot be taken as a defining property of adjectival intransitive verbs in Dinka.

In short, the vowel quality and vowel length alternations present in adjectival intransitive verbs are similar to those found in the transitive verb system. However, the patterns are different enough that postulating a classification on vowel grade is not possible. Having multiple analyses within the same lexical item—for example, the finite form as Grade 1/Grade 3—is not satisfactory given the regularity of the transitive verb system and the fact that this ambiguity is not consistent across lexical items.

4 Cross-dialect comparison

Dinka dialects tend to retain the binary voice quality and ternary vowel length contrasts, but tone systems vary both in number of tonemes and tonal behaviour. Vowel length of specific items may vary across dialects, even though the three-way contrast is preserved. In addition, morphosyntactic phenomena vary cross-dialectally. The classification conditions presented in this paper rely on both tonal specification (Condition 1) and specification for vowel length (Condition 2). Therefore, in order to claim that these conditions hold for the Dinka language as a whole, other dialects must be examined, because it would not be surprising if cross-dialect variation invalidated the conditions in other dialects. However, at least three other dialects of Dinka—Agar (Andersen 2020), Hol, and Ngok—follow the patterns found in Bor South; Condition 1 and Condition 2 are satisfied by a group of intransitive verbs whose meanings are generally properties—specifically, lexical items that one expects to be adjectival in a given language if anything is, such as big/small, black/white, and good/bad. This is true despite cross-dialect variation involving, for example, the vowel length of specific items; these differences do not affect Conditions 1 and 2. Cross-dialect evidence of the validity of these classification criteria, therefore, shows that this subclass of intransitive verbs is common to the language, independent of the many differences between dialects, and may have been present in an earlier stage of the language.

The Hol dialect follows the patterns laid out in this paper for Bor South almost exactly. One key difference between the Hol and Bor South dialects appears with the adjectival intransitive verbs whose finite form inflects for plural number. Recall that these have been observed to be common to West Nilotic in general (cf. Reh 1996, Andersen 2014, Remijsen & Ayoker 2020). Singular and plural forms of adjectival intransitive verbs in the Hol dialect can be seen in Table 10. Just as in the Bor South dialect, the two items with a coda /r/ (Nos. 1 and 2) shift from overlong in the singular to short in the plural. However, it is worth noting that ‘tall/long’ has an overlong /ɛ/ vowel quality in the singular, whereas Bor South has /a/. ‘Red’ behaves in Hol exactly as it does in Bor South, shortening from long in the singular to short in the plural. ‘Bad,’ however, does not shorten but shifts to breathy voice quality, which is entirely unexpected in this context. ‘Rough’ does not shorten as we expect it to. There is also an additional item: ‘black’ shortens in Hol. I take the lack of a singular/plural differentiation for ‘black’ in Bor South to be morphophonological; ‘black’ will shorten in the plural if it is able to, but it cannot in Bor South because the finite form is already short. These differences call into question the validity of the assertion, both in Section 2.5 of this paper and in Andersen (2014), that the few items with both singular and plural forms are evidence of an older contrast common to West Nilotic. However, a more comprehensive study of this phenomenon is clearly necessary, and it does not interfere with the classification of adjectival intransitive verbs.

The behavior of the plural finite forms differs in the Agar dialect as well. In Agar Dinka, a plural noun can appear with both the finite singular and finite plural (shortened) form of these adjectival intransitive verbs (Andersen 2014). Andersen hypothesizes that ‘the plural form indicates that each member of a plural set is an individual’ (Andersen 2014: 260), relying on a partial semantic explanation. However, it appears that this is not true in the Bor South dialect; a plural subject is ungrammatical if it appears with the singular finite form.

The Ngok dialect of Dinka also has a sub-group of intransitive verbs that satisfy Conditions 1 and 2; the finite forms are low-toned, and the attributive construct states exist and are invariably overlong. However, the specific items that fit the criteria differ slightly from the Bor cluster dialects,⁷ emphasizing the subtlety of the classification system presented in this paper. Table 11 displays the finite forms and attributive construct states (i.e. Conditions 1 and 2, respectively) of a number of adjectival intransitive verbs in Ngok Dinka. One sees that Table 11 follows the patterns found in other dialects of Dinka. That is, Condition 1 is satisfied because all items have low-toned finite forms, and Condition 2 is satisfied because all items have overlong attributive construct state forms.

The Ngok dialect also differs from other dialects in its marking of number on verbs, both transitive and intransitive. Instead of marking plural topics with lengthening of the declarative prefix, Ngok marks plural topics with a suffix and a tone change on the verb, as seen in (26).

One can also see that the length of the verb stem in (26b) has shortened, mirroring the behaviour of ‘red’ in other dialects, despite the differing inflectional form. A natural following question is how the dialect behaves with regards to the handful of adjectival intransitive verbs that shorten in the plural in other dialects. In Ngok, these items differ depending on the context. Verb stems can shorten in the predicational context, which invariably involves the /kí̤/ suffix, but shortening does not seem to be predictable in the same way that it is in other dialects. However, in the postnominal position (plural attributive in Table 12) the shortening appears on the same verbs as other dialects, shortening in the same way.

In summary, cross-dialect comparison of intransitive verbs confirms that the classification criteria of adjectival intransitive verbs can be used across dialects of Dinka, despite the fact that dialects can differ considerably both morphosyntactically and tonally. Number marking can differ cross-dialectally, but this has no bearing on the satisfaction of Conditions 1 and 2.

5 Discussion

It is clear that there is a sub-group of intransitive verbs that can be defined by the presence of two morphophonological properties: a low-toned finite form and an overlong attributive construct state. But while these two characteristics indicate that adjectives are a distinct subclass of intransitive verbs, they are syntactically identical to other intransitive verbs. In all dialects of Dinka examined in this paper, and to the best of my knowledge, there is no syntactic position that can be occupied by an adjectival intransitive verb that cannot be occupied by a non-adjectival intransitive verb. Therefore, the adjective class in Dinka poses a problem for claims (cf. e.g. Dixon 2004) that, cross-linguistically, there is a syntactic difference between adjectives and non-adjectives, particularly in their capacity to directly modify nouns. Moreover, the difference between adjectives and other intransitive verbs in Dinka is very subtle, exemplified by the fact that there is at least one item which cannot be classified as adjectival or non-adjectival because it is ambiguous. The finite and non-finite forms of the item ‘fly,’ as well as the form when it is postnominal and followed by another modifier, are all pà̤aar. Since the stem has a coda /r/, it is not possible to tell whether there is an underlying length alternation between the finite and attributive construct state forms. Additionally, pà̤aar is not used postnominally in the Ngok dialect, which suggests that it is not adjectival, but it is used postnominally in other dialects, so classification remains unclear. Fully answering this question will require a comprehensive overview of the intransitive verbal system in Dinka.

Dinka also presents an issue for the claim that ‘property’ does not predict adjectivehood. Clearly, being a property does not mean that an item will be an adjective in Dinka, nor does not being a property mean that an item will be non-adjectival. However, the items in the Dinka adjectival subclass are overwhelmingly properties, despite the fact that the means of classification are entirely morphophonological. Moreover, the Dinka adjectives are of the semantic types that Dixon (2004) predicts will be adjectives if anything in a given language is a grammatical adjective. In addition, calling these ‘stative’ verbs (as Reh (1996) does for Anywa) is not appropriate; there are other intransitive verbs that are stative in meaning and are not adjectival. For example, the verb ‘sit’ has a high-toned finite form, rɛ̤́ɛɛr, and therefore cannot be adjectival. What is an adjective if morphosyntactic or morphophonological criteria do not reveal some sort of semantic pattern?

This question relates to the larger issue of identifying adjectives cross-linguistically. Determining whether or not a language has a class of adjectives may be in large part a matter of initial perspective. That is, if one begins an investigation assuming that there is a class of adjectives in every language—even subtly defined—one is likely to find that class. On the other hand, if one undertakes the description of a language with the understanding that adjectives must conform to specific, pre-determined criteria, a distinct class of adjectives might not be identifiable. This is the case for Korean, for example: Kim (2002) asserts that Adjective is an abstractly defined entity, and that the stative verbs of Korean do not fulfill the requirements to be a member of this class, because they do not directly modify nouns. Sohn (2004: 241) on the other hand, uses the same verbs to assert that the adjective class in Korean does exist, noting that adjectives can modify a noun via relativization (cf. Dixon 2004: 19). To classify adjectives, Sohn describes various other morphological criteria that allows them to be distinguished from other verbs. Additionally, both authors describe a class that consists of properties in the same way that the Dinka class does, including colours, physical properties, and speed (Sohn 2004: 237). The question of whether Korean has adjectives, therefore, seems to be potentially unresolvable between these two perspectives, but only because they do not share criteria for adjectivehood.

I argue that the subclass laid out in this paper is the adjective class of the Dinka language—a subclass of intransitive verbs defined by two morphophonological features, syntactically indistinguishable from non-adjectival intransitive verbs. But if one is to approach the search for adjectives with the perspective that, for example, ‘adjective’ as an abstract concept that requires inflection for comparison, then the Dinka adjectives either cannot be considered adjectives or pose significant problems for the definition of adjectives. In fact, the Dinka adjectives do not exhibit several of the features that have been suggested as defining characteristics of ‘adjective’: they are not defined by an exceptional role in adnominal modification; they do not have a degree system; and they cannot be reliably predicted by semantic types. In contrast to this final point, however, the Dinka adjectives do provide some evidence that there is a correlation between properties and adjective, despite the fact that semantic type is not a defining feature of the lexical category.

6 Conclusion

Adjectives in Dinka, as explained in Section 3, are a subclass of intransitive verbs defined by two characteristics: a Low-toned finite form and an overlong (VVV) attributive construct state, which is found in the position after a noun and before another modifier. Importantly, this system is found across dialects and dialect clusters of Dinka. Dialects of Dinka can differ in number of tonemes, tonal behaviour, and morphosyntax, and while the presence of a binary voice quality contrast and a ternary vowel length contrast is consistent cross-dialectally, cognates can have differing vowel length and (less commonly) differing voice quality. Therefore, the fact that cross-dialectally, the same intransitive verbs satisfy Conditions 1 and 2—conditions based on suprasegmental features, not semantic types—supports the analysis of these verbs as a subclass. The items in the subclass can differ slightly across dialects, which should perhaps be expected given the cross-dialect variability in suprasegmental features. However, it should be noted that semantic types that tend to appear in the smallest adjective classes (cf. Dixon 2004), such as size (big/small), color (red/white/black), and value (good/bad) are consistently adjectival across dialects of Dinka.

Data accessibility statement

https://doi.org/10.7488/ds/3038.

Abbreviations

1 = first person, 2 = second person, 3 = third person, ACS = attributive construct state, COP = copula, CS = construct state, DECL = declarative, GEN = genitive, HAB = habitual, INTENS = intensifier, M = masculine, NF = non-finite, NMZ = nominalized form, PL = plural, POSS = possessive, PREP = preposition, PRF = perfect, PRO = pronoun, REL = relativizer, SG = singular

Ethics and consent

This research was approved by the PPLS Research Ethics Committee at the University of Edinburgh (Ref. Nos. 132-1920/2, 318-1920/2). Informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from all participants.

Funding information

The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2020-040 to Bert Remijsen) and the Small Project Scheme at the University of Edinburgh School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences.

Competing interests

The author has no competing interests to declare.