# Agents and artists in Central Africa

Raymond Boyd

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Raymond Boyd. Agents and artists in Central Africa. STUF - Language Typology and Universals, 2011, 64 (4), pp.354-368. 10.1524/stuf.2011.0025/html. hal-05001134

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La version originelle du document qui suit a été publiée dans le numéro thématique *Agent noun polysemy in a crosslinguistic perspective de Language typology and universals (Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung)* 64(4):354-368 à la charge de Franz Rainer et de Hans Christian Luschützky. Elle peut être consultée à l'URL https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1524/stuf.2011.0025/html. La version présentée ici diffère de cette version antérieure principalement par un essai de mieux cerner les traits sémantiques qui distinguent les deux types de syntagme envisagés, les noms d'agent à proprement parler et ce qu'on peut appeler les « noms d'artiste ».
RAYMOND BOYD

(LABORATOIRE LIGERIEN DE LINGUISTIQUE, UNIVERSITE D'ORLEANS)

# Agents and artists in Central Africa

## Abstract

Zande and Chamba-Daka are Adamawa-Ubangi (Niger-Congo) languages, ISO 639-3 zne and ccg respectively. The Zande agent noun is identical with the completive conjugated verb form. Some agent nouns are instrumental or designate the process itself. The Chamba-Daka agent noun is a compound postposing the verbal noun (or “infinitive”) to ‘person’. It refers only to the animate subject argument of the source verb.

Both languages have a semantically related compound: the “artist” noun meaning ‘owner, skillful user of (a material object)’ or ‘individual with an identifying attribute’. The semantic range of the artist noun in both languages is similar. The artist noun may be formed with the verbal noun; it then contrasts modally with the agent noun.

This paper will briefly examine the formation and use of the “agent noun” and a semantically related construction which will be called the “artist<fnref n="1" /> noun” in two Central African languages, Zande (ISO 639-3 zne) and Chamba-Daka (CD, ISO 639-3 ccg)<fnref n="2" />. Both belong to the Adamawa-Ubangi branch of the Niger-Congo family. Zande belongs to the Ubangi subbranch and is spoken on its eastern periphery in Sudan/CAR/DRC. Chamba-Daka belongs to the Adamawa subbranch and is spoken on its western periphery along the Nigeria-Cameroon border. Both are also peripheral in a classificatory sense: they are lexically distant from the other languages in the Adamawa-Ubangi branch.

<footnote n="1">¹ This is the term selected by FR. STEFANO SANTANDREA (see for example SANTANDREA 1969) to designate the item in question in the Sudanese languages (both NC and NS) he recorded. He speaks of “una caratteristica comunissima in lingue africane. Il prefisso in questione, o primo componente che dir si voglia, implica l’idea di proprietà, di qualsiasi specie: cosa, persona, qualità buona o cattiva, abilità artigianale, artistica, ecc. Sta pure per ‘colui que…; chi…; quello…il quale… ’… In certe lingue, al suo posto si può trovare il termine ‘uomo’ (nel senso di ‘persona’: maschile o femminile), ma solo in determinate costruzioni” (Santandrea 1969: 66). I shall develop these remarks below.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² The particular features of the orthography used here for these languages are: tone notation with ˇv as low, ˇv as mid, ˇv as high and / to mark downstep. Dotted vowels are the high + ATR vowels ı, ụ in Zande and the high mid vowels ě, ọ in CD.</footnote>
I. Agent nouns

Morphologically, agent nouns are formed in quite different ways in these
languages.

I.1a. In Zande, all verbs are necessarily inflected for aspect: they must be either in a completive or in an incompletive form. This applies both to conjugated verbs and to their nominal derivates: the simple incompletive form is thus the “action noun”, i.e., the verbal noun (VN) or “infinitive” expressing the “fact of” or “act of” performing the verbal process, while the simple completive form<fnref n="3" /> is the “agent noun” expressing the “one who” performs the verbal process. The referent of the agent noun would thus be the referent of the animate subject of the source verb used predicatively<fnref n="4" />. (Conjugated verb morphology involves using one or the other of these forms with a variety of prefixes and tone patterns to form predicates.)

In most Adamawa-Ubangi languages, argument structure is determined by word order alone, not by any feature of inflection. The two languages discussed here are exceptional in bringing verb extensions into play in role distribution<fnref n="5" /> but the semantic value conveyed by inflection in other languages such as the complex Cushitic example adduced by YVONNE TREIS in this volume is more likely to stem here from syntactic positions alone. The denomination “agent noun” thus does more than refer to a particular class of morphological derivates; it reflects some kind of overarching “doer” value inherent in the subject position<fnref n="6" />.

The agent noun can be inflected by only two types of morphological elements: a plural prefix ā- (also used for ethnonyms) and a gender prefix: bā- ‘masculine’ or nā- ‘feminine’<fnref n="7" />.

The agent noun can (and usually does) form a noun phrase in which the direct (usually patient) object and/or a circumstantial complement of the source verb appears as a modifier<fnref n="8" />, thus

<footnote n="3">³ Each of the simple verbal nouns has a reduplicated (emphatic) form, requiring repetition of the verb in the incompletive with prefix à-.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ We may note that Zande also has a few animate patient derivates - for example, zog- 'submit, govern'
> zógó 'subordinate, subject, citizen' - but these are irregularly formed. Some such as mò-yámbù 'servant'
(< yamb- 'call') use a prefix mò-, probably imported from a Bantu language.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ The Samba-Duru group of Adamawa languages also make apparently productive use of such a feature.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ These facts are not unrelated to the patient lability that characterizes verbs in these languages, a question is discuss elsewhere.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ These items mean respectively ‘father’ and ‘mother’; they can be preceded by the common-noun plural prefix à-.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ Agent nouns from intransitive verbs *nearly always* have a circumstantial modifier (the emphatic form</footnote>
(1) bā-ìmì bà-mó
male-kill father-your
'killer of your father, man who killed your father'

The completive semantic feature of the agent noun is tenuous, given the absence of any aspectual contrast in this function. By the same token, all TAM features associated with conjugated forms are eliminated. Hence, the agent noun from an intransitive verb such as sùng-<fnref n="9" /> 'sit' can have any of the senses associated with such inflection:

(2) ā-sùngù séèndè
plural-sit locative + earth
'those who have sat down, are currently sitting, usually sit, ought to sit, etc. on the ground'

The meaning of agent nouns thus varies essentially with the lexical meaning of the verb, its syntactic classification as transitive or intransitive and the discursive context: while (1) normally means ‘the man who killed your father’<fnref n="10" />,

(3) bā-ìmì à-nyā
male-kill plural-animal
'killer of animals'

can be used for one who is a skillful hunter. It signifies not just that he *has* killed animals, but that he is *good at* killing animals and can do so again. Likewise,

(4) bā-vù bàngì
male-smoke hemp
'hemp smoker'

is a habitual smoker.

The full range of TAM possibilities can only be restored by recourse to relative clauses, e.g., ‘a possible killer’ could be expressed as ‘that person who is capable of killing’.

I.1b. The “canonical” agent noun refers to the animate subject argument of the source verb. Zande nevertheless has formal agent nouns which refer to inanimate things. These usually have a strongly idiomatic sense, will not take gender prefixes

without modifier is also allowed); the agent noun thus remains strongly linked to its predicative source.

<footnote n="9">⁹ Zande verbs have no lexical tone. They are distributed into two morphological classes according to whether the final vowel changes to mark aspect. When the final vowel does not change, tone alone marks aspect.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ It could also conceivably mean ‘the man who is sure to kill your father’.</footnote>
or postposed patient-object modifiers (though they may be modified by nominals in
the preposed attributive “adjectival” position), and mark the plural with à-.

Instrumental senses, where the object used for the (transitive) process replaces
the animate user as ‘that which performs the process’, are particularly well
represented: *gbàràgà* ‘drying wattle’ < *gbaraga* ‘spread to dry on a wattle’, *ingirà*
’sieve’ < *ingira* ‘(to) sieve’, *tògòsì* ‘funnel’ < *togos* - ‘run (sth.) through a funnel’,
*zèrèsì* ‘tranquillizing medicine’ < *zeres* - ‘calm’, *zùgàsì* ‘seed yam’ < *zùgasi* ‘enrich,
multiply’. The same analysis extends to the terms designating fingers: *nòrò* ‘thumb’
< *nor* - ‘crush with the thumb’, *rìngà* ‘index finger’ < *rìnga* ‘point at (with the index
finger)’. A further extension will cover *ngànà* ‘mirror’ < *ngana* ; ‘look at’ which can
be used reflexively; hence, the mirror is that thing which allows oneself to look at
oneself and, in a sense, ‘looks back at’ oneself.

Interestingly, there is an attested instance of an intransitive verb taking an *animate* subject argument, *totoroto* 'speak on endlessly to criticize or harass', whose agent noun designates not the agent but rather the process itself<fnref n="11" />. It may be assumed that this is an extension of the previous case, whereby the process is treated as the “means” of its own realization.

Some (transitive or intransitive) verbs may however take *inanimate* subjects (as
an alternative to an animate subject in a reflexive construction). In such case, the
agent noun may be that subject: *gètèkè* ‘abcess’ < *getek* - ‘burrow’, *gbèfè* ‘convulsion’
< *gbef* - ‘convulse’<fnref n="12" />. In other words, the process itself is either the agent or, again,
the “means” by which the process is carried out<fnref n="13" />. In some cases, e.g., *kìndà*
‘catastrophe’ < *kìnda* ‘bring destruction’, the process agent noun is a general term
covering a variety of specific processes (in this case, war or famine)<fnref n="14" />.

These examples of process nominalization through the agent noun must be clearly
distinguished from a variety of other unproductive tonal and affixal derivational
procedures. In particular, nouns may appear as the “internal” or “generic” object of
verbs, e.g., *sog*- ‘hate’ > *sógóté* ‘hatred’, whence *sōgà* *sógóté* ‘be spiteful’, and *mong*-
‘make fun of, laugh at’ giving *mōngà* *mōngō* ‘laugh’. This is never the case with agent
nouns.

<footnote n="11">¹¹ The common usage of this ideophonic verb is **totoroto** **kùtí bórò** {criticize against person} ‘harangue (people) concerning the faults of someone’. The textual example referred to is:</footnote>

<footnote>(5) mò ní-dù ngúù nāà gbēgbèrè tòtòròtò {you be constantly with bad criticizing} 'you are always going on and on criticizing people malignantly'.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹² Both *getek-* and *gbef-* are pluractional derivates but this fact seems to have no bearing on the current discussion.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³ This is conceivably the pattern on which the names of certain months of the year are based.</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ Note also that, in view of the requirement that *kìnda* have an inanimate subject, its “agent noun” is *bá-kìndà* ‘raider’ whose first component is *bá* ‘place’, not the animate prefix *bā*.</footnote>
There is nevertheless a certain number of derivates obtained by these procedures which seem to be semantically equivalent to the cases cited above of agent nouns from verbs with inanimate subjects, e.g., ímísírí ‘suffering’ < *imís-* ‘make (so.) suffer’ (itself the causative derivate of *im-* ‘be painful; feel pain, suffer’<fnref n="15" />).

I.1c. The Zande data thus support the affirmation that the pattern “used in the formation of agent nouns may also serve for the formation of instrumental, locative and other nouns”<fnref n="16" />. They show that two primary semantic procedures are involved:

1. If an agent uses an object to perform the process, this object in some sense *also* performs the process and may therefore be designated by an agent noun.

2. Some processes are assumed to occur without animate agents; these may be said to “perform themselves”: the agent noun designates the process itself.

I.2a) In CD, verbs have an “absolute” lexical form, i.e., a bare form with an intrinsic tone. This totally uninflected form may be used to form a predicate; with exceptions, any grammatical predicate or proposition modifiers (negation, interrogative, mood, aspect, etc.) will generally be utterance-final.

Every verb has a verbal noun or “infinitive” form resulting from the assignment of a characteristic tone pattern and the addition of a suffix -(*ē*)n, and meaning the “fact of” or “act of” performing the verbal process.

The word for ‘person’ is *nèé*; this term is sometimes found tonally reduced to *nè* when followed by certain grammatical terms such as demonstratives, the indefinite specifier (‘a certain...’), and the plural marker. It is also used with certain attributive (“adjectival”) nominals, e.g.,

(6) *nè-yákén* ‘wielder of the circumcision knife’ (literally “knify person”, *yákén* < *yák* ‘knife’)<fnref n="17" />.

This tonal reduction is thus a mark of close binding and/or compounding. It also appears when ‘person’ is immediately followed by the verbal noun. This construction provides an *agent-noun compound* with the meaning ‘person who performs or instantiates the verbal process’<fnref n="18" />.

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ This verb is used intransitively (*im*- *tí bórò* {be painful on person} ‘be painful for someone’) and has another derivate *imā* ‘pain, illness’.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ From the call for contributions to this volume.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ This person is also a guardian of the knives, which must be kept under certain conditions during the years separating successive performances of the circumcision rites.</footnote>

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ The process exists in other West African Niger-Congo languages as Luschütsky and Rainer (this volume) report: cf. Kisi, Temne and (diachronically) Vata. In CD, there is no trace of derived *patient* nouns.</footnote>
Just as in Zande, the agent noun will often form a phrase in which the direct object arguments<fnref n="19" /> of the source verb appear as modifiers. Given the absence of any tense-aspect-mode marking, meaning is solely dependent on the lexical meaning and the transitivity of the source verb in the given discursive context:

(7) nè-kpāān yák
person-cry + VN knife
‘person who cried as a child at circumcision’

refers to a person who has behaved in a given way on a specific occasion while

(8a) nè-sāān wáā
person-divine + VN hand
‘diviner’ and

(8b) nè-tārēn tá/ám būū
person-shoot + VN bow plural
‘archers’

refer to persons with habitually exercised functions or skills.

(9) nè-nyāān méém bū gāān
person-give + VN children plural medicine
‘medicine distributor’

designates a person who is given the specific task of providing pain killers to boys before they undergo circumcision.

(10) nè-bārēn bỳnō téém būn
person-break + VN road heart forward
‘pioneer’

is a name given to the boy who is circumcised first and sets an example for those who follow.

(11a) nè-wūkēn táā
person-hear + VN ear
‘listener’ and

(11b) nè-vīsùmēn sárī
person-ask + me + VN speech
‘my questioner’

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ In this language, unlike Zande, both the beneficiary and the patient objects are direct, i.e. unmarked, as are “relational” or adjunct objects which often require translation into English as a circumstantial phrase, ‘with respect to, involving’.</footnote>
refer to persons in a particular state at a given time.

(12) nè-lāān gáà bēn
person-remain + VN locative down
'someone who lives here'

refers to someone who is in a constant invariant state.

CD differs importantly from Zande, however, in using its verbal noun as an attributive nominal modifier. In this function, it may modify any nominal, whether a (non-subject) argument of the source verb or not, and generally takes on a purposive sense, cf. the “instrumental” uses in

(13a) pén dōbēn sòòn
thing dance-VN dance
'thing for dancing, item used by (so.) while dancing'

(13b) gāām tōngsé/én lérùm bū téém
horn strengthen-VN male plural heart
'horn capable of awakening, used to awaken men's courage'

and the use with a non-argument of the source verb in

(13c) lārí nìmēn nìmsí
fear sing + VN song
'fear of singing a song'

A verbal noun may also modify any *subject* of an *intransitive* source verb, in which case it generally has stative sense:

(14a) yísí dākénēn
cloth be_clean + VN
'clean garment'

We may note that the use of the lexical form *nèé* ‘person’ as head noun in this construction gives similarly:

(14b) nèé dākénēn
person be_clean + VN
'clear-headed (sane) person'

which may be said to contrast with the agent noun *nè-dākénēn* ‘person who is in a state of cleanliness’ with bodily rather than mental reference.

Consequently, we must recognize a syntactic kinship of agent nouns (as exemplified by (7-12) with both compound nouns such as (6) and nouns modified by an attributive verbal noun, as in (13-14), since all these constructions may be assumed to consist of a referent noun followed by an attribute.
The agent noun is properly identified by the conjunction of two features: 1) it necessarily uses the compounded form of the noun *nè*-<fnref n="20" /> and 2) the latter necessarily designates the animate subject argument of the source verb of its verbonominal modifier.

1.2b. This analysis sets the agent nouns, as compounds formed with *nè-* and a postposed verbonominal modifier, over against *all other* noun phrases in which a noun is modified by a postposed verbonominal phrase. If this analysis is correct<fnref n="21" />, the CD data refute the generality of the hypothesis that the pattern “used in the formation of agent nouns may also serve for the formation of instrumental, locative and other nouns”. Indeed, CD agent nouns include an *obligatory reference to an animate entity* which blocks any semantic drift towards reference to inanimate non-subject arguments or circumstantial complements of the source verb. They are therefore in some sense totally “transparent” in being the only forms which can validly be called “agent nouns” precisely because they can only designate agents<fnref n="22" />, i.e. semantically “doer” animate subjects.

## II. “Artist” nouns

We must now turn to a formally contrasting but semantically related type of expression formed with the “artist” lexeme, a feature common to many Central African languages.

<footnote n="20">²⁰ There are exceptional cases such as
(15) *pén tāānēn bùm* {thing eat-VN place} ‘cannibal’,
literally ‘one who eats (chewy things) all about’. For these speakers, a “cannibal” is a humanoid creature,
usually making use of supernatural powers. Hence the use of ‘thing’ for a voluntary agent. Another
exception is found in the titles chiefs select for themselves, formed with *gàng* ‘chief’; some have agent-
noun structure, e.g., *GàngDōkēn* (*< dòk* ‘plant’) ‘planter chief’.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">²¹ There are diverse arguments supporting this analysis. Stated briefly and without the development required for clarification, these include 1) *nè-* in agent nouns designates the subject argument of the source verb; argument status is not obligatory otherwise; 2) the semantic behavior of agent nouns is specific to them; 3) nouns designating instruments or means (and not agents) may have an anaphor in the modifying verbonominal phrase.</footnote>

<footnote n="22">²² Perhaps “agent or experiencer” is required. We are in any case dealing with a classic Niger-Congo situation where the non-existence of “passivization” confers a peculiar semantic status on the subject of the verbal utterance.</footnote>
II.1a. Zande has, in fact, two such lexemes, the relational nouns<sup>23</sup> ìrá and mbē, the latter being perhaps a more recent importation (related to Sango mvè). They are semantically identical and contrast only in the sense that, in the CAR dialect I have studied, most expressions use idiomatically either one or the other.

These terms may express the notion of ownership, as for example in

(16) ìrá ãtì ‘owner of an uncultivated field’

This sense leads naturally to the sense ‘person in control, head person, ruler’, as in

(17a) ìrá kpōrō ‘head of a household’

(17b) ìrá gbéré ‘organizer, host of a dance’

(17c) ìrá zàgìnà ‘master, lord (of the “world”)’

(17d) bā-ìrá à-mbàrà
male-master plural-elephant
‘leader of an elephant herd’

(17e) nā-ìrá-ré
female-master-my
‘my beloved, my mistress’

At the same time, however, when a material object is possessed, the senses of ownership and control are often associated with that of skill in use. Thus, the

(18a) mbē gázà ‘drum owner’

not only possesses but plays the tamtam; the

(18b) mbē ngūà

possesses, produces, and makes proper use of “medicines”.

The thing possessed may impose an obligation, as with

(19) mbē kúrùgbà ‘relative of a deceased person’

who must perform the rites of mourning.

The same terms may also be used for the possessor of the faculty or skill itself, e.g.,

(20a) ìrá sánzá ‘(skillful) user of allusive speech’

(20b) mbē màyērè
owner ruse
‘astute, resourceful person’

The faculty or skill need not be positively valued, cf.

<footnote n="23"><sup>23</sup> “Relational” nouns in this context cannot be used without a following nominal modifier.</footnote>
(21a) ìrá dīn (= mbē dīn)
owner theft
‘thief’

and more generally

(21b) mbē síná
owner characteristic Behavior
‘delinquent, antisocial person’

Any faculty or skill will, however, often be inherent in its possessor; hence, artist
words may be used for any inherent property, whether a skill under the control of
the possessor or a condition suffered by him, e.g.,

(22a) ìrá vūràrí
owner blindness
‘blindman’

(22b) mbē kùngú
owner leprosy
‘leper’

or a situation in the throes of which he finds himself:

(23) ìrá zē
owner shame
‘person who is ashamed, made to feel shame’

This passive nuance is present in the particular use of *mbē* with place names to mean ‘inhabitant of’:

(24a) mbē kù pà dí-yó
owner at beside river-there
“downstreamer”, person from the region of the Central African capital (further
downriver on the Ubangi)

(24b) mbē Kòngó ‘Congolese’

These expressions do not imply that the person referred to is the ruler, but merely
an inhabitant (who may of course have more rights and possibilities in his own place
than any foreigner). The same sense is present in an expression such as

(25) mbē kángà
owner prison

which, rather than 'prison governor', means 'prisoner'.
II.1b. Almost all the preceding examples would be excluded from any category of agent nouns defined by derivation from verbs. The exception is (21a): *dīn* is a verbonominal derived from the verb *dīn* ‘steal’ by the unproductive process of assignement of a mid tone pattern. Whenever such a derivate exists, the artist lexeme will select it; otherwise it will join with an action noun (represented by the incompletive verb form): expressions such as the following are clearly pertinent to this discussion:

(26a) ìrá múngá ‘coward’ (*munga* ‘be cowardly’)

(26b) ìrá ēndà ‘proud, vain person’ (*end-* ‘be proud’)

(26c) mbē zángádá ‘sterile woman’ (*zangada* ‘be sterile’)

(26d) mbē zúgá ‘rich person’ (*zuġa* ‘be rich’)

(26e) mbē rúngá ‘poor person’ (*runga* ‘be poor, miserable’)

The verbs attested in this construction are *preferentially* intransitive or agent-labile<fnref n="24" />, and there are no instances of modification by circumstantial phrases: the degree of nominalization is therefore high. There is, however, also an instance of an action noun from a transitive verb with its generic patient complement:

(27) ìrá īngà hē
owner ignore thing
‘person who habitually misbehaves, disrespectful person’,

showing that the possibility of linkage to the object arguments of the source verb
remains.

II.2a. In CD, the term corresponding to Zande ìrá and mbē is tūū. The semantic convergence of the artist lexemes in CD and Zande is remarkable. We thus have CD expressions such as

(28a) bāān tūū ‘owner of farm’<fnref n="25" />

(28b) sòòn tūū ‘host of dance’

(28c) yàà kōō tūū
concession matting owner
‘neighbor’

(28d) wók /tūū
water owner
‘sole person having the right to fish in a given pond’,

<footnote n="24">²⁴ Verbs that can be used with or without a patient object, as *he eats food, he eats* in English.</footnote>

<footnote n="25">²⁵ The Zande make a lexical distinction between the as yet uncultivated and the cultivated farm; the Chamba-Daka do not.</footnote>
(28e) súún tūū
husband owner
'married woman' (as opposed to Proper Name + nwúù 'wife of So-and-So')

expressing ownership and control;

(29a) gúún tūū 'drum owner and player'

(29b) gāǎn tūū 'person familiar with the production and use of a particular medicine',
expressing ownership and skill; and

(30a) méém (yét /)tūū
children (circumcision) owner
'parent or close relative of a child (undergoing circumcision)'

(30b) yák gàng tūū
knife chief owner
'person having the status of head guardian of the circumcision knives' (who is
himself also a circumciser, cf. 6 above)

expressing social duties and obligation.

Examples of possessors of positive social skills are:

(31a) tít tūū
advice owner
'wise person, advisor'

(31b) hākkilɔ̃<fnref n="26" /> tūū 'respectful, circumspect person'

(31c) téém tóng-tóng tūū
heart strong owner
'courageous person';

negative attributes are exemplified by such expressions as

(32a) mūm gá/kén tūū
mouth warlike owner
'quarrelsome person'

and others using strongly evocative Hausa loanwords:

(32b) mùgùntá tūū 'malign person, evildoer'.

A person's inherent capacities are commonly expressed by phrases headed by tūū,
cf.

<footnote n="26">²⁶ This is a widely used borrowing from Fulfulde referring to respectful behavior which is nevertheless mindful of the subject's own interest.</footnote>
(33) gúù dāké/nén tūū
throat be_clean + VN owner
'person with a clear, pure (singing) voice'

Certain professions may also be expressed in the same way<sup>27</sup>, cf.

(34) wáàjé tūū 'preacher'

using a Hausa loanword for a modern phenomenon.

Expressions of origin and membership using the artist lexeme are well attested:

(35a) Sámá kààm dèèrí tūū
Chamba village far owner
'inhabitant of a distant Chamba town'

(35b) yáksúm dùksìrì mūm tūū
game ending mouth owner
'participant in the final game'

(35c) fāādà<sup>28</sup> tūū 'courtier' (rather than 'one who holds court')

The expression

(36) wá/á bìlá tūū
arm inauspicious owner
'inauspicious person for performing a given duty'

uses the artist lexeme to refer to a person who finds himself in a particular (undesirable) state.

By analogy with the constructions described above in the discussion of agent nouns, nè- is sometimes used, to a certain extent redundantly, in expressions of this kind:

(37a) nè-gèè tūū
person-fishtrap owner
'fishtrap owner, person who has installed a fishtrap'

(37b) nè-yàà tūū
person-concession owner
'landlord'

There seems to be a preference to prepose the independent form nèé (rather than the compounding nè-) when the speaker wants to express an attribute or state rather than the control or use of a particular object:

<footnote n="27"><sup>27</sup> This example might also be grouped semantically with (30b).</footnote>

<footnote n="28"><sup>28</sup> This is the Fulfulde term for 'king's court'.</footnote>
(38a) nèé pìrà vèé tūū
person plot bad owner
‘ill-willed plotter’

(38b) nèé téém vèé tūū
person heart bad owner
‘person with bad character’

Míí ‘child’ sometimes replaces nèé when the person is young:

(38c) míí hākkīlọ tūū ‘respectful, obedient child, young person’.

II.2b) Just as in Zande, the artist lexeme can also be used with verbal nouns<fnref n="29" />:

(39) pén līn tūū
thing eat + VN owner
‘glutton’

It will be remarked that preposition of nè- to such an expression, e.g.,

(40a) nè-póó jāāmēn tūū
person-grass stand + VN owner
‘convener of a bush-fire hunt<fnref n="30" />’,

gives a form similar to the agent noun. The latter, however, is only attested with *postposition* of the object arguments and predicate modifiers of the source verb.
Thus,

(40b) nè-jāāmēn póó

would be the proper agent noun meaning ‘hunter in a bush-fire hunt’.

II.3. At first glance, one might have the impression that agent and artist nouns - as we may call the expressions headed by the artist lexeme - in these languages are in a sort of complementary distribution: the verbs whose nominal derivates are selected by the artist lexeme hardly ever appear in the form of agent nouns and vice versa. Semantic classes of verbs, which may be reflected in syntactic behavior, are clearly in play here. Thus,

<footnote n="29">²⁹ The case is less frequently attested than in Zande where the formal contrast between the completive agent noun and the incompletive action noun used with the artist noun is greater.</footnote>

<footnote n="30">³⁰ Jààm póó {stand grass} is the idiomatic expression used for ‘hunt by setting fire to the bush’.</footnote>
(41a) mbē zángádá

is the common artist noun for ‘sterile woman’ while the agent noun without
traditional use

(41b) (?)nā-zàngàdà

in a modern context might designate a woman who does something to make herself
sterile such as tubal ligation.

Contrasts involving transitive verbs can easily be conceived. If (3) means ‘skillful hunter’ in Zande,

(42) ìrá īmà à-nyā

might be ‘person in charge of putting animals down at the end of a hunt’ or even of
a slaughterhouse. Such cases are not however attested in spontaneous speech.

In the case of CD, the artist noun (39) might be contrasted with the agent noun

(43) nè-lüün pén

which would refer in a neutral way to an eater and convey no more than the simple
fact of eating but again, spontaneous discourse throws up no such examples. Some
tests of acceptability using elicited examples should be attempted in both languages
to determine whether cases exist where the two forms contrast.

Whatever the results of such tests may be, we may conclude that Zande and CD
are classifying verbs modally in a way reflected in the two constructions. The
semantic contrast involved contrasts real agency - the fact of doing - with potential
agency - the capacity or the tendency to do - and might be called ± *agentivity*. Agent
nouns would thus be categorized as +agentive while artist nouns would be -
agentive. The notion of agentivity must obviously be made far more precise. With
respect to artist nouns, for example: in the case of what might be called a behavioral
attribute, cf. Zande

(44) mbē nyómóró
owner be_lazy
‘lazy person’

and CD (39), the artist is held to be acting persistently in an automatic and
uncontrolled fashion. These expressions are a form of insult and reproach calling on
the person concerned to renounce and correct this unreflecting behavior. When,
however, the artist can have no real control over his condition, as when he suffers
from a disease or a disability as in Zande (22a/b) or (41a), there are manifestations
and consequences that need to be taken into account when dealing with him over
time. Then again, when the natural right to control a process is involved as in CD
(40a), the artist noun must be seen as an obligation to execute the process in an acceptable way when the occasion presents itself. In each given scenario, the culture will define in its own way those states which it can recognize as inherent and must manage socially.

Scenarios requiring + agentive verbs also require cultural definition. Both the languages considered here use agent nouns from the verb meaning ‘hate’: Zande

(45a) bā-sògò à-bòrò
male-hate plural-person,

and CD

(45b) nè-jěěn
person- hate + VN
'misanthropic person who is always in conflict with others'

These refer to individuals whose spitefulness is defined as conscious and aggressive and who, so to speak, “practice hate”. They develop hate rather than being pervaded by it.

If we had a contrast, if we had for example a Zande

(46) (?)mbē sógóté

or a CD

(47) (?)jěěn tūū

we would doubtless have some kind of verbal polysemy which native speakers could define. Without such contrasts, a manner of semantic classification of verbs must indeed be assumed to be in effect.

Clearly, the kind of notions used by the linguist to capture semantic contrasts of this kind have an extremely high degree of generality. The way in which they are applied in each individual culture to specific sets of notions is therefore a matter for detailed anthropological investigation.

II.4. If we now return to our primary subject, namely the possibility of semantic diversification of agent nouns, we observe that it is impossible, both in Zande and in CD, that an artist noun should designate a non-animate being. The reason for this is identical with the one invoked for the absence of semantic diversification in CD agent nouns, namely, the fact that artist nouns are compounds or phrases headed by a term which can only designate an animate being. Where this feature is absent, as in the Zande agent noun, the possibility of diversification arises.

At the same time, these data clearly bring out the fact that, if the agent noun is strictly defined by its inclusion of a verb root (in languages such as these where the
nominal and verbal categories are unquestionably distinct), highly relevant
collateral (semantically similar) syntactic structures may be escape consideration.

*Bibliographical references*

LUSCHÜTZKY, HANS CHRISTIAN & FRITZ RAINER. 2011. Agent noun polysemy in a crosslinguistic perspective. *Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung* 64(4):287-338.

SANTANDREA, STEFANO. 1969. *Note grammaticali e lessicali sul gruppo Feroge e sul Mundu (Sudàn)*. Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale.

TREIS, YVONNE. 2011. Polysemous agent nominals in Kambaata (Cushitic). In RAINER, FRITZ & HANS CHRISTIAN LUSCHÜTZKY (eds.). *Agent noun polysemy in a crosslinguistic perspective*, thematic issue, *Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung* 64(4):369-381.