Western Sisaala – Phonological alternations in plural formation

Introduction This paper provides an original phonological analysis of some of the plural noun formations of Western Sisaala. Western Sisaala has several noun classes. The classes are distinguished by the suffixes to used to form the singular and plural. Moran (2006) tentatively identifies a few noun classes. In this squib, I discuss a subset of the plural forms attested in the language. Many of these forms are similar but I distinguish three different classes of plurals and describe the associated strategies and phonological processes involved in the derivation of these forms. The remainder of this paper begins with some brief background on Western Sisaala and its tentatively identified noun classes. Then I present the examples of the data that I discuss in the analysis. The analysis section is a presentation of the three distinct classes of plural morphemes that I have identified, the alternations of each plural morpheme and the phonological processes that account for the data. I conclude this paper with a brief discussion of the main points of the analysis.