Some Aspects of Dinka Noun System

Some Aspects of Dinka Noun System

investigates, as the name suggests,

aspects of the noun system of the Dinka

language.

Dinka is a monosyllabic and tone

language. It belongs to the Nilotic

family of languages that includes Nuer

and Shilluk. The book examines some

aspects of Dinka phonology. Phonology

is a branch of linguistics which studies

language sound.

The second part of the book handles

the definition of " breathiness" and its

role in the language.

Part three investigates the role of

vowel's length and central vowels.

According to Professor Job Malou,

investigations show that breathiness in

Dinka is distinctive and that there are 78

distinctive vowels.

Linguists such as A. Trucker, Bryan

and Welmers who have studied Western

Nilotic Languages, pointed out the

existence of seven vowel contrasts.

However, Trucker and Bryan (1948),

recognised the complicated nature of

Dinka vowels system. They pointed out

the existence of seven vowel contrasts.

Welmers find Wilson's tentative

analysis of the Dinka vowel system

together with its morphological operating

remarkable.

The review discusses the presence of

both "breathy" and non-breathy" voice in

pronunciation of vowels, diphthongs and

semi-vowels. Tone, vowel system and

syllable are included in the discussion.

Furthermore, compounding, wordformation,

cattle name prefixes and

reduplication are tackled at length in

chapters four and five respectively.

Reduplication is a repetition of all or

some parts of a stem word that mostly

forms abstract nouns.

Investigations reveal that the

Dinka nominal system involves many

complicated rules. For that reason,

the author recommends an in-depth

study of all the Dinka dialects in

order for researchers to draw out clear

morphological rules governing the Dinka

language.

Deng Akol Juach was born in Piom de Awan Village. He received all his education in South

Sudan and Sudan.

In 2014 Deng Akol Juach crowned his academic achievements with an award of a PhD in

Applied Linguistics from the Sudan University of science and technology, Sudan.

Dr Juach, who has been a lecturer for about ten years at the Faculty of Education (English

Department) of the University Upper Nile, Malakal, is currently an Assistant Professor. This is

his first publication.