littafi / littattafai

A Plural with Stem Expansion

Level 2

Store littafi → littattafai as a complete lexical pair.

How It Works

Littafi ‘book’ is masculine singular, and littattafai means ‘books’. Keep the doubled consonants and the additional plural material. Merely changing the singular's final vowel does not produce this plural. The references establish the pair without supplying a productive rule for every similar-looking noun.

Singular littafi takes masculine singular agreement, while littattafai takes plural agreement. Location makes this contrast visible through yana versus suna. Both masculine singular and plural identification use ne, so that word alone does not distinguish number. Books are inanimate: ordinary cardinal counting permits either a singular or plural noun before a number above one. An adjective also needs its attested singular or plural form; pluralizing the noun does not supply the adjective's paradigm.

Examples (3)

  1. Littafi yana kan tebur.

    A book is on the table.

    Masculine singular littafi takes yana.

  2. Littattafai suna kan tebur.

    Books are on the table.

    Plural littattafai takes suna.

  3. Na kawo littattafai uku.

    I brought three books.

    The plural noun precedes the cardinal number.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

littafi / littattafaiLevel 2A Plural with Stem Expansion

Learn This First

Recognize attested lexical plurals, post-noun counting and linked surface-location phrases before contrasting littafi with littattafai in singular and plural location clauses.

Words in This Pattern

littafilittafi