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One additional construction needs to be examined before leaving the topic of
noun compounding. In Mono, a there are a large number of agentive nouns (Cloarec-
Heiss, p. 134, refers to them as noms d’agent), consisting of = = = =
‘person, owner’ plus a
noun or infinitive verb (14). The form = = = =
is a truncation of =AC =AC =AC =AC ‘person, owner’. 4 In
some cases, there is variation between the two, e.g. = = = = =M= =M= =M= =M= ~ =AC =AC =AC =AC =M= =M= =M= =M= ‘servant,
employee’.
(14) Sample agentive nouns
=C =C =C =C ‘inhabitant’ < = = = =
‘person’ + C C C C ‘village’
= = = = =C>= =C>= =C>= =C>= ~ =AC =AC =AC =AC =C>= =C>= =C>= =C>= ‘thief’
= = = = =( =( =( =( ‘thumb’
= = = = > > JK JK JK JK ‘deaf person’
= = = = =CAA =CAA =CAA =CAA ‘host’
= = = = ==5A ==5A ==5A ==5A > > 5= 5= 5= 5= ‘polygamist’
= = = = K(MKI(
K(MKI( K(MKI(
K(MKI( ‘wise person’
= = = = (@ (@ (@ (@ @ @ @ @ ‘farmer’
This process is reminiscent of an agentive construction in English in which the
morpheme man is suffixed to a noun (e.g. milkman, postman, congressman).
Agentive nouns in Mono share some properties with compounds. First, they are of
the same form as the associative noun phrase, with the head being the first element.
Second, there is formal reduction, since =AC =AC =AC =AC becomes = = = = .
Third, there can be semantic
restriction, e.g. = = = = =( =( =( =( ‘thumb (lit: person of hand)’. Fourth, there is phonological
modification in that the A of =AC =AC =AC =AC becomes E in = = = = .
It is not clear whether = = = =
should be considered a separate word or whether the
compound has truly become fused. It is a bound morpheme which must occur with a
following element, whereas =AC =AC =AC =AC is a free morpheme. However, when the following
4
Cloarec-Heiss (p. 135) states that in Linda the agentive form comes from the word A A A A
‘mother’.
There is indeed formal identity between the two words in Linda (and in Mono as well), but the source in
Mono of the agentive form is clearly =AC =AC =AC =AC ‘person, owner’, based on examples such as = = = = =M= =M= =M= =M= ~
=AC =AC =AC =AC =M= =M= =M= =M= ‘servant, employee’ where there is variation between the two, as well as native speaker
intuitions about the source.
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