Number marking in Nuer nouns

Abstract This paper investigates the formation of number in the nouns of Nuer, a Nilo-Saharan language spoken both in South Sudan and Ethiopia. Forming plurals in Nuer is by itself quite irregular: there are many different ways. Suffixing the [-ni̤] after words that end in sounds other than [l] and [r] is the first way. [l] and [r]take [-i̤] after them, which is the second way. There are also many other ways of forming a plural from singular, including suppletion, vowel shortening, change in vowel quality and internal vowel modification (this last way is quite unpredictable in nature). There is also a null (Ø) formation of plurals with no distinction between singular and plural. Other closely related languages like Dinka (South Sudan) and Anyuak (both Ethiopia and South Sudan), see Reh (1996) , share many of the same plural formation processes.