Alienability and plurals All nouns fall into either the alienable or inalienable category. Inalienable nouns are called dependent, and include integral parts of the possessor that cannot be discarded. This category encapsulates body parts, relatives, and membership names. Most Kpelle nouns have one form to represent both singular and plural, with number usually indicated by context. This is except for nouns for people, where the plural is indicated in different ways for dependent and independent nouns. While dependent nouns suffix , independent nouns have varied plurals. Dependent nouns always require a possessor and cannot stand alone. For example, "father" is not a valid noun, where "our father" is.
Compounds Compounds are formed by combining two or more words. The compounding process transforms the final stem into having a low tone, or the tone 'high-low' pattern if the preceding word contains a mid-tone. The compounds are
head-final, meaning that the base word being modified is the last morpheme. (e.g. "to eat" + "medicine" → 'pill').
Noun phrases The order in a noun phrase goes, from earliest to latest: • possessor • noun • adjective • numeral • specificity suffix • demonstrative pronouns
Adjectives There are two classes of adjectives in Kpelle, predicating and descriptive. Most adjectives are predicating, being derived from verbs. This can be done through lengthening or changing the value of the final vowel. The suffix takes a high tone except for when the stem has a low tone, in which case the suffix. Examples include "to be plentiful" → "much, a lot" and "ripen" → "ripe". Another method for deriving predicative adjectives is altering the tone of the word. These adjectives are then used as a verb, suffixing low tone . These phrases follow the pattern object + adjective stem + suffix vowel + . The noun that is described by the adjective takes the form of an object.
Locatives Locatives, the set of adverbs or adjectives that place an agent or action in a location. There are multiple locative prefixes that Kpelle employs for different styles of location. Examples include: "house" + "inside" → "inside the house" and "house" + "near" → "near the house". These can be taken also as the complement of a noun phrase to express explicit locationality. It can also be used as a noun phrase as the subject to express the location itself, and can be described with predicating clauses.
Pronouns Subject pronouns Kpelle has a markedly complex pronominal system, with sets of pronouns that differ often in tense and have distinct sets for affirmative and negative. Affirmative 1 is used for present, future, and customary tenses. Affirmative 2 is used for past and hortative-consecutive tenses. Affirmative 3 is only used for conditional phrases. Negative 1 is used for present, future, past, and hortative-consecutive tenses. Negative 2 is used for the customary tense. Negative 3 is used for conditional tenses. == Sample text ==