A Basic Sketch Grammar of Gĩkũyũ.

ideas fall into this noun class. Abstract ideas tend to begin with the letter ũ, as will be seen in the following examples. Thiriti ‘friendship’ is a special case, as according to our consultant it used to be spelled and pronounced ũthiriti in the singular, but over time the ũ was dropped. However, its remnants can still be seen in the plural, which is mothiriti (ma+ ũthiriti) as opposed to mathiriti, which would be expected if thiriti were the stem instead of ũthiriti. Some examples of nouns in this class are as follows: (76) thiriti, mothiriti Øthiriti maũthiriti NC14friendship NC6friendship ‘friendship, friendships’ Nouns and Noun Phrases 27 (77) wendi, mawendi Øwendi mawendi NC14wish NC6wish ‘wish, wishes’ (78) cukari, macukari Øcukari macukari NC14sugar NC6sugar ‘sugar, sugars’