Waali plural formation: a preliminary study on variation in noun class realization

In this paper I propose a classification of Waali nouns from a variationist perspective. On the basis of a three-speaker dataset, a classification is deduced from the singular-plural forms that are found in all three idiolects. As a result, a noun class is defined as the clustering of the intersection of singular-plural pairs across speakers. The complement of the intersection corresponds to the inter-individual variation. It is defined as any differences between two individuals in the representation of at least one linguistic variable. Thus, the paper provides a perspective of describing stability and variability by both deriving a prototype based on the intersection of multi-speakers’ data, and acknowledging and accounting for inter-individual variations. The method is argued to be better suited for urban and lingua franca linguistics.