Alongside a full-fledged noun class system of the Bantoid type, the Tivoid language Ugare (Cameroon/Nigeria) operates an incipient numeral classifier system that is restricted to a given set of nouns. The present paper provides a first analysis of its semantic, morphosyntactic and etymological profile. Semantically, Ugare numeral classifiers categorize counted items for their shape and texture (e.g. oblong and rigid vs. flat vs. small and globular) as well as for their aggregation type (bundle vs. heap) and partition (half, piece) with an occasional conflation with the notion of counterexpectual scantiness. On the morphosyntactic and etymological level, Ugare numeral classifiers develop from ordinary generic nouns denoting concepts such as LEAF, SEED, FRUIT and HEAP used as head nouns in associative constructions. Eventual loss of nominal properties indexes an incipient functional split of the lexical source item and the newly emergent word class of numeral classifier. In all of its parameters, the Ugare numeral classifier system conforms with the profile of incipient numeral classifier systems found in Tiv (Angitso 2020) and other languages of the Benue-Congo branch in Nigeria and Cameroon (Kießling 2018).
**References**
Angitso, Michael T. 2020. A descriptive study of the Tiv nominal morphology. Hamburg: unpublished PhD thesis.
Kießling, Roland. 2018. Niger-Congo numeral classifiers in a diachronic perspective. In: McGregor, W. B. and Wichmann, S., editors, The Diachrony of Classification Systems, number 342 in Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, pages pp. 33–76. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
