1,720,991 research outputs found
Lazima in Swahili and Beyond: Accounting for the Double Transfer of a Strong Necessity Marker in East Africa
Get PDFIn this study I explore the transfer and further adaptation of Arabic lazima, first into Swahili and its many varieties and then from Swahili into several local language varieties spoken in East Africa. Establishing the function of lazima as a modal marker, used for conveying strong necessity, I examine the various structural and semantic types of integration that lazima has been exposed to. In this pursuit, the investigation contributes both to the growing interest in studies on modality and the influence of Swahili in this area. Drawing on a wide range of Swahili varieties and Swahilized varieties, the analysis challenges the traditional understanding of lazima as a nominal form confined to a superordinate copula clause and as only operating on predicate verbs inflected in dependent and/or non-indicative forms. I argue that there are structural, interactional and ultimately socio-cognitive and socio-historical reasons behind the introduction of this linguistic element in the East African region, where lazima in some local languages even seems to serve as the sole marker of strong necessity, or even of necessity more generally, in a particular semantic domain
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
The neuter in Manda, with a focus on its reinterpretation as passive
No full textThis study accounts for the neuter extension -Ik in Manda (N11), a Bantu language spoken along Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) in southern Tanzania. The article offers a description of both the formal and functional features of this morpheme in Manda, while paying special attention to its rare extended function as a proper passive marker licensing an explicit prototypical agent. Based on comparative data from Manda's neighbouring languages, it is argued that this special functional feature of the neuter in Manda reflects a broader characteristic of this Bantu-speaking area, where a reflex of the passive marker reconstructed for Proto-Bantu has been lost or is restricted in use. This fact has, in turn, paved the way for innovations with regard to the expression of passive voice, of which the use of the neuter suffix is one of several possible strategies. Considering comparative data, this study also attempts to reconstruct the pathway of change leading to the neuter acquiring a passive function. The hypothesis put forward suggests that the passive function of the neuter stems from incremental steps of expansion, which eventually enabled it to co-occur with prototypical agents
Lazima in Swahili and Beyond: Accounting for the Double Transfer of a Strong Necessity Marker in East Africa
No full textIn this study I explore the transfer and further adaptation of Arabic lazima, first into Swahili and its many varieties and then from Swahili into several local language varieties spoken in East Africa. Establishing the function of lazima as a modal marker, used for conveying strong necessity, I examine the various structural and semantic types of integration that lazima has been exposed to. In this pursuit, the investigation contributes both to the growing interest in studies on modality and the influence of Swahili in this area. Drawing on a wide range of Swahili varieties and Swahilized varieties, the analysis challenges the traditional understanding of lazima as a nominal form confined to a superordinate copula clause and as only operating on predicate verbs inflected in dependent and/or non-indicative forms. I argue that there are structural, interactional and ultimately sociocognitive and socio-historical reasons behind the introduction of this linguistic element in the East African region, where lazima in some local languages even seems to serve as the sole marker of strong necessity, or even of necessity more generally, in a particular semantic domai
Lazima in Swahili and Beyond: Accounting for the Double Transfer of a Strong Necessity Marker in East Africa
No full textIn this study I explore the transfer and further adaptation of Arabic lazima, first into Swahili and its many varieties and then from Swahili into several local language varieties spoken in East Africa. Establishing the function of lazima as a modal marker, used for conveying strong necessity, I examine the various structural and semantic types of integration that lazima has been exposed to. In this pursuit, the investigation contributes both to the growing interest in studies on modality and the influence of Swahili in this area. Drawing on a wide range of Swahili varieties and Swahilized varieties, the analysis challenges the traditional understanding of lazima as a nominal form confined to a superordinate copula clause and as only operating on predicate verbs inflected in dependent and/or non-indicative forms. I argue that there are structural, interactional and ultimately socio-cognitive and socio-historical reasons behind the introduction of this linguistic element in the East African region, where lazima in some local languages even seems to serve as the sole marker of strong necessity, or even of necessity more generally, in a particular semantic domain
The neuter in Manda, with a focus on its reinterpretation as passive
No full textThis study accounts for the neuter extension -ɪk in Manda (N11), a Bantu language spoken along Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) in southern Tanzania. The article offers a description of both the formal and functional features of this morpheme in Manda, while paying special attention to its rare extended function as a proper passive marker licensing an explicit prototypical agent. Based on comparative data from Manda’s neighbouring languages, it is argued that this special functional feature of the neuter in Manda reflects a broader characteristic of this Bantu-speaking area, where a reflex of the passive marker reconstructed for Proto-Bantu has been lost or is restricted in use. This fact has, in turn, paved the way for innovations with regard to the expression of passive voice, of which the use of the neuter suffix is one of several possible strategies. Considering comparative data, this study also attempts to reconstruct the pathway of change leading to the neuter acquiring a passive function. The hypothesis put forward suggests that the passive function of the neuter stems from incremental steps of expansion, which eventually enabled it to co-occur with prototypical agents
Grammar and grammaticalization in Manda: An analysis of the wider TAM domain in a Tanzanian Bantu language
Get PDFThis dissertation offers a grammatical description and analysis of Manda (N.11), a Bantu language spoken along Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) in southern Tanzania. The study focuses on the “wider” TAM domain, i.e. on how tense, aspect, mood but also modality and negation are expressed in the language, offering a description of the form and function of the various markers employed. In addition, this work sets out to unravel the historical background of these markers and the diachronic processes of change - particularly grammaticalization - through which they have evolved. As Manda is a basically undescribed language, the thesis also includes a brief socio-historical account - focusing on the issues of contact - as well as a grammar sketch describing the fundamentals of the language.
This study draws on a combination of methods consisting of both more prototypical field work as well as methods facilitating grammatical reconstruction. The vast bulk of the Manda data have been collected in the field. Hypotheses of change – but also of retention – are based on the synchronic variation found in this data, in comparison to the data of existing older sources as well as from neighboring languages. Furthermore, the Manda data has been compared to Proto-Bantu reconstructions and cross-Bantu as well as cross-linguistic generalizations on functional and formal change.
The study shows that Manda in many ways adheres to the general traits of an (Eastern) Bantu language. Fundamentally, the language is highly agglutinative, with e.g. an elaborate noun class system and a rich set of both prefixes and affixes on the verbal word, marking nominal indexation, derivations as well as TAM. With regard to TAM, the study argues that much of the synthetic linguistic material found in Manda can be traced to Proto-Bantu and thus most likely is inherited. In contrast, many innovations and indications of ongoing change are displayed in the periphrastic constructions of the language. These include a set of auxiliary constructions used for expressing aspect, modality but also (non-standard) negation, a borrowed persistive marker and two particles being employed as standard negators
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