86 research outputs found
Non-metrical tense distinctions in isiNdebele (South Africa)
No full textThis paper provides an introduction to expressions of recent and remote past (both perfective and imperfective) and future in isiNdebele, a Bantu language of South Africa. I describe generalizations about when each form is used and the significant temporal overlap allowed in the use of the forms. I also compare isiNdebele’s system of remoteness marking with those described for Gĩkũyũ and Luganda, with focus on topics like the specificity of recent vs. remote pasts and the relationships between Utterance Time and the times referred to by various past markers. I argue that isiNdebele tense distinctions, both past and future, can be modeled using the Domains and Regions model developed by Robert Botne and Tiffany Kershner (e.g., Botne & Kershner 2008), but that the relationships between so-called P-Domains and D-Domains appear to be qualitatively different in the past vs. in the future.Peer reviewe
Discourse-pragmatic functions of focus, tense, and aspect in Ishenyi narratives: Text recordings
No full textIshenyi is a Bantu language spoken in northwest Tanzania near Serengeti National Park. Ishenyi (or Isenye, [ntk], JE45) has around 8,000 speakers and is in a cluster of closely related language varieties with Ikoma and Nata. These recordings accompany the chapter named above that analyses narrative structure in a Domains and Regions framework. The data were collected as part of the Helsinki Mara Project, a research initiative funded by the Kone Foundation. The recordings correspond to transcribed and linguistically analyzed narratives—spoken by Amani Makindi, the Ishenyi language consultant, and recorded by Rasmus Bernander (A) and Antti Laine (B-D) (University of Helsinki) in Musoma, Tanzania—appearing in the book Domains and Regions in Bantu Tense and Aspect, edited by Robert Botne and Axel Fanego Palat.Helsinki Mara Projec
Perfectives and perfects and pasts, oh my!: On the semantics of -ILE in Bantu
No full textThe widespread Bantu verb suffix -ILE manifests a variety of temporal notions across the Bantu domain, ranging from perfective aspect to perfect to past tense. The most common function assigned to -ILE seems to be Perfect (or Anterior in some accounts) marker. In this paper, the author proposes a detailed analysis differentiating perfective and perfect, demonstrating through the analysis of -ILE use in four languages – Luwanga and Lusaamia, and Rutooro and Runyoro– that -ILE is a type of perfective (not perfect !) marker that developed into a tense marker in some languages. The analysis distinguishes resultative from completive perfective uses, showing how the paths of development from earlier stages to the modern languages differed in the two sets of languages, and differ from the developmental path set out by Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca (1994).Le suffixe verbal -ILE, largement répandu dans les langues bantu, présente, à travers tout le domaine, une grande variété de notions temporelles, allant de l’aspect perfectif, au parfait et au passé. La fonction qui semble lui être le plus communément assignée est celle d’un marqueur du «parfait » ou, dans certaines descriptions, d’un marqueur du «passé antérieur » . En différenciant finement le «perfectif » du «parfait » , l’auteur démontre – à partir de l’emploi de -ILE dans quatre langues, luwaanja et lusaamia d’une part, rutooro et runyoro d’autre part – que -ILE est à l’origine un marqueur du «perfectif » (non du «parfait » !), qui, dans certaines langues, a acquis un statut de marqueur temporel. L’analyse distingue entre les emplois perfectifs résultatifs et complétifs et met en lumière les cheminements différents que l’évolution a suivi dans les deux groupes de langues. Ces cheminements évolutifs ne concordent pas avec l’hypothèse avancée par Bybee, Perkins et Pagliuca (1994).Botne Robert Dale Olson. Perfectives and perfects and pasts, oh my!: On the semantics of -ILE in Bantu. In: Africana Linguistica 16, 2010. pp. 31-64
Selected papers from the 48th Annual Conference on African Linguistics
No full textSince the hiring of its first Africanist linguist Carleton Hodge in 1964, Indiana University’s Department of Linguistics has had a strong and continuing presence in the study of African languages and linguistics through the work of its faculty and of its graduates on the faculties of many other universities. Research on African linguistics at IU has covered some of the major language groups spoken on the African continent. Carleton Hodge’s work on Ancient Egyptian and Hausa, Paul Newman’s work on Hausa and Chadic languages, and Roxanna Ma Newman’s work on Hausa language structure and pedagogy have been some of the most important studies on Afro-Asiatic linguistics. With respect to Niger-Congo languages, the work of Charles Bird on Bambara and the Mande languages, Robert Botne’s work on Bantu structure (especially tense and aspect), Samuel Obeng and Colin Painter’s work on Ghanaian Languages (phonetics, phonology, and pragmatics), Robert Port’s studies on Swahili, and Erhard Voeltz's studies on Bantu linguistics are considered some of the most influential studies in the sub-field. On Nilo Saharan languages, the work of Tim Shopen on Songhay stands out. IU Linguistics has also forwarded theoretical work on African languages, such as John Goldsmith’s seminal research on tone in African languages. The African linguistics faculty at IU have either founded or edited important journals in African Studies, African languages, and African linguistics, including Africa Today, Studies in African Linguistics, and Journal of African Languages and Linguistics.
In 1972, the Indiana University Department of Linguistics hosted the Third Annual Conference of African Linguistics. Proceedings of that conference were published by Indiana University Publications (African Series, vol. 7). In 1986, IU hosted the Seventeenth Annual Conference of African Linguistics with Paul Newman and Robert Botne editing the proceedings in a volume entitled Current Approaches to African Linguistics, vol. 5. In 2016, Indiana University hosted the 48th Annual Conference on African Linguistics with the theme African Linguistics Across the Disciplines. Proceedings of that meeting are published in this volume.
The papers presented in this volume reflect the diversity of opportunities for language study in Africa. This collection of descriptive and theoretical work is the fruit of data gathering both in-country and abroad by researchers of languages spoken across the continent, from Sereer-sin in the west to Somali in the northeast to Ikalanga in the south. The range of topics in this volume is also broad, representative of the varied field work in country and abroad that inspires research in African linguistics. This collection of papers spans the disciplines of phonology (both segmental and suprasegmental), morphology (both morphophonological and morphosyntactic), syntax, semantics, and language policy. The data and analyses presented in this volume offer a cross-disciplinary view of linguistic topics from the many under-resourced languages of Africa
Variation and Word Formation in Proto-Bantu: The Case of *-YIKAD-
No full textThis article is published with the permission of the author
Phonemic Split in Nen (A44)—A Case of Tonal Conditioning of Glottalic Proto-Bantu Consonants
No full textThis article is published with the permission of the author
Prosodically-conditioned vowel shortening in Chindali
No full textIn Chindali [Bantu M21, northern Malawi and southern Tanzania], the augment vowel of noun classes 1 a, Sa, 9 and 10 exhibits allomorphic variation in length. In other noun classes, the vowel of the noun class prefix varies in length before NCinitial stems. The author demonstrates that, in both cases, potentially long vowels become shortened, except that they do so under different conditions: mora-count of the noun stem in the first case, lack of high tone (accent) on the prefix in the second
Towards a Typology of DIE Verbs in African Languages
No full textThis paper constitutes an essay in comparative lexical semantics and typology, comparing DIE verbs in nine African languages: Arabic, Tigrinya, Hausa, Dinka, Maa, Chindali, Kinyarwanda, Yoruba, and Akan. Cross-linguistically, DIE verbs, although referring to the same human event, differ in their aspectual structure. Primary DIE verbs, representative of Vendler's class of achievement verbs, provide not only an interesting case study of a single lexical verb, but also an excellent exemplar of the class type. The author proposes that the four types of DIE verbs identified also constitute the potential range of all achievement verbs
The curious case of auxiliary -manya in Lwitaxo
No full textLwitaxo, one of the Luhya languages of Kenya, has an auxiliary verb of the form -many’a that occurs in compound constructions that express either a generic reading (“normally do V”) or a culminative reading (“ended up V-ing”). This verb is identical in form to the lexical verb -many’a ‘(come to) know’. However, while there are attested cases of KNOW verbs grammaticalizing as habitual/generic auxiliaries, there are no such attestations of KNOW verbs grammaticalizing as indicators of culmination. The author proposes that auxiliary -many’a is the unique result of a convergence of factors—sound change, morphophonological analogy, and semantic reinterpretation—that led an original auxiliary, -mala ‘finish’, to shift in form to resemble lexical -many’a
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