ll 303 MODULE 3
MODULE
3
LINGUISTIC CONVERGENCE
Linguistic
convergence is a term that refers to overlapping of language that are
genetically related or unrelated to produce language similarities OR Linguistic
convergence refers to the situation where languages come to structural
resemblance of one another as a result of language contact and mutual
interference. Linguistic convergence is evident in linguistic borrowing where
speakers of different languages borrow different linguistic items at various
level of linguistic analysis to cater for language deficiencies.
LINGUISTIC BORROWING
It
is a process by which a language or a dialect incorporates linguistic item/items
from another language. The act of
incorporating linguistics item can be primary or secondary.
Primary
Borrowing
It
is primary when the linguistic item borrowed is derived or taken from the original
language OR Is primary when the lending language has never taken the linguistic
item from another language. Example: lending language (English) borrowing language (Kiswahili)
Shirt Shati
Skirt Sketi
Secondary
Borrowing
It
is a kind of borrowing where the linguistic item taken from the landing language
was not an original item of that lending language.Example: Baiolojiafrom
biology and Analojia from analogy.
Haugen,
a social – linguistics and Historical and comparative linguist suggested that
the word borrowing is misleading. For him the concept of taking linguistic item
from a language should be referredto as linguistic stealing since the borrowing
language does not return the borrowed linguistic item after use;however, Haugen
encountered a critiquethat borrowing is still a relevant term since that
lending language does not feel offended that a linguistic item has been taken
away.
DIRECTION OF LANGUAGE BORROWING
This
is the relationship between the lending language and borrowing language in
terms of what language influence the other in the area of borrowing economically,
socially, culturally and politically dominance.
TYPES OF DIRECTICTION OF BORROWING
There are three types of direction of
borrowing namely; super – stratum borrowing, sub- stratum borrowing and Ad-stratum
borrowing.
Super
– stratum Borrowing
This
is direction of borrowing where a language that is economically socially,
culturally and politically dominant influences a less dominant language in the
area of borrowing.
Example
–Influence of English on Kiswahili in Governmental terms like Mayor- Meya, Police-
polisi, Judge- Jaji. Influence of Kiswahili on native language like Kisukuma,kihaya,
Kiha as in the word “shangazi“inkihaya, ndege in Kiha.
(b)
Sub – stratum Borrowing
This
is direction of borrowing where a less dominant language economically socially,
culturally and politically influences a dominant language in the area of
borrowing.
Example
- Kiswahili influences English in borrowing in words like Safari from
Kiswahili.
-Native language
influence on Kiswahili as in words Ikulu from kinyamwezi, Bunge from Kigogo and ng’atuka from Kizanaki.
- The Igbo influence on
English especial in pronunciation.
(c)
Ad stratum Borrowing
This
is a direction of borrowing where language that are equal economically, socially
culturally and politically influence each other in the area of borrowing, the
pair could be less dominant or dominant. Example : - English and French – Both dominant influence
each other, Kiswahili and Kihaya–less dominantinfluence each other, Kiswahili and
Kinyamwezi –less dominant influence each other, German and English -Both
dominant influence each other.
TYPES OF LINGUISTIC BORROWING
The
ideal of taking a linguistic item from a lending language to a borrowing
language occurs at different levels of linguistic analysis, as such there are
five (5) types of linguistic borrowing namely Phonological borrowing,
Morphological borrowing, lexical borrowing, Loan translation and Syntactic
Borrowing.
1: Phonological Borrowing
It
is a type of borrowing whereborrowed linguistic items are adopted to fit in the
phonological system of the borrowing language and this adaptation happens
through various phonological process ieassimilation,Metathesis etc.
Nevertheless, borrowing of specific sound is still evident in human
languages.Example: Before intensive contact with French, English had no
phonemic / Ê’/, this sound became an English phoneme through borrowing in the 18thcentury
and used in English words like, Vision, leisure and pleasure.
2;
Morphological Borrowing
Thisis
the type of borrowing where bound morphemes/ affixes are borrowed and attached to
native roots. The bound morpheme attach to a native root becomes part of the
morphological system of that borrowing language. Example: ‘ment’and ‘able’ borrowed from French to
English native words in words like Govern – Government, Eat – Eatable, the
bound morpheme ‘al’ borrowed from Germanic language and derives nouns from
verbs in English language as in Approve – Approval, Remove – Removal ,Refuse –
Refusal. Spanish borrowed an Arabic definite, article ‘al’ during the period
that Moors dominated Spain (901- 1492) and used in Spanish native root like in
the words ‘alcohol – ‘alcohol,’ algodon ‘cotton’, alcalde ‘Mayor’ and almohada
‘pillow’.
3: Lexical Borrowing
This
is the common type of borrowing in any language because the lexical is the most
unstable part of the vocabulary. Borrowed words are also known as the loan words in this type of borrowing
the formand meaning are borrowed.
Example:English Kiswahili
Shirt shati
Skirt
sketi
4; Loan
Translation
Translation
is the process of transferring a text from the source language to a target
language. Therefore loan translation is types of borrowing where by the
morphemes of borrowed words (source language) are translated to represent the
same sense in a recipient language as in French to English Marriage de
convenance - marriage of convenience, From English to Kiswahili Laptop -Tarakirishimpakato,
Microphone –Dogosemeo, Software – violwalain,Watermelon -Tikitimaji.
5 Syntactic Borrowing
It
is the kind of borrowing where by syntactic
structures like phrase or sentence construction are borrowed from the source
language to target language. For example English is the head
- last parameter in terms of noun modification as in beautiful girl, however
English has borrowed the aspect of head - first parameter from French and this
is realized in the following examples that have acted as models for other type of
modification.
Example :Attorney General
Major General
Secretary General
Court Marshal,
Field marshal
What can be borrowed?
Not only can words be borrowed, but
sounds, phonological features, morphology, syntactic constructions and in fact
virtually any aspect of language can be borrowed, given enough time and the
appropriate sorts of contact situations.
MODULE
4
LANGUAGE
CLASSIFICATION METHODS
Human language can be classified
using various ways depending on the interest of the person doing the
classification According to; Structural characteristics/typological approach, genetic
consideration which take care of the historical needs of the language and Geographical
location of the language / Arial classification.
(A) Aerial language classification method.
It is based on geographical
location of a language. It groups languages that are unrelated genetically and structurally
together,this method usually carried out by social linguists who are interested
in knowing how people living in a certain geographical location can acquire the
same words which identify features in their environment. Terms used in Aerial classification
are like European languages,African languages, Lake Zone languages, Asian languages,
American languages, Far East languages, South African languages
Strengths
of the method
a)It
is the easiest language classification method since it does not require a lot
of linguistic data and linguistic knowledge.
b)The
aerial classification put together languages that are genetically unrelated it
is thus an important aspect of analyzing the aspect of borrowing among
different cultures.
Weaknesses
a)
The geographical area in aerial Classification is not well defined. At times
the same language can be put in different clusters geographically that are
unrelated in terms of size. Example:Kimakonde can be regarded as Mtwara
regionlanguage,Southern Tanzania language, Coastal Tanzania language,Tanzanianlanguage,East
African language. These terms are right for one language
b)
It is regarded as a non- linguistics language classification method since it
does not employ the use of a lot of linguistic data in that it does not base on
scientific data.
(B) Typological language classification method
Typology
derived from a noun “type”
Typological
classification also known as structural language classification method since it
identifies different structural aspectsof language beingstudied. It involves
classifying a language according to the structural characteristics or features
that the language possesses .It is typological classification because it
considers the type of a language in terms of the levels of linguistics.
Typological classification is performed by theoretical linguists a cover term
for Semantic linguist, syntactic linguist, morphologist, phonologistwho look at
the language structure and give it a typological definition.The levels of
linguistics considered in Typological classification include; phonologically
level, Morphological level, Syntactic level, Semantic level.
Phonologicallevel
Phonologically,
languages can be classified using various phonological parameters such as
Supra- segmental features, Number of vowels, Number of consonants and Syllabic
elements.
i)
Number of vowels
(a) As such there languages which have three (3)
vowels system, asin languages like Gudanji in Australia, where the most common
vowels are [ƌ] [ί] and [ʊ].
(b) Five(5) Vowels system language like Japanese, Kiswahili ,
Spanish , Turkish , Pare ect, and the most common vowels are [ʊ],[ [ ɔ ] / [O], [ƹ], /
[е], [a], [ i].
C
) Seven (7) vowel system language as in Bantu languages like Kisukuma , Kifipa
, Kihaya, Kichaga , Kikuyu etc. The most
common vowels are [ƌ] [ί]
[ ʊ ] [ ƹ ] [ ɔ ]
[ е ] and
[O].
D)
Nine (9) Vowels as in language system language like Dholuo.
ii)
Consonantsystem
In
this phonological parameter, the theoretical linguist looked on the number of
consonant sound and also the phonotactics of the consonants. Their observation
revealed that in English for example succession of similar consonant sounds can
be pronounced as one sound segment as in the words like committee. The number
of consonant sound phonologically differ from one language to another depending
on the phonological system of a language as such there languages like Hawiianwhich
has a least number of 8 consonants, Kuing language spoken in Namibia has the numberof
90 consonants, English has 24 consonants and Kiswahili has 26 consonants.
ii)
Syllable structure
It
is a combination of consonants and vowels in forming a word. Example Kiswahili
consonants cluster can take two number of consonants and the phonotactics is usually N
+ plosive exept
for few exceptions that etymologically are of Arab origin an example can be drown from Kiswahili words which are borrowed
from Arabic and do not have the pattern of N
+ plosive are like :
Shukran, Kabla,Ghafla and Starehe.
English
consonants cluster can take up to three numbers of consonants.ThePhonotactic of
English consonant clusters are as follows; the voiceless alveolar
fricative /s/, the three voiceless
plosives /p/ /t/
/k / and the two lateral approximant/ L / / r /
In summary it
can appear as follows:
K ṟ
SPL,
STR, SPR,SKR, appear in English words and STL and SKL do not appear in English
words.Syllable structure can be Open
syllable system thatwords ends withvowels like Bantu languagesclosed syllable
system i.e. where words do not necessary end withvowelphonemes like English, German etc.
iv)
Suprasegmental features
Languages
can be classified according to the prosodic
featuresthat are super – imposed to the syllable. As such there linguistic
terms like: Tonal languages,Refer to
language where tone is regarded as important distinctive features;
Example Chines ispurely tonal language, Dholuo, kamba. There two types of tone where
we have,Lexical tone – marked on specific word likebarabara and barabara .Example Dholuo, Kamba and
Dawida, Grammatical tone - tone
that distinguishes between a declarative and interrogative . It
in all Bantu languages Example: Wanaandika-
wanaandika?
v)
Stress Pattern
There
two stress patterns whichare;fixed stress patternthat is a stress in a word which is already known and never changes
the position. Example: in Kiswahili stress falls at penultimate syllable i.e
the syllables before the last syllable as in the following data.
-
Lima - Stem
-
Limisha -
causative
-
Limia- Benifactive
-
Limiwa -
passive
-
Limika
- stative
-
Limwa -
passive
No
fixed stress pattern; For example, English has no fixed stress pattern as
indicated in
Example
Manage
Management
Manager
Managerial
b)
Morphological level
Morphologicallylanguages
can be classified according to the morpheme combination; as such we have 4
major morphological types, namely
(a)
Agglutinating / Morphological languages: They contain bound morphemes
that are clearly identifiable. Example
Bantu languages, Turkish etc,where Affixes marked clearly show categorically
grammatical role it plays.
(b)
Isolative /Analytical languages: Are non- morphological languages with no bound
morphemes. Words comprise of roots and grammatical aspects like tense, number
etc are marked by independent root. Example, Chinese, Vietnamese and Cushitic
language.
(c)
Inflecting language / synthetic languages:They are kinds of languages which have
morphemes but unlike agglutinating language the morphemes are not clearly
identifiable because one morpheme can mark several grammatical categories.Example
Latin,Russian, Iraq, etc.
(d) Polysynthetic / Fissional languages: it is a kind of language where
single word consists of long string
of root that expresses the meaning of a sentence , where
there no boundaries, a good example can be drown from Eskimo language.
c)
Syntactic level
Syntactically,language
can be classified as per phrasal behavior or the sentence patternas such we can
describe a language according to modification type especially with the Noun
modification where we can have languages that are Head first parameter and Head
last parameter. Head – first parameter in the NP is when the modifiers
especially the adjectives come after the head noun; Example Bantu languages as in
KiswahiliMvulanamrefu. We can also have Head – Last parameter where adjective
modifiers come before the head noun:Example:
English language as in Tall boy.
The
syntax of the sentence pattern.
The
sentence pattern deals with the arrangement of constituents in thesentence /
the order of constituent that form a
sentence.There existsix sentence patterns and
human languages are confined to follow any one of the patterns. The
patterns are divided into two groups, as such there those which are most common
sentence pattern which are SVO, SOV, and VSO, and again there those which are
least common sentence pattern they include OVS, VOS and OSV. The examples of
the SVO pattern include Bantu languages, English, French, while the SOV pattern
are languages like Japanese, Turkish, Persia etc, the VSO include Arabic and
its dialects together with the two minority languages of Great Britain like
Irish and Welsh, OVS sentence pattern are languages like Hixkaryana and
Ameridian language spoken in the amazon basin in South America, the VOS
language pattern is Malagasy and OSV pattern include languages like Apurina a
minority language in south America.
Strengths
of typological classification
It
is adequate method of language classification since it considers levels of
linguistics analysis which are phonology, Morphology and syntax.
It is an empirical / scientific method that
results to linguistic universals.
Weaknesses
1.
At times it is difficult to put some languages in acertain structuralsystem.Example English vowels are of various qualities where we have lengthened vowels,
short vowels and Diphthongs which cannot fit to any kind of classification.
Again English is described as between Isolative and Agglutinating
i.e has roots that are marked morphologically
thus English does not fit in any morphological type fully since it has
agglutinating and isolative features.
2
.It is
a complex way of
language classification since
it requires a lot
of linguistic knowledge and linguistics data.
(C)
GENETIC / HISTORICAL LANGUAGECLASSIFICATION METHOD
This method was propounded by SirWilliam Jones. It isthe
mostrelevant language classification method in Historical and comparative Linguistics .This method is carried out by Historicallinguist
looking on levels of linguistics which
are phonology and
semantics by the use of cognates,
where using cognates historical linguists managed to grouplanguages into families using data from languages that are
thought to be sisters, by the use of
language reconstruction method in establishing genetic relationship where
reconstruction gives Hypothetical proto
language of the proto form.
Strengths
1. It tracesthe origin of a language and gives
aclear developmental history using the family tree model
2. The method
used that is reconstruction is important in giving historical information.
3. It is a scientific method because of clarity in
tracing the origin form of a language.
Weakness:
1. Ingenetic classification historical linguistsface
the nature of wrong conclusion because of linguistic borrowing. Themethod
explainsan assumption where some cognates could just occur because of
linguistic borrowing.
2. The method favors languages with related sisters
i.e. the internal reconstruction method is limited because we depend on
linguistic data from one source.
MODULE 5
BANTU LANGUAGE
What is a Bantu language? The word ‘Bantu’ is pluralfor people and it
is a cover term for many languages that are spoken in sub – Saharan Africa.The
root for person is -ntu- however; the plural is Bantu. Reflecting on plural
aspect various prefixes can be added to the root for person which is –ntu- as such prefixes ba-for languages in
southern, Wa- for languages in Eastern Africa, U – for languages in West
and central Africa, A-for languages in East
and central Africa.
Bantu
languages have their origin in the Niger – Congo,Basin,the, family is
known as the Benue Congo family and it
is the largest family in Africa, the family include countries such as Angola , Congo , Cameroon, Brazzaville,
Gabon , Madagascar, Zambia ,Zimbabwe, Malawi etcthese are some the countries
found within the family as their languages being member of the family.
STATING
BANTU LANGUGES
Bantu languages have specific names; Guthrie
identified a way of stating Bantu languages.He used a system where he
classified the languages intozones. So following his model Guthrie classified languages
into 16 zones and the zones were assigned letters, from letter A- S i.e.
zone A to zone S. Languages from zone
A - H particularly are formed from East
Africa.
Each zone has number of languages and alanguage is
denoted by a specific number for Example:
Zone specific
language
zone sp. Lg
These
languages have avery close
degree of similarity.
CHARACTERISTICS
OF BANTU LANGUAGES
Bantu languages have certain structuralproperties; these can
be analyzed through different levels of linguistics analysis as stipulated
bellow.
1: Phonological
analysis of Bantu languages
Phonologically Bantu languages possess the following
phonological properties;
(a) Bantu languages
have an open
syllable system that is the last sound within a
syllable ends with a vowel ( i.e. final vowel must be there.)
(b) A Bantu consonant cluster takes two consonants
and it is usually N+ Plosive(i.e.Nasal
+ Plosive.)
(c) Most Bantu languages areof either 5 or 7 vowel
system.
(d) A
great number of Bantu languagesare tonal. However grammatical tone is an
absolute characteristic for all Bantu language.
2; Morphological Analysis
Morphologically Bantu languages are agglutinating in
nature and we have a number of
inflection and derivation processes especially in nouns and verbs.
Derivation process changes the word category and Affixes are closer to the root
(verb) and Inflection process doesn’t change the word class/ categorywhile
Affixes are far from the root.
INFLECTION
IN BANTU
A
)Inflectional categories marked in Bantu noun:
The Bantu nouns are marked by three major
categories:
(i) Locative
category, this appears as a suffix in most Bantu languages and it is a
category that indicates the location of a noun. In most Bantu languages the
suffix –n is attached to show location as in Kiswahili words like uwanjani ,chumbani , Kabatini, and
shambani.
(ii) The
size markers,: This category
specifies the degree of bigness or smallness of a noun. These are of two types namely Diminutive markers which
indicate smallness of a noun some
diminutive markers are : -ka, -
K,i - chi - a-, ect. In most languages the diminutive marker isa
prefix.
( b)
Enlargement marker
This shows the bignessof a noun it is indicated by affixes
such as -ji - , -li respectively as in kiswahili
words like Jibwa ,Jini ,
Limwalimu.
(iii) Agreement
Bantu
languages have a complex
structure system where nouns are
classified in different nominal
classes and each class has a different
marker for singularity and plurality.Thecommon noun classes take the following
prefixes:M - WA, M – MI, JI – MA, U-
ZI, KI- VI and N-N where in this there is no change of singular to plural. Some Bantu languages have up to 16 classes
where the few classes are7 and 9.
(b) Inflectionalcategories inBantu verbs
Inflectional category in Bantu languages can be
marked by the following grammatical aspects:
(i)Negations;these aregrammatical
categories that show/ mark negation in a word normally they are introduced by
the negative prefixes such as si, ha, and ti
in most Bantulanguages as in words like siendi, tinkwenda and tinkurya. In some
other Bantu languages negation category is a marked by suffixes. Negative
prefix vary according to person i.e singular and plural.
( ii) Mood;is
the Feelings of the speaker towards what he / she
say) In Bantu languages mood is distinguished into three types.
Types
of mood
(a) Indicative mood
This is a normal
mood that is in statement or declarative. In most cases it is marked by the final
vowel [a] in verbs as in words likekata,kula,cheza,etc
(b)
Subjunctive mood
It is rarely marked
butin exclamationor even questions, it is marked by final vowel which changes from [ a] to
[ e ] In words
like afue, alime,
aende.
(c) Conditional mood
It is marked by different prefixes as innge -
ningekuwepo, Ngali- angalicheza ,angalipewa, Ka-Nakalimile, Kalarima, Kakurimire.
(iii) Tense / Aspect (completion continuation of
action)
Bantu verbs have a very complex integration of tense
and aspect, their major distinction are past action and non- past action.The integration
leads to the
following distinction: ( a) present -
immediate now,( b) present indefinite
- habitual, always/ recurrent
action as in words like huenda, hula, huja, (
c) Immediate past - action that
has just taken place, (d) Todays past
-- the days
of an action for example : I attended the meeting, (e) Remote past - far past for example, 10 years ago, ( f) Indefinite future, unknown future not well
to be expressed where example can be drown from Kiswahili, (
g) Remote future
- especially far future example two months to come and ( h) Yesterday past - past
that is
not very far as in ---
(i
v) Noun, Modifier and Verb Concordial: There
exist anagreement between the noun,its modifier and the verb. The
agreement marker is also known assubject marker. This can be experienced in
Kiswahili as in the following examples where /m/ and /wa/ are subject markers.
Example: Mtotomrefumtulivuanakuja
Watotowarefuwatulivuwanakuja
Weziwawiliwalioibawamekamatwa.
Verbal
derivation in Bantu
Verb
derivation in Bantu
languages doesn’t change the word
class but changes the
meaning of the verb: In Bantu we have
different processes i.e Morphological
process and if they
are on the verb , they are
also known as the verbal extension
because they extend
the meaning of the verb.
Main verbal derivation in Bantu language: Example
the stem “PIGA”
Pigia-
Benefactive
Pigana -
Reciprocal
Pigwa -
passive
Pigika -
stative
Pigisha
- causative
Ji - piga -
Reflexive
3.
SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF BANTU LANGUAGE
Syntacticallycharacteristics of Bantu languages
include SVO sentence structure and Head - first parameterin noun modification
where the Head noun comes before the adjective
modifiers.
CLASSIFICATION
OFBANTU LANGUAGES IN EAST AFRICA.
Nurse
and Derek (
1980,1985,1988) classified Bantu
languages in East
Africa into 5
major sub - families
1: LACUSTRINE
BANTU SUB - FAMILY
It is a
largest sub -
family in east
Africa with languages
spread in Tanzania
Kenya, Uganda , Rwanda
and Eastern. Example of
languages are like KihayaKiganda, Kinyankole,
Luya, Kinyarwanda,Kirundi.etc
According
to classification by
Nurse and DAEREK
, Sub lacusttrene
is an independent
sub- family but
Guthrie classifies
lacustrenes and sub-
lacustrenes languages in the
same family / group.
Sub - lacustrine language
are found in
Northern part of
Tanzania aroundlake Victoria south
west part of
Kenya and island of
lake Victoria. Example of
languages are like
KikuryaKikerewe, Kijita , Kitanzania
, KikaraKisuba etc.
3: NORTH -EAST BANTU SUB - FAMILY
This is the
second largest Bantu
speaking groups in
East Africa with
languages spread across
different parts in
Tanzania. Language likeKinyamwezi,
Kisukuma, Kinyaturu, Kipare, etc
4: THAGISU / DAWIDABANTU SUB -
FAMILY
These
are languages found
from the Eastern
and central part
of Kenya and
two languages in
Tanzania, Languages like
Kikuyu, Kiembu, Kimeru,
Kikamba , Taita , Kichaga. Etc.
COASTAL
BANTU SUB- FAMILY
It
comprises languages that
come across the
coastline of Indian
ocean languages that
have few members the languages include Zaramo, chikwere,
etc
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