Zaspil Nr. 53 – November 2010 Papers
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A Corpus-Driven Account of the Noun Classes and Genders in Northern Sotho
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2016, 34(2): 169–185 Copyright © NISC (Pty) Ltd SOUTHERN AFRICAN LINGUISTICS AND APPLIED LANGUAGE STUDIES ISSN 1607-3614 EISSN 1727-9461 http://dx.doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2016.1206478 A corpus-driven account of the noun classes and genders in Northern Sotho Elsabé Taljard1* and Gilles-Maurice de Schryver1,2 1Department of African Languages, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa 2 BantUGent – UGent Centre for Bantu Studies, Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Belgium *Corresponding author email: [email protected] Abstract: This article offers a distributional corpus analysis of the Northern Sotho noun and gender system. The aim is twofold: first, to assess whether the existing descriptions of the noun class system in Northern Sotho are corroborated by information provided by the analysis of a large electronic corpus for this language, with specific reference to singular-plural pairings, and second, to present a number of novel visualisation aids to characterise a noun class system (in a radar diagram) and a noun gender system (using a two-directional weighted representation) for Northern Sotho in particular, and for any Bantu language in general. The findings include the discovery of two new genders in Northern Sotho (i.e. class pairs 1/6 and 3/10), and also indicate that the Northern Sotho noun class system, and by extension any one for Bantu, should be seen as dynamic. Introduction The present undertaking adds to a relatively small, but growing number of corpus-based grammatical descriptions of Bantu language features, several of which regard South African languages. -
The Standardisation of African Languages Michel Lafon, Vic Webb
The Standardisation of African Languages Michel Lafon, Vic Webb To cite this version: Michel Lafon, Vic Webb. The Standardisation of African Languages. Michel Lafon; Vic Webb. IFAS, pp.141, 2008, Nouveaux Cahiers de l’Ifas, Aurelia Wa Kabwe Segatti. halshs-00449090 HAL Id: halshs-00449090 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00449090 Submitted on 20 Jan 2010 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. The Standardisation of African Languages Language political realities CentRePoL and IFAS Proceedings of a CentRePoL workshop held at University of Pretoria on March 29, 2007, supported by the French Institute for Southern Africa Michel Lafon (LLACAN-CNRS) & Vic Webb (CentRePoL) Compilers/ Editors CentRePoL wishes to express its appreciation to the following: Dr. Aurelia Wa Kabwe-Segatti, Research Director, IFAS, Johannesburg, for her professional and material support; PanSALB, for their support over the past two years for CentRePoL’s standardisation project; The University of Pretoria, for the use of their facilities. Les Nouveaux Cahiers de l’IFAS/ IFAS Working Paper Series is a series of occasional working papers, dedicated to disseminating research in the social and human sciences on Southern Africa. -
Southern Africa As a Phonological Area
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology/Linguistics "Speaking (of) Khoisan" A symposium reviewing African prehistory 16/05/2015 Southern Africa as a phonological area Christfried Naumann & Hans-Jörg Bibiko [email protected] Quelle: Clements & Rialland ( 2008 : 37 ) Contents 1. Introduction 3-15 2. Procedure 16-19 3. Results: Kalahari Basin 20-28 4. Results: Southeastern Bantu 29-42 5. Results: Southern Africa 43-54 (6. Local and dependent features - excluded) 55-61 7. MDS and k-means 62-68 8. Summary 69 (9. Contact scenarios) 70-74 Acknowledgements 75 References 76-77 2 "Speaking (of) Khoisan", 16/05/2015 Southern Africa as a phonological area 1. Introduction Phonological similarities • large consonantal inventory (45 c.) • clicks • aspirated and ejective stops • dorsal affricate 3 "Speaking (of) Khoisan", 16/05/2015 Southern Africa as a phonological area 1. Introduction Phonological similarities • large consonantal inventory (50 c.) • clicks • aspirated, slack voiced, ejective and imploisve stops •(dorsal affricate) lateral obstruents • 4 "Speaking (of) Khoisan", 16/05/2015 Southern Africa as a phonological area 1. Introduction Phonological similarities • large consonantal inventory (68 c.) • (clicks) • aspirated, breathy and implosive stops • lateral obstruents 5 "Speaking (of) Khoisan", 16/05/2015 Southern Africa as a phonological area 1. Introduction Example: Distribution of ejectives/glottalized consonants Clements & Rialland (2008: 62) Maddieson (2013) 6 "Speaking (of) Khoisan", 16/05/2015 Southern Africa -
[.35 **Natural Language Processing Class Here Computational Linguistics See Manual at 006.35 Vs
006 006 006 DeweyiDecimaliClassification006 006 [.35 **Natural language processing Class here computational linguistics See Manual at 006.35 vs. 410.285 *Use notation 019 from Table 1 as modified at 004.019 400 DeweyiDecimaliClassification 400 400 DeweyiDecimali400Classification Language 400 [400 [400 *‡Language Class here interdisciplinary works on language and literature For literature, see 800; for rhetoric, see 808. For the language of a specific discipline or subject, see the discipline or subject, plus notation 014 from Table 1, e.g., language of science 501.4 (Option A: To give local emphasis or a shorter number to a specific language, class in 410, where full instructions appear (Option B: To give local emphasis or a shorter number to a specific language, place before 420 through use of a letter or other symbol. Full instructions appear under 420–490) 400 DeweyiDecimali400Classification Language 400 SUMMARY [401–409 Standard subdivisions and bilingualism [410 Linguistics [420 English and Old English (Anglo-Saxon) [430 German and related languages [440 French and related Romance languages [450 Italian, Dalmatian, Romanian, Rhaetian, Sardinian, Corsican [460 Spanish, Portuguese, Galician [470 Latin and related Italic languages [480 Classical Greek and related Hellenic languages [490 Other languages 401 DeweyiDecimali401Classification Language 401 [401 *‡Philosophy and theory See Manual at 401 vs. 121.68, 149.94, 410.1 401 DeweyiDecimali401Classification Language 401 [.3 *‡International languages Class here universal languages; general -
A Balanced and Representative Corpus: the Effects of Strict Corpus-Based Dictionary Compilation in Sesotho Sa Leboa* V.M
http://lexikos.journals.ac.za A Balanced and Representative Corpus: The Effects of Strict Corpus-based Dictionary Compilation in Sesotho sa Leboa* V.M. Mojela, Sesotho sa Leboa National Lexicography Unit, University of Limpopo, Turfloop Campus, Polokwane, South Africa ([email protected]) Abstract: Theoretically the Northern Sotho language is made up of almost 30 dialects while practically it is not so, because the standard language was formed from very few of its dialects. As a result, even today the language has no corpus which is balanced or representative owing to the fact that almost all of the available corpora are compiled from the written standard language and the written dialects. The majority of the Northern Sotho dialects do not have written orthographies, and the few dialects which had written orthographies prior to standardization came to monopolize the standard language and the Northern Sotho corpora. Therefore, the compilation of a corpus- based dictionary in Northern Sotho is tantamount to a continuation of producing unbalanced and unrepresentative dictionaries, which continue to sideline and to marginalize the majority of the communities and the linguistic varieties which could potentially enrich both the Northern Sotho standard language and the Northern Sotho corpora. The main objective with this research is to analyze, to expose and to suggest ways of correcting these irregularities so that the marginalized Northern Sotho dialects can be accommodated in the standard language. This will obviously increase the size of the Northern Sotho standard language and the corpus by more than 50%. Keywords: CORPUS, BALANCED CORPUS, REPRESENTATIVE CORPUS, STANDARDIZA- TION, DIALECT, ORTHOGRAPHY, MARGINALIZED DIALECTS, PRESTIGE DIALECTS, MIS- SIONARY ACTIVITIES Opsomming: 'n Gebalanseerde en verteenwoordigende korpus: Die gevolge van streng korpusgebaseerde woordeboeksamestelling in Sesotho sa Leboa. -
Northern Sotho Translation of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised
3 Culturally Valid Assessment Tools: Northern Sotho Translation of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised Corrieta Pakendorf and Erna Alant Department of Communication Pathology University of Pretoria ABSTRACT There is currently a great demand for service provision for the African language speakers in South Africa. The difficulties associated with assessing speakers in the absence of assessment tools in the indigenous languages is, therefore, also a perti- nent concern. Within the current socio-economic climate in South Africa where test translation and adaptation is often cited as a more viable option than that of developing new tests, very few guidelines exist for the development or adaptation of valid assessment tools for culturally and linguistically diverse population groups. This article is aimed at describing the process which took place when existing English test material, in this instance, The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT- R)(Dunn & Dunn, 1981) was translated and culturally adapted for the Northern Sotho population in Pretoria and surround- ing areas. The findings of the research include practical examples of methodological considerations which should be taken into account while translating and undertaking cultural adaptation of test material. The newly adapted test material was also applied to a sample of 152 North-Sotho speaking pupils in the study area and the test results are discussed. OPSOMMING Hierdie studie het voortgespruit vanuit die huidige behoefte aan dienslewering binne die Afrikatale-konteks en die gebrek aan evalueringshulpmiddels in die inheemse tale. Alhoewel die Suid-Afrikaanse sosio-ekonomiese klimaat eerder ) toetsvertaling en -aanpassing aanmoedig, as die ontwikkeling van nuwe toetsmateriaal, bestaan daar tans min riglyne vir 2 1 die beplanning en uitvoering van so 'n prosedure. -
The Case of the Sepedi and Sesotho Sa Leboa (Northern Sotho) Language Names
INVESTIGATING THE ONOMASTIC PRINCIPLES OF NAMING AN OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: THE CASE OF THE SEPEDI AND SESOTHO SA LEBOA (NORTHERN SOTHO) LANGUAGE NAMES by RAKGOGO TEBOGO JACOB Student Number: 1798227 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY: AFRICAN LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS in the School of Literature, Language and Media FACULTY OF HUMANITIES UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND, JOHANNESBURG Supervisor: Dr E.B. Zungu July 2019 DECLARATION BY THE RESEARCHER I, Tebogo Jacob Rakgogo, declare that this thesis is my own, unaided work. It is being submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in African Languages and Linguistics at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. It has not been formerly submitted before for any degree of examination at any other University. I further declare that all the sources cited and quoted are indicated and acknowledged by means of a comprehensive list of references. _____________________________ Signature of Candidate ________ Day of ___________________20__________________in______________ T.J. Rakgogo Copyright© University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg i DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to: My wife, Mankale Norah Phaladi and our son, Makhwana Lesego Rakgogo. I also dedicate this thesis to the entire Rakgogo family. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to direct my acknowledgements and sincere gratitude and appreciation to: The God that I serve, for protecting me and shaping my trajectory so I could achieve this dream! I give You all the praise and honour. Thank you for giving me strength and wisdom to undertake this study and bring it to completion within a reasonable time. With You, all things are possible, I thank You most of all. -
Click Variation and Reacquisition in Two South African Ndebele Varieties
CLICK VARIATION AND REACQUISITION IN TWO SOUTH AFRICAN NDEBELE VARIETIES Stephan Schulz, Antti Olavi Laine, Lotta Aunio & Nailya Philippova This article deals with click consonants in two Nguni varieties of South Africa, namely isiNdebele, or Southern Ndebele, as it is better known outside of South Africa; and Sindebele, or Northern Transvaal Ndebele. We review previous research on the topic, in which isiNdebele been described as having a some- what reduced click inventory compared to better described Nguni languages, and Sindebele has been claimed to have lost clicks completely. We also review previous research on click loss, variation, and acquisition. We then describe the current situation of both language varieties regarding clicks. For Sindebele, we observe that while clicks indeed seem to have been almost completely replaced by other consonants, some speakers still do produce clicks in isolated words, possibly as a result of recent contact with isiZulu. In isiNdebele, we find that the lateral click has been lost almost completely, while the distinction between dental and postalveolar has been lost for some speakers (with most of them preferring the dental click), whereas some speakers still maintain the distinc- tion. We propose a tentative correlation between increasing formal education in the isiNdebele language and the tendency to maintain the two clicks as distinct, but generally find the functional load of the distinction to be very low, at least on a lexical level. 1. INTRODUCTION The language varieties known as Ndebele belong to the Nguni branch of the Southern Bantu languages. All Nguni languages are spoken in South Africa, with the exception of Northern Ndebele (or Zimbabwean Ndebele), which is spoken in Zimbabwe. -
Accent Identification in the Presence of Code-Mixing
Accent identification in the presence of code-mixing Thomas Niesler† & Febe de Wet‡ †Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Stellenbosch University, South Africa [email protected] ‡Centre for Language and Speech Technology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa [email protected] Abstract tongue of Xhosa and of Zulu speakers can be determined when the utterance is part of a mixed code, and when it is We investigate whether automatic accent identification is not. more effective for English utterances embedded in a dif- ferent language as part of a mixed code than for English The work was motivated by the findings of two pre- utterances that are part of a monolingual dialogue. Our vious studies. In the first, the performance of language focus is on Xhosa and Zulu, two South African languages identification systems were investigated for Afrikaans, for which code mixing with English is very common. In English, Xhosa and Zulu [1]. Here it was established that order to carry out our investigation, we extract English even in mixed-code utterances consisting predominantly utterances from mixed-code Xhosa and Zulu speech cor- of English words, the language could be correctly classi- pora, as well as comparable utterances from an English- fied with approximately 70% accuracy. The second study only corpus by Xhosa and Zulu mother-tongue speakers. focussed on the identification of accents in English spo- Experiments show that accent identification is substan- ken by mother-tongue speakers of an African language, tially more accurate for the utterances originating from and for whom English is a second or third language [2]. -
The Functional Viability of Indigenous African Languages in South Africa: Challenges and Prospects of Their Survival
The Functional Viability of Indigenous African Languages in South Africa: Challenges and Prospects of their survival By N. E. Sithole Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil) in the Department of General Linguistics and Modern Languages at the University of Zululand Supervisor : Prof. C.T. Moyo Co-supervisor : Dr. E.M. Mncwango Date submitted : 30th November 2015 i Dedication I would like to give Honour and credit to God Almighty, for His Love, Guidance and Direction. He made everything possible, and I acknowledge that my whole existence and my success are because of Him. I also thank Him because He gave me a miracle, in the form of my wife, Nonhlanhla. This thesis is dedicated to her and to my best friend, Mthunzi Mbatha, who is living proof that humility, craziness and genius always go together. ii Acknowledgements South Africa is affectionately known as a ‘rainbow nation’ as it is multicultural and speaks more than fifteen languages. There are, however, eleven official languages, excluding Sign Language and Tsotsi-Taal. Most of the official languages are regional, except for English and Afrikaans, which are dominant in all the nine provinces. This research sought to determine the use of indigenous African languages in sectors like economy, administration, law and education. This is a summary report of the research conducted in the Zululand District of the province of KwaZulu-Natal. There are people who played a very important role by availing themselves as subjects. They are people of Nongoma, especially in the Usuthu and Mahhashini areas. -
The Development and Technologizing of Selected Sepedi Ict Terminology
THE DEVELOPMENT AND TECHNOLOGIZING OF SELECTED SEPEDI ICT TERMINOLOGY THESIS Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS AT RHODES UNIVERSITY IN THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES BY RAESETJA LINAH MAGAGANE January 2011 School of Languages: African Language Studies Rhodes University Grahamstown Supervisor: Professor Russell H Kaschula 0 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DECLARATION …………………………………….…………………………………………………………….. 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………….……………………………….. 4 ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5 CHAPTER 1 …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 6 INTRODUCTION: LANGUAGE PLANNING AND POLICY IN SOUTH AFRICA ……………………………………. 6 1 History of language policy in South Africa ……………….……….……… 6 1.1.1 Pre 1994 ………………………………………………………………………………….. 6 1.1.2 Post 1994 …………………………………………………………………………………. 15 1.2 Language usage and practice ……………………………………..……………. 18 1.3 Language and Economy ………………………………………………………..……23 1.4 Language in Education ……………………………………………….……………. 26 1.5 Language and Politics …………….……………………………………..……….... 32 CHAPTER 2 INTELLECTUALIZATION OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES ………………………………………....…37 2.1 What is intellectualization? ……………………………………………..…..…. 37 2.2 Why intellectualize? .…………………………………..………………………..… 38 2.2.1 MT cognitive development debate …………………………………….…… 38 2.2.2 Accessing indigenous knowledge systems ……..……………………….. 43 2.2.3 Intellectualization and cultural identity ………..……………………….... 47 2.2.4 Intellectualization and social cohesion ……..…………………………….. 48 2.3 How to intellectualize …………………………….…………………………….... -
Adjective Stacking and Classification in Northern Sotho: a Southern Bantu Language of South Africa
Adjective Stacking and Classification in Northern Sotho: A Southern Bantu Language of South Africa Paul Flanagan Edge Hill University, UK Abstract In this paper, I investigate the nature of complex nominal modification in Northern Sotho, a Southern Bantu language and an official language of South Africa. Adjectives in Northern Sotho have traditionally been analysed as a subclass of nouns, based on morphological similarities between nouns and adjectives. Based on recent work on both Bantu lexical classification and the category ‘adjective’, I refer to the range of Northern Sotho nominal structures commonly termed ‘qualificatives’ as adjectives. There has been some limited discussion of the theory that there are universal structures in adjective order across different languages, although sequencing in languages with postnominal adjectives remains under- researched. Using a combination of corpus data and original fieldwork, I provide support for the suggestion that there are patterns in the syntax of complex modification strings which operate on a universal level, above that of individual languages. Papers from the Lancaster University Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics & Language Teaching 2013 1. Introduction This paper documents an investigation into the structure and organisation of poly- adjectival noun phrases (PNPs, Bache 1978) in Northern Sotho, a Southern Bantu language spoken mainly in South Africa. In section 2, I give some background on the language of Northern Sotho and in section 3, I discuss the phenomenon of ‘adjective stacking’ and outline critical theory which attempts to explain the ordering of attributive adjectives across different languages. In section 4, I provide an account and justification of my choice of a mixture of corpus and field methods for my study, before giving a detailed overview of the morphology, syntax and semantics of the adjective class in Northern Sotho in section 5.