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Humanities Master Dissertations
2012 The structure of the Nyiha noun phrase
Bukuku, Josphat D
The University of Dodoma
Bukuku, J.D. (2012). The structure of the Nyiha noun phrase. Dodoma: The University of Dodoma. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12661/1295 Downloaded from UDOM Institutional Repository at The University of Dodoma, an open access institutional repository.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE NYIHA NOUN PHRASE
By
Josphat Dougras Bukuku
A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirement for Award
of the Degree of Masters of Arts (Linguistics) of the University of Dodoma
The University of Dodoma
September 2012
CERTIFICATION
The undersigned certify that she has read and hereby recommend for the acceptance by the University of Dodoma the dissertation entitled: The Structure of the Nyiha Noun Phrase, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of
Masters of Arts (Linguistics) of the University of Dodoma.
………………………………………….
Dr. Rose Upor
(Supervisor)
Date …………………………….
i
DECLARATION AND COPYRIGHT
I, BUKUKU, Josphat Dougras, declare that this thesis is my own origin work and that it has not been presented and will not be presented to any other University for a similar or any other degree award.
Signature……………………………………………
This Dirssertation is a copyright material protected under Berne Convention, the copyright Act of 1999 and other international and national enactments, in that behalf, on intellectual property; No part of this dissertation may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author or the University of Dodoma.
ii
DEDICATION
I dedicate this work to my Uncle, Collins Kajisi Mposi, who took care of my
Secondary schooling and henceforth making the basis for my higher learnings.
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ABSTRACT
This study seeks to provide an analytical description of noun phrase structure in
Nyiha. In its endeavour, this study documents the morphological forms and the lexical items related to the noun phrase constructions in Nyiha. The primary data for this study was collected from Ruanda village in Iyula ward in Mbozi district, Mbeya region.The target population was all the native adult speakers of Nyiha aged between
35 to 70 years. Sources of data included oral literature, documentary and Noun
Phrase (NP) questionnaires.
The study based on investigating the several different elements which are part of the noun phrase, the way they agree with the head noun, and how they co-occur in the noun phrase. In this juncture, the study intended to move a step forward from which the view on concords across Bantu languages to the analysis of the noun phrase elements within an NP can be refered to. As scholars have paid less attention to the syntax of the noun and its dependents (Rugemalira 2007), then the analysis of the order of the elements in Nyiha NP was so crucial.
What was found in this study is that the dominant order of the elements in a Nyiha noun phrase is Noun+Demonstrative/Possessive+Numeral/Quantifier+Relative (N +
Dem/ Poss+ Num/Quant + Rel). This implies that possessive and demonstrative can precede one another and likewise Num and Quant. Also in this language other elements in the noun phrase can hardly precede the headword (noun).
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It would be inhuman if I will not express my appreciation to some of the important individuals whose personal efforts and concern had a very great contribution to the successful and accomplishment of this research work. They are many, but here a representative of them is worth mentioned.
First and the most, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my Supervisor,
Dr. Rose Upor, for her tireless and constant guidance and advice which provided the perspective forward that led to the final success of the compilation of this work.
My second appreciation is due to several people who, in one way or the other, have their contribution to making this study successful. First of all, thanks to Mr. Amani
Lusekelo for his accommodation, advice and material support he has been offering to me since I began to work with a proposal. Also my gratitude is due to Dr. Songoye for his advice, My Headmaster, John P. Haule (Malenga Secondary School) for his considerable strong support to my research work.
In a very special way I would like to appreciate the love and care I received from my lovely wife, Esther J. Maganga as with her support I could be fit psychologically for carrying out this research.
I thank my informants who gave their time freely in the support of my work. I would like to mention few here: Maston Shitindi, Taifa Shalungana, Wilfred Mwashilindi,
Mage Mwamwezi, Alesi Mlawaya, Suzana Kaole, and Maria Mgara.
Lastly, my special thanks go to my Mother, Elicka Kajis and my sister Neema D.
Bukuku for their great compassionate, care and support throughout my studies.
„Nkubasalifya mweenti’. v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CERTIFICATION ...... i
DECLARATION AND COPYRIGHT ...... ii
DEDICATION ...... iii
ABSTRACT ...... iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... v
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... vi
LIST OF TABLES ...... x
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...... xi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...... 1
1.0 Background information ...... 1
1.1 Language Background ...... 1
1.2 The Problem of the study ...... 5
1.3 Statement of the research problem ...... 7
1.4 Objectives of the study ...... 10
1.5 Research questions ...... 10
1.6 Significance of the study ...... 10
1.7 Theoretical Framework ...... 11
1.8 Conclusion ...... 15
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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 17
2.0 Introduction ...... 17
2. 1 Determiners as evident in other Bantu Languages...... 22
2.2 Modifiers as stipulated in different Bantu language studies...... 30
2.2.1 Numerals and quantifiers ...... 30
2.3 Noun Phrase Structure in Bantu Languages...... 36
2.4 Synthesis ...... 43
2.5 Relevance of the theoretical approach to the present Study ...... 44
2.6 Conclusion ...... 46
CHAPTER THREE :RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES . 47
3.0 lntroduction ...... 47
3.1 Sources of data ...... 47
3.2 Research design...... 48
3.3 Study area and target population ...... 49
3.4 Sampling technique and Sample size...... 49
3.5 Data collection techniques and research instruments...... 50
3.5.1 Elicitation ...... 50
3.5.2 Texts collection ...... 51
3.5.3 Questionnaire ...... 51
3.6 Data analysis ...... 52
3.7 Anticipated outcome ...... 53
3.8 Conclusion...... 53 vii
CHAPTER FOUR: PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS .... 55
4.0 Introduction ...... 55
4.1 The Structure of Nyiha Noun ...... 55
4.2 Nyiha Noun Class Systems ...... 57
4.3 Semantic Basis of Noun Classes ...... 59
4.4 Criteria for categorization of Nyiha NP constituents ...... 63
4.5 Elements that Constitute a Noun Phrase in Nyiha ...... 65
4.5.1 Determiners ...... 66
4.5.1.1 Demonstratives...... 66
4.5.1.2 Distributive constructions ...... 70
4.5.1.3 Possessives ...... 71
4.5.2 Modifiers ...... 72
4.5.2.1 Cardinal Numerals ...... 72
4.5.2.2Ordinal Numerals ...... 74
4.5.2.3 Quantifiers ...... 75
4.5.2.4 Adjectives...... 76
4.5.2.5 Associative Constructions ...... 78
4.5.2.6 Relative clauses ...... 79
4.5.2.7 Interrogative Words ...... 79
4.6 Order of elements in Nyiha noun Phrase ...... 80
4.6.1 Order of four dependents ...... 82
4.6.2 Order of five dependents ...... 83
4.6.3 Order of six dependents ...... 84 viii
4.7 Recurrence and Co-occurrence of Elements in Nyiha NP ...... 86
4.7.1 Recurrence of the Elements in Nyiha NP ...... 86
4.7.2 Co-occurrence of the Demonstrative and Possessive...... 87
4.8 The upper limit of noun dependents in Nyiha NP ...... 90
4.9 Conclusion ...... 90
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...... 92
5.0 Introduction ...... 92
5.1 Summary of the findings ...... 92
5.2 Answering Research questions ...... 95
5.1 Order of elements in Bantu languages ...... 96
5.3 Recommendetions for further study...... 97
REFERENCES...... 98
Apendex 1. Elicitation method...... 103
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LIST OF TABLES
Table2. 2: Bantu Noun Phrase Structure ...... 38
Table 2.3: Nyakyusa Noun Phrase Structure...... 39
Table 2.4: Samatengo Noun Phrase Structure ...... 39
Table 2.5: Runyambo Noun Phrase Structure ...... 40
Table2. 6: Chingoni Noun Phrase Structure ...... 41
Table2. 7: Mashami Noun Phrase Structure ...... 42
Table 2.8: Kagulu Noun Phrase Structure ...... 43
Table 4.1: The Nyiha Noun Class Prefix and Noun System ...... 58
Table 4.2: Regular Singular/Plural Pairings of Noun Classes in Nyiha...... 63
Table 4.3: Nyiha Possessives ...... 71
Table 4.4: Nyiha Noun Phrase Template ...... 86
x
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
INT Intensifiers
INTER Interrogative.
NUM Numerals
QUANT Quantifiers
REL Relative
ASS Associative
DEM Demonstrative
DISTR Distributives
POSS Possessives
ADJ Adjectives
NP Noun Phrase
N Noun
PASS Passive
AUG Augment
A Adjective
PRES Present
SM Subject Maker
PERF Perfective xi
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background information
This study attempts to describe the noun phrase (NP) formation in Nyiha language focusing on the linear ordering of the constituents that compose an NP.The study therefore, employs syntactic and morphological criteria to describe nouns and noun phrase formation which characterise the Nyiha language that starts with chapter one.
This chapter consists of seven sections. The first part gives a brief analysis on the introduction by addressing the historical background and classification of Nyiha language and its related dialects of Lake corridor.The second section covers the background to the problem followed by statement of the research problem in the third part. Objectives and hypotheses of the study are presented in the fourth section that precedes research questions and the significance of the research in the fifth and sixth parts respectively. Theoretical framework is given in the seventh section and lastly the chapter ends with conclusion in the eighth part.
1.1 Language Background
This work is a basic linguistic description of Nyiha, the Bantu language with an alternative name as has been referred by Anna-Lena Lindfors(2009) as Nyika. Nyiha is the language spoken in Mbeya region in the South western Tanzania. It is predominantly spoken in Mbozi district with its speakers scattered throughout the
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district. Nyiha speakers are also found in northern Zambia and some parts of Western
Malawi as noted by Anna-Lena Lindfors.
Under the language classification, Nyiha is the language classified in zone IV (see
Batibo 2000 in Kahigi et al. 2000), which is termed as Lake corridor with its dialects of Safwa, Nyika, Malila, Lambya and Tambo. Other Lake corridor languages are
Mwika (Pimbwe, Fipa, Mambwe, Rungu, Namwanga and Wanda) and Nyakyusa
(Nyakyusa, Ndali, Ngonde, Selya and probably Wungu). The speakers of this language refer to the Nyiha language as Ishinyiha and they identify themselves as
Baanyiha (plural) and Muunyiha as a single person. The name that will preferably be used by the researcher is Nyiha as it is the term being used by the language‟s native speakers.
The term Nyika or Nyiha was used by Wilson (1958). Monica Wilson did a study in
1935-38 and revisited the area in 1954-1955. In establishing her groupings of the people in Lake Corridor, Wilson (1958) uses seven criteria, among others we have a language which is mutually intelligible, a sense of unity and differences from other groups defined in terms of common origin, and some political and cultural factors.
She reports that the Nyiha or Nyika consists of scattered groups of people living in drier areas between the Lakes Rukwa, Nyasa and Tanganyika (Wilson, 1958). These are ethnic groups speaking languages associated with their ethnic groups. They include the Nyika in Mbozi, Rungwe and northern Rhodesia; the Lambya in Rungwe, northern Rhodesia and Songwe in Nyasaland; Wandya at South of Lake Rukwa;
Malila of Rungwe; the Fipa, and it includes the Safwa in the groupings.
Swilla and Walsh (2001) presented a summary of the Central Corridor (Nyika). They state that the classification of the Central Corridor is problematic. They hold that idioms used in previous studies are useful and they may contain linkage of the
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languages in question. This is also observed by Mreta (2000) who states that former writers noticed the relatedness of the languages but they have least linguistic evidence. From that ground they posited the following groups.
The first group is Nyika which comprises a distinct group with Nyika of Mbozi being the largest group. These languages may share common labels but not necessarily common linguistic ancestry; however, authors possess insufficient evidence. Nyika languages have the following branches. The first sub-group is the western Nyika who live in Ufipa plateau and Rukwa valley. Authors hold that western Nyika is closest to
Mambwe, Lungu, Nyamwanga and Fipa but distant from Nyiha of Mbozi. The second sub-group is the central Nyiha found in Mbozi district. There are differences but it shares closest cognation with Lambya, Malila, Safwa and western Nyika.
Southern Nyiha and Wandya found in Isoka and Chama districts in Zambia form the third sub-group. There is a lot to be done to trace the genetic affiliation of this sub- group. Lastly, the eastern Nyika found in Rungwe district are highly influenced by
Nyakyusa although it is established that they have originated from Nyika (Swilla and
Walsh, 2001).
Swilla and Walsh‟s (2001) second group is Lambya which has several sub-groups, like the Nyika group, and are found in Zambia and Tanzania. This group is closest to
Ndali, Wandya and Nyiha. Its divisions, which may not necessarily be linguistic, are as follows. The northern Lambya found in Ulambya division in Ileje district in
Tanzania. They speak Kinyakyusa too. Central Lambya found in Chitipa district in
Malawi is connected to Ngonde. Lastly, southern Lambya and Tambo found in Isoka district in Zambia are lexically very close to Tambo, Nyamwanga, Iwa and Southern
Nyiha. The lexical similarity may be caused by borrowing.
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Malila form the third group. It is relatively unknown group of the south west
Tanzania and their language is not studied in detail. It is closest to central Nyiha,
Safwa and northern Lambya. The last group is that of Safwa which is better known but its ethnic and linguistic classifications is problematic. It has several dialects like
Guluka, Kisongwe and Imwíila.
There had been studies of individual languages in the Zone M. For example; in
Chindali; Swilla (1998; 2000) studied the tense systems and borrowing respectively.
She states that Chindali and Kinyakyusa are close languages. Also she states that
Sukwa is just another name for Chindali spoken in Malawi. While Swilla (1979) insists that Sukwa is a Ndali language spoken in Malawi but it uses another label, on the other hand, Maho (2003) puts Sukwa under Nyika-Safwa group. Yukawa (1989) did a tonological study of Nyiha verbs. He states that such languages as Wanda,
Inamwanga, Malila and Safwa are considered to be closely akin to this (Nyiha).
Kashoki and Mann (1978) provide vocabulary correspondences in percentages within the same group and across for their group F Bantu languages in Northern
Province in Zambia. The languages presented are Mambwe, Lungu, Inamwanga, Iwa,
Tambo, Lambya and Nyiha. All these are in Guthrie‟s group M20 except Mambwe and Lungu. For the M20 languages, the lowest (below 70%) percentages of cognation include Nyiha/Iwa (64%), Nyiha/Inamwanga (68%) and Nyiha/Tambo
(69%) and the highest (above 90%) include Iwa/Inamwanga (92%) and
Lambya/Tambo (94%). This makes two conclusions. Firstly, it affirms that languages with high cognation have genetic affiliation. On the other hand it affirms that close geographical location of Bantu languages influence contact and borrowing of vocabulary.
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The traditional residential areas of the Nyiha speakers are found in Mbozi district of
Mbeya region in South Western Tanzania as pointed out by Mreta (2000). The Nyiha speakers are estimated to be 275 864, This estimated number of the Nyiha speakers is according to Muzale R.H and Rugemalira M.J (2008) in the article Researching and Documenting the Languages of Tanzania stipulated in table number one of the article. Such number represents the Nyiha speakers of areas in which the language is spoken within Mbeya region specifically in Mbozi district and Tanzania at large.
However, there are some Nyiha speaking people in Northern Zambia and few groups found in Northern Malawi. As identified above the speakers of this language identify themselves as Baanyiha if in group and as a single person Muunyiha.
1.2 The Problem of the study
Nyiha, like most of the Tanzania‟s minority languages is an undescribed language.Many studies on language description have concentrated on the morphology of the noun with its elaborate class system and the underlying semantic stands Rugemalira (2007) . When the description of the noun and its dependents is undertaken, it is usually with special focus on the concord system (Nurse and
Philippson, 2003). Rarely have scholars paid attention to the syntax of the noun and its dependents and the references to the structure of the noun phrase are usually very brief. With this regard the study of the Nyiha language adds the stock of knowledge to describe previously unwritten languages so as to facilitate their documentation.
Any language is the resource of the users` society and it differentiates one community from the other. This is because language is a vehicle that carries people`s history, culture and identity through generations. As Ehret states “We can read the past history of the people by studying the language which they speak because
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language is a democratic historical evidence”(Ehret, 2000). The determination of facts about the past requires construction and interpretation based on a careful analysis of the languages as spoken at the present time.
Many of the Bantu languages in Africa are to a great extent endangered i.e they are prone to extinction (Batibo 2000, 2005). The Nyiha, the language spoken in the
Southern West parts of Tanzania is among of such languages.This language is limitedly and partially described. However, there is the linguistic survey titled A
Sociolinguistic Survey of the Nyika and Nyiha Languages communities in Tanzania,
Zambia and Malawi by Anna – Lena Lindfors et al(2009) conducted in three countries, the study provides some insights with regard to description of this language. Therefore, there is a need to undertake the study on this language because there is a rare description on the noun phrase aspects of the language.
This called for the researcher to carry out the study on the structure related to the
Nyiha noun phrase (NNP) in which the noun with its determiners and modifiers were studied deeply. Having such analysis will pave the way to other linguists to research more on various aspects of the Nyiha language to facilitate its documentation. The study therefore, concentrated on the major noun dependents namely, determiners and modifiers. According to Rugemalira (2007) determiners are the elements or nominal dependents in Bantu languages which are post-head with a frequent exception, viz. the distributive determiner each/every. He further states that determiners pick out the entity denoted by the noun. They belong to closed sets of mutually exclusive items. They include such elements like Demonstratives and
Possessives. Modifiers on the other hand are described by Rugemalira (2007.) as all other elements in the noun phrase that come after the possessive which is preceded by the head noun and their ordering is considerably free. Thus the elements like
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adjectives, numerals, quantifiers, intensifiers and relative clause may be classified as modifiers.
This study therefore, concentrated on the description and analysis of the demonstratives, possessives, adjectives, numerals and quantifiers as they appear in
Nyiha Noun phrase being the head noun dependents, the ordering of such elements and their constraints have been worked out.
1.3 Statement of the research problem
The fact is that there are different studies on Bantu languages that have already been undertaken by various linguists, such studies contribute to the stock of knowledge on these languages. However, some of the languages are less described than others and even those which are more described have been worked out well just in some aspects of those languages. As pointed out above on the background to the problem, most of the Bantu languages‟ studies have concentrated on the Morphology of the nouns and if noun dependents are identified, the special focus is on the agreement pattern of the noun elements. In several of the studies, rarely have scholars paid attention to syntax of the noun and its dependents. It is pointed out by Rugemalira that references to the structure of the noun phrase are usually very brief as can be seen among others
(Massamba et al. 1999, Harjula 2004, Ngonyani 2003 and Mous 2004).
Most of the studies of the Lake corridor languages which are classified as zone M languages by Nurse (1979) concentrate on the classification of the languages and a presentation of vocabulary correspondences and tonological study of the language as for Yukawa (1989). Other languages of the lake corridor like Ndali and Nyakyusa have been, at least, described by Swilla (1998, 2000) and Lusekelo (2007, 2009) respectively. There is a need to describe the Nyiha language because is one of the
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disadvantaged languages for being less described. Its description could facilitate to describe previously unwritten languages that differ from Indo-European languages.
The existing linguistic terminology is not always suitable for the specific linguistic traits, which necessitates thinking along new lines (Petzell, 2008)
A review of previous studies on Nyiha reveals that literature on the language is very scanty. The language has only a handful of linguistic publications such as Kashoki and Mann (1978), Wilson (1978), Yukawa (1989) and Nurse (1978) to mention but a few, mostly being the products of Western scholars that can not be easily accessed by
African researchers. Besides, the few available works like; The Classification of
Shinyiha noun Goodness, Devet (2008) do not seem to have given the aspect of noun phrase structure the prominence it deserves. The implication is that, despite having an important syntactic role to play in a sentence, a noun phrase in Nyiha has, so far, not been systematically studied. This study, therefore, examined the structure of
Nyiha noun phrase and the order of its dependents.
Lack of adequate and sufficient studies on many African languages (Clements, 2000) and Tanzanian languages in particular (Muzale & Rugemalira, 2008) has far reaching implications for African language studies in general and for linguistic analysis in particular. Thus, a detailed and full study of a particular language may offer significant insights that are valuable for both its proper analysis and an overall analysis for the Bantu family.
The body of literature on Bantu noun phrases increased over a decade now because there are some studies that have been conducted on the structure of the Bantu languages‟ noun phrase. For example, such studies include the noun phrase in the
Kerebe language was studied by (Thornell 2005), Matengo noun phrase structure
(Ndomba 2006), the general structure of the Bantu noun phrase (Rugemalira 2007),
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the Nyakyusa noun phrase (Lusekelo 2009), and the Noun Phrase in Kwere (Moller,
2011) just to mention a few. However, several differences have been shown across these studies. Therefore, it is important to study the structure of Nyiha noun phrase which is less studied in order to contribute to the knowledge.
Noun phrases with its grammatical implications are a basic structure to Bantu languages. Therefore, “a language cannot be said to have been studied well if its noun system has not been extensively noted” (Mapunda, 1985). Nouns are key elements and dictate concord and other kinds of congruence with the rest of the phrase or sentence. As many of the Bantu languages in Africa and Tanzania in particular are not sufficiently studied and documented, it calls for contemporary studies of Bantu languages, which have to be detailed researched and properly documented. Thus the study of Nyiha language is necessary because as highlighted above most of Bantu languages are insufficiently studied and so the description of this language could contribute to stock of knowledge which would be useful to
Linguists and the speakers of the language. As it has been pointed out in most of the studies on Bantu languages, syntax of nouns has received less attention. Therefore, this study intended at documenting the Nyiha noun phrase by exploring its elements
(demonstratives, possessives, adjectives, numerals and quantifiers) with their ordering in relation to their head word(noun) and so examining the constraints resulting from the ordering of these elements .In this case the portion of syntax of the language was covered.
The studies of noun phrase in other Bantu languages have not been systematically undertaken and they lack detailed and full study(Muzale and Rugemalira 2008).This implies difficulties in proper analysis of a language and the language family at
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large.This situation called for the study of this language (Nyiha) for enrichment of the documentation of the language and Bantu languages at large.
1.4 Objectives of the study
This research seeks to investigate the elements that constitute the Nyiha noun phrase. In order to accomplish this aim, the following objectives provided the guidelines of the study to:
a) Identify and describe the categories of word that modify noun in Nyiha
NP.
b) Examine the noun dependents that co-occur in such language and their
order of occurrence.
1.5 Research questions
In order to realize the above objectives, the study sets out to answer the following questions;
i. What are the word categories that modify the Nyiha noun? ii. What are the noun dependents that co-occur in the Nyiha NP and in which order?
1.6 Significance of the study
Many Tanzanian ethnic languages are in danger of extinction. Therefore, their study and documentation remain important (Nurse and Philippson, 2003). This study has paramount importance as it contributes to the documentation and preservation of
Bantu languages in Tanzania. The study is also expected to preserve the cultural heritage embedded in these languages and in this case Nyiha language.
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The study of the Nyiha Noun phrase is of great significance as far as the Ethnic
Community Languages (ECL) is concerned. With increasing influence of Kiswahili and English, to some extent, the ECL is in a great danger of shifting and ultimately dying in favour of the former.
The study of the Nyiha language (its noun phrase structure) in this case is helpful in having the language documented and thus enabling other researchers to develop new studies related to the Nyiha language. Also documentation of the language is useful for the native speakers who are interested to use their language due to its presence in writings which can be referred to.
1.7 Theoretical Framework
This study was not intended to come up with a full grammar of the language, but it was for the investigation of a single grammatical unit of the language i.e. noun phrase. Therefore, as basically Basic Linguistic Theory is the general principle in establishing comprehensive grammar of a language, in this respect, this study relied specifically on the use of; The X- bar Theory of phrase Structure as the guiding principle in the analysis of the Nyiha noun phrase
Because of the nature and coverage of this study in which just a single linguistic unit of the language was covered, The x-bar theory could be much appropriate in place for a general supposition. Thus the theory was convenient for the proper description and analysis of the noun phrase structure of the language under study.
The X-bar Theory of Phrase Structure is the theory that was proposed by Cook and
Newson (1996), on Chomsky‟s Universal Grammar; second edition. Cook and
Newson contend general property of phrase structure as a way of capturing the
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structural relationships of sentences through the concept of „consists of‟. „A phrase consists of one or more constituents; a phrase A may consist of the constituents B and C; these constituents may in turn be made up of others, say B consisting of D and E‟ (Cook and Newson, 1996: 134). The above contention can be presented diagrammatically as in (i) and (ii) as follows:
(i) A
B C
(ii) A
B C
D E F
They further argue that the phrase structure of the sentence is a hierarchy in which each constituent successively consisting of other constituents until the non- expandable items are left.
This theory could to a great extent suit the present study on the Nyiha noun phrase as it mainly based on the analysis of the elements of this phrase in the language. This is because just like most of Bantu languages the elements of the noun phrase are hierarchical arranged as determiners and modifiers of the head noun. Cook and
Newson, discuss three main areas related to The X-bar theory of phrase structure, namely, the structure of lexical phrases, the structure of functional phrases and levels of structural representation and movement. Out of the three sections the study of the 12
Nyiha noun phrase adopted the application of the structure of lexical Phrase. Under this contention there are four lexical phrases which are Verb Phrase, Noun Phrase,
Adjective Phrase and Prepositional Phrase. In all these phrases each contains the appropriate head V, N, A, P. Therefore, reasonably the choice of the structure of lexica phrase was appropriate as far as the present study is concerned.
The X-bar theory is based on various principles that underlie its suppositions for instance the thematic relations, movement, Theta Roles and EPP which were not dealt in this study. But the study was guided by the principles of X-bar theory as proposed by Kornai and Pullum (1990) which are principles of lexicality, succession, uniformity, maximality, centrality and optionality.
Kornai and Pullum (1990) presented constitutive principles of X-bar theory as pointed out in the following sub- sections: The first principle is lexicality which its supposition is that the primary defining property of X-bars systems requires all phrasal categories to be projections of lexical categories. Lexicality means that the complete category inventory (the nonterminal vocabulary is exhausted by two sets:
(a) the set of preterminals (categories like noun or verb) and (b) a set of projections these (such as various kinds of noun phrase or verb phrase). That is what was adopted in the proposal of Bresnan(1976) that treat categories as ordered pairs, the first member in each pair being a preterminal and the second being an integer denoting bar-level i.e. the number of bars. Thus the pair with (X, n) will be written X
ⁿ.
Secondly the principle of succession is presented which maintains that in order to capture the notion of bar-levels, it is also necessary to have unbroken projection lines, so that the bar- level number corresponds to the number of steps up from the
13
head preterminals (as opposed to being arbitrarily chosen). This means a Lexicality- observing Context-free grammars (CFG) observes succession if every rule rewriting some nonterminal Xⁿ has a daughter labeled Xⁿ-1
The third principle put forward (Kornai & Pullum, 1990) is uniformity which is the assumption to many linguists that the maximum possible bar- level is the same for every preterminal. The property of having the maximum permitted value for bar- level constant across all the preterminals makes it possible to fix a single number m as defining the notion Maximal projection. However, some proponents of X-bar like
Dougherty (1968), Williams (1975) and Bresnan (1976) have not accepted the
Uniformity principle.
Another principle of X-bar theory as revealed by Kornai and Pullum (1990) is the
Maximality in which the main assumption is that every non-head daughter in a rule is a maximal projection. There is a claim here that syntax is never a matter of putting words together with other words to make phrases (though in some theories as for
Hudson (1984), this is all that syntax does). Under maximality, no syntactic rule can introduce or combine two lexical categories; some rules combine a lexical (head) phrase with other (maximal projection) phrases. Maximality is observed by most varieties of X-bar theory, but explicit departures from it can be found in Gazdar,
Pullum and Sag (1982), where S is taken to be a projection of the category „verb‟
(V2), VP is distinct from it only in bar- level (VP=V1), and V1 complements are permitted, allowing some lexical heads to have complements of non- maximal bar- level.
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Centrality is another assumption that is outlined as the principle of x-bar theory.
While maximality covers constituents introduced in right hand sides of rules, and thus says nothing about the start symbol; Centrality requires that the start symbol must be the maximal projection of some preterminal. Thus, a lexicality-observing context-free grammar (CFG) observes centrality if the start symbol is the maximal projection of a distinguished preterminal. Centrality requires that there must be one lexical category such that every string in the language contains at least one instance of that category.
Lastly Kornai and Pullum (1990) identify optionality as among of the principle of X- bar theory. It is the condition that non-heads are only optionally present. A CFG is optionality- observing if and only if we can identify cores and core positions for every rewrite rule.
Despite these six principles as discussed by Pullum and Kornai there are several other propositions of X-bar theory which were not of the concern to this study such as Movement, EPP, Thematic relations, Theta Roles, just to mention some. The six underlying principles adopted are appropriate to this study because the ordering of dependents of Nyiha noun phrase is centered on the noun being the dominant head word and obligatory category which is modified by other elements which are by their nature optional. Also other elements in a noun phrase precede the headword (noun) which by the X-bar tree diagram will be c- commanded by the noun.
1.8 Conclusion
We have seen that most of the Bantu languages are insufficiently described. Those which are studied just portions of the linguistic units are worked out. Worse still
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some other Bantu languages are in a disadvantaged position because their documentations are very limited, and so having great implication to these languages growth and development. As it is stated by Muzale and Rugemalira (2008) the existence of inadequate studies on Tanzania‟s Bantu languages implies complexities in the analysis of these languages. Thus a need for conducting studies on these languages is crucial for the preservation of African identity and culture.Therefore, the driving force into the study of Nyiha language.
Each language is peculiar and it is to be treated as an independent entity rather than generalization of the principles that govern the analysis of certain languages to be adopted over other languages. Since the study of the selected language based on the description of noun phrase elements in this language, the theory The X-bar Theory of
Phrase Structure was selected to guide the analysis of the language elements. The following chapter is going to deal with the survey on various studies related to the noun phrase elements and structures in different Bantu languages.
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CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
As pointed out in the first chapter, this research intended to investigate the structure of the Nyiha noun phrase based on the analysis of its elements with regard to the principles governing the noun phrase formation.The X-bar Theory of Phrase structure guides the study.Thus the presentation of other studies related to noun morphology and phrasal formation which is to be examined in this chapter is of paramount importance for finding out some relatedness and constraints of other languages in relation to the language in study (Nyiha)
This chapter deals with the review of the related literature to the structure of Bantu noun phrase. Specifically the analysis of noun dependents as stipulated in some of the studied Bantu languages. Thus the chapter starts by revealing determiners as shown by different linguists who have studied various Bantu languages. The second section surveys on the modifiers as discussed by different linguists in these languages. The chapter also presents general noun phrase structure in Bantu languages and the fourth section highlights synthesis and general overview of previous studies and lastly the conclusion.
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The documentation of any language results from the study analysis of the elements of different word classes in that particular language. For instance the study of noun morphology,verb morphology,adjectival and adverbial morphology with their interrelated attachments in the process of phrasal or clause formations. In this respect the study of the Nyiha noun phrase is of paramount importance as a step towards documentation of this language as its description is limited than other South western languages. For example other languages like Nyakyusa, Sangu, Ndali and Safwa have been studied by Swilla and Walsh (2000). But none of these or even others` studies focus on the significance element of the Nyiha language.
As it can be quoted from the words of Givon “Article, adjectives, demonstrative and relative clauses are the noun modifiers that reveal hierarchical orderings”(Givon,
2001:2). Such elements occur either before the head noun or after (Cinque: 2000).
But in Bantu languages they follow (Carstens, 1993), (Van de Velde, 2005). Both within and across languages noun phrase vary considerably with respect to their internal organization and complexity (Rijkhoff, 2002).
The criteria for establishing the types of elements that can become dependents of the noun in the noun phrase are based on morphological properties, syntactic behavior and semantic features. On Mashami different types of noun dependents take different sets of agreement affixes. For example, the agreement affixes for adjectives are different from the agreement affixes for numerals.
Example, the agreement affix for adjectives in noun class one `mu` and in numerals
`umwi` is the common affix. In Mashami noun class two the adjectives take `bha` as its agreement affix while `bhabhii` is the affix for numerals in the same class
(Rugemalira, 2007)
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That is the morphology maintains a distinction between adjectives and numerals as belonging to different categories. But it will be noted though that, there are many overlaps in the affixes across categories. For example, the ki/fi markers are found in all cells across classes 7/8. Similarly, the markers for that possessive my and connective are almost identical (with the usual glide formation and vowel deletion processes), the mismatches are in classes 1, 14 and 16. So the morphological properties alone do not provide a sufficient basis for identification of categories.
Waters‟ studies in language structure show that a syntactical category (phrase) is made up of a head which may be accompanied by one or more elements, as cited in
(Heine and Nurse, 2000), he asserts that words can modify other words and in the process they serve as specifiers, complements and modifiers to form a string of words called a phrase. The main word is what determines the kind of phrase, noun, verb, adjective etc.
The syntactic criteria pertain to the positions that an element may occupy in the noun phrase as well as the possibilities of and limits on, co-occurrence of an element with other elements. If an element cannot co-occur with another it may be because the two occupy the same syntactic position and stacking is not permitted. This would be a strong basis for considering such elements as belonging to the same syntactic category as the determiners in the phrase “the my book”
In principle stacking i.e. repetition of a word or a category is prohibited as is clearly demonstrated in the case of restricted sets of determiners and modifiers e.g. demonstratives, possessives, numerals and general quantifiers Rugemalira (2007). As exemplified from Mashami,
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[1] Fitabu fingi fyoose many all books (general quantifiers)
Ikusaro lyilya` ilyi that is book (demonstratives)
Fitabu fyakwa fyakwe that this books (possessives)
Makusa`ro abhii aghaamu two five thoughts (numerals)
A further syntactic criterion concerns the phrasal properties of a category. Adjectives may be modified by intensifiers (adverbs) where as demonstratives, possessives and quantifiers may not.
This test would distinguish quantifiers -ona / -ote / ose “all and ombi `both` - ing `many` and –ce/ -chache `few` which are adjectives.
Table 2.1 Constraints in phrasal properties for Bantu languages
Languages Adjectives Quantifiers Swahili Vitabu vingi Vitabu vyote sana (sana)
Mashami *Fitabu fingi *Fitabu fyoose *Ebitabu byombi unu (unu) (muno) Nyambo *Ebitabo binji *Ebitabo byona
muno (muno)
*Books many *books all very *books both very very
Thus the quantifiers are like the numerals in not taking intensive modifiers. Similarly the ordinals may be categorized together with associative phrase since both take the connective a- + noun as in example
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[2.] Swahili Ordinals Associative
-a kwanza „first‟ -a Tabora „of/ Tabora‟
-a tatu `third` -a chuma `of iron`
Semantic considerations may indicate that two elements cannot co- occur even if stacking of the category in question is permitted. The simple case may involve non- compatible semantic features. Consider the adjectives in „a red white book‟ „a tall clever boy‟. Similarly, the mutually exclusive sets of demonstrative and possessives may be considered as involving incompatible semantic features rather than mere syntactic constraints (*this that book, *my your book, *very all books vs „very many books‟). A related case may involve repetition of a semantic feature e.g. the numeral and general quantifier in *watu wengi watano/ *watu watano wengi *many five people, but contrast watu wote watano “all five people”.
Bantuists have attempted to write about Bantu noun class systems through morphological and syntactic approaches (cf Maho, 1999; Katamba, 2003). Other scholars argue that a descriptively adequate characterization of nouns of a Bantu language has to indicate the semantic characteristic of various noun classes (Contin-
Morava, 1994). This study also explored syntactic approach in the process of phrasal analysis in order to establish the Nyiha noun morphology and noun phrase.
Several studies take a close look on elements in the Noun phrase. Below are some few examples of such elements as had been studied by different Linguists on various
Bantu languages.
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2. 1 Determiners as evident in other Bantu Languages.
Determiners pick out the entity denoted by the noun. They belong to closed sets of mutually exclusive items, Rugemalira (2007). Among of the issue that revolves around the NP in Bantu languages, Nyiha in particular, involves the term determiner.
Some Bantuists propose that Bantu languages do not possess overt articles, those available in other languages like English (cf. Carstens, 1993). Other Bantuists claim that an augment functions as a determiner that indicates definiteness in Bantu languages like Ganda (cf. Hyman and Katamba, 1993). Another group of Bantuists hold that the possessive and demonstrative are determiners in Bantu languages and occur close to the head noun (Rugemalira, 2007). The question that was to be answered in this study was: What really composes the determiner in Nyiha?
The following section reveals the related studies on determiners across the Bantu languages. Two sets of word categories are candidates for determiner position
(Rugemalira 2007) possessives and demonstratives.
Possessives and demonstratives are portrayed in varying ways by several scholars in
Bantu languages. The section below gives a few examples of the studies that stipulated these elements in the Bantu languages. From his study Amani (2009) comments that in Nyakyusa as in other Bantu languages, the possessives are likely to occur immediately after the head nouns. As some possessive pronouns summarized in example 3 below:
[3] 1st person singular -angu ulugoje lwangu „my rope‟
1st person plural -itu ulugoje lwitu „our rope‟
2nd person singular -ako ulugoje lwako „your rope‟
2nd person plural -inu ulugoje lwinu „your rope‟
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3rd person singular -ake ulugoje lwake „his/her rope‟
3rd person plural -abo ulugoje lwabo „their rope‟
In Nyakyusa the possessive always follows the head noun and the normal position for demonstrative is immediately after the possessive as in:
[4] Bhandu bhangu abho bhahaano abhanunu abha bhajimenye ingamu abha bhafuma kutabora
People my five nice who know the name who come from Tabora
„those first five nice people of mine from Tabora who know the name‟.
Other positions for the demonstrative including before the head noun are possible but not preferred.
[5]Abhandu bhangu bhahano abho / abho bhandu bhangu bhahano
People my five those / those people my five
“those five people of mine”.
Three series of demonstratives are identified in Nyakyusa. Common proximal demonstrative are used for referents that are closer to the speaker as in example (a) below. The second one is non- proximal that refers to referents situated closer to the addressee as in (b). Type three demonstrative is the distal demonstrative used for referents that are remote to both the speaker and the hearer. Example (c) shows such demonstrative. (a) umu-ndu uju „this person‟ (b) u-mu-ndu ujo „that person‟
and (c) u-mu-ndu jula ‘that person‟
In Mashami as prescribed by Rugemalira (2007) states that the principle of ordering of demonstrative and possessive is that, no other element can precede the demonstrative or intervene between the demonstrative and the possessive as exemplified below:
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[6] Noun Demo Poss Gloss Undu ulya wakwa „that person of mine‟ Ikusaro lyilya lyakwa „that though of mine‟ As oppossed to the ill formed construction like *Undu wakwa ulya and *Ikusaro lyakwa lyilya
That means in Mashami there are two main sets of possessives and demonstratives, whose respective members may co-occur, in that fixed order. It is the items in each set that are internally mutually exclusive, meaning that demonstratives may not co- occur, and possessive may not co-occur as the example above shows.
The study of Kagulu language (Petzell, 2008) reveals that possessive is formed by adding the Agreement Class Prefix (ACPs) of the possessed to the stem of the possessives. In the language possessives could be analysed as containing a possessive stem to which the associative marker –a is prefixed. This is the case in several other
Bantu languages.
Most possessives may also occur as clitics, as in wanangu „my children‟ from wana wangu, or babakwe „his/ her father‟ from baba yakwe. Such contraction is only allowed for kinship terms.
The demonstratives in Kagulu take the (ACPs) agreement and most may take the initial segment a-. The demonstratives not only denote proximity and remoteness, but also anaphoricity and emphasis, Petzell (2008). Some examples of demonstratives in this language include:
-no „this‟ which denotes proximity as in;
[7] (a) munhu yuno „this person‟ Ugali uwu „this porridge‟ Mabiki gaga „these trees‟
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-ya „that‟ is used for a referent located at a distance, as in; (b) Munhu yuya „that person‟ diwe adiya „that stone‟
In Safwa language, the possessive follows the head noun. As expressed by
Rugemalira (2007) on the article titled The Structure of the Bantu Noun Phrase:
[8] Abhantu bhani abhahuwandilo abhinza abhahu tabora bhala bhasanu Bhabhaliminye itawa People my first good of Tabora those five who know the name „those first five good people of mine from Tabora who know the name‟. In this language the demonstrative may be preposed the head noun; as in
[9] (a) bhala abhantu bhani bhasanu/abhantu bhani bhasanu bhala those people my five / people my five those „those five people of mine‟ Also the demonstrative may appear in any other position after the possessive, including final position even after the relative clause.
b) Abhantu bhani bhasanu abhinza abhahuwandilo abhahu Tabora bhabhalimenye itawa bhala.
People my five good first of Tabora who know the name those.
„those first five good people of mine from Tabora who know the name‟
In Nyambo the possessive follows the head noun while the demonstrative follows the possessive, but the demonstrative may also be positioned before the noun. Example,
[10] Abhantu bha`a`ngu bha`ri`ya or bhariya abhantu bhaang `those people of yours`.
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Except for the relative clause which must be final, the other elements may occupy any position after the possessive and/or demonstrative.
The Nyambo demonstratives may be positioned before the head noun as in example
(a). Except for the relative clause which must be placed in the final position, the other elements may occupy any position after the possessive and or demonstrative as in
(b).
[11] (a) abhantu bhaanyu bhariya/ bhariya abhantu bhaanu ‘People your those those people your.‟
b)abhantu bhaanyu bhariya bhataano bha mbere bharunyi bha Tabora abharikumanya iziina
People your those five of first good of Tabora who know the name
„Those first five good people of yours from Tabora who know the name‟
The preferred position for the possessive in the Ha is immediately after the head noun as exemplified in;
[12](a)Bhaya abhantu bhanje bhasole bhataanu bhimbele bhitabora bhamenya izina
„Those five good people of mine from Tabora who know the name‟.
The next best position is immediately after the possessive, but it may also occupy any other position after the head: Example [13] Abhantu bhanje bhaya bhataanu bhaso„Those five good people of mine‟
But it is possible to position it after any of the other elements, like; [14]
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(a) Abhantu bhose bhaya bhataanu bhanje „All those five people of mine‟
(b) Bhaya abhantu bhataanu bhose bhanje „all those five people of mine‟.
In Shimwela possessives occur immediately after the head noun. Like other noun dependents possessives show concordial agreement by taking agreement affixes of the possessive nouns John J. (2007) as in the following examples: [15] (a) Shi- maje sh- angu sha- n-koongo „my wooden knife‟ (b) i-maje y- etu i- naa- tema „our knife cut‟
Kyara in the Noun phrase in Kivunjo shows that the possessive structures for the three persons are expressed by different stems which also differ with class and number of the noun specified. This is shown in the following:
[16] Person possessive form Gloss example gloss 1st SG -ko my kyako my (things) 1st PL -ku our o u our (person) 2nd SG -pfo your shapfo your (things) 2nd PL -nyu your onyu your (person) 3rd SG -kye his/her kyake his/her (things) 3rd PL -wo their owo their (person) The structure of the possessive forms in general is made up of the noun class concord for the prefix (the entity possessed), and the stem (possessor) as illustrated below:
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[17] (a) Ikumbi lyake „his/ her hoe , Lyake lya- (possessed)‟ -ke (stem)
1(3rd SG) (b) Kimana kyayo „it‟s small child‟ Kyayo kya- (possessed) -yo
(stem) and (c)Wana wawo „their children ,Wawo wa- (possessed) -wo stem 2
Demonstratives in Kivunjo modify nouns directly by specifying the entity denoted by the nouns. As in other Bantu languages demonstratives in Kivunjo show proximity of the object being denoted by the speaker to the hearer. Thus three distinctive demonstratives are identified in Kivunjo which are: [18] (a) This/these (close to the speaker) or near demonstratives as for Mnduchu „this person (b) That (close to the adressee) Mnducho „that person‟ (c) That (far demonstrative) or remote, Mndulya
„that person‟.
Demonstratives in Simwela occur before the head of NP like in other Bantu languages. All demonstratives take the initial vowel /a/. They show proximity and remoteness as indicated in examples below: [19] (a) aju mw- aana ju „This child‟
(b) ajo mw-aana jo and (c) ajula mw- aana jula „That child‟. As in the above examples the head noun intervenes the demonstratives which occur in form of discontinuous morphemes.
The preferred position for the demonstrative in Ha is before the head noun. As in:
[20] (a) Bhaya abhantu bhanje bhasole bhataanu bhimbele bhitabora bhamenya izina. „Those five good people of mine from Tabora who know the name‟.
The next best position is immediately after the possessive, but it may also occupy any other position after the head: Example
(b) Abhantu bhanje bhaya bhataanu bhasole People my those five good „Those five good people of mine‟ 28
It appears that the study in Sukuma language reveals that all elements, including the possessive, demonstrative and relative clause may vary positions freely after the head noun. For instance the demonstrative is final as in [21]. Also the demonstrative may be the last but one as in (b) may be immediately after the head noun in (c) and possessive appears even after the relative clause as exemplified in (d)
[21] (a) abhantu abha kwandya abhatano abhane abho People of first five my those
„those first five people of mine‟.
(b) Abhanu bhatano bhose abho abhane People five all those my „all those five people of mine‟ c) Abhanu abho abha kwandya abhatano abhawiza abhane kwiga Tabhora abhamanile ilina People those of first five good my come from Tabora who know name „Those first five good people of mine from Tabora who know the name‟.
d) Abhanu abho abhawiza abhatano abha kwandya kwinga Tabora abhamanile ilina abhane People those good five of first come from Tabora who know the name my „Those first five good people of mine from Tabora who know the name‟
However, Swahili also allows the demonstrative to appear before the head noun, in order to resolve the apparent competition for determiner status, the demonstrative follows after the possessive.
[22] Dem Noun Poss. Dem. Gloss
a)__ Mtu wangu Yule `That person of mine.
b)Yule mtu wangu ___
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As in other Bantu languages, Sematengo language (Ndomba) is characterized by the demonstratives modifying the head noun by being positioned at the post-head noun.
The demonstratives on Sematengo also indicate proximity and remoteness of the object from the speaker and addressee as shown in [23] a) mundu jonzo/ ajo „this person b) Etate ojo „that father‟
For Ngoni language the possessive always follows the head noun, but the demonstrative appears to be freely variable (Ngonyani, 2003). In Lingala, the possessive always”precedes all other determiners” (Meeuwis 2004:39). In Mbugwe
“demonstrative are occasionally placed before the head noun‟‟ (Mous 2004: 22)
Most of these studies lack the examination of the position of determiners in the highest limit of the order of elements in the languages studied. Then the interesting questions to be posed here is; what is the role of the determiners in the highest limit of ordering of elements in the Nyiha noun phrase?
2.2 Modifiers as stipulated in different Bantu language studies.
Rugemalira (2007) contends that in several other Bantu languages the possessive alone is strictly fixed immediately after the head noun. All other elements follow the possessive and ordering is considerably free.These may be categorized as modifiers.
That is such elements can precede one another.
2.2.1 Numerals and quantifiers
The numerals in Kagulu are in two categories cardinal numerals and ordinal numerals. All inflected numerals take the NCP, as in masina meli „two names‟ majua madatu „three days (Petzell, 2008). The cardinal numerals are listed below.
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[24] 1 –mwe (du), 2 –ili, 3 –datu, 4 -ne, 5 –shano
Nina mgulu umwedu Ni- na mu- gulu u- mwe (du) „I have one leg‟. The even tens are all Swahili numerals (nouns), which in turn are borrowed from
Arabic. As for makumi mane „forty‟(i.e four tens).
Ordinals numerals, the numeral stems (i.e numbers „one‟ through „five‟) are used with Bantu prefix for class 12‟ ka-. The prefix ka- is used to nominolize the numerals
2-4 in the Luguru (G35) the neighbouring language of Kagulu. The numerals borrowed from Swahili and the kagulu nouns that function as numerals do not take the ka-
[25] 1 kwansa, kamwendu, 2 keli, 3 kadat, 4 kane, 5 kashano
As in: „wiki ya kwansa‟
The Nyakyusa low numerals i.e cardinals and ordinals carry noun class prefixes of the head noun they co-occur within a construction. The numerals are highlighted in the table below;
[26] Figures cardinals series ordinals
1 -amo first kwanda 2 -bili second bubhili 3 -tatu third butatu 4 -na fourth buna 5 -hano fifth buhano Source: Lusekelo (2009).
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Lusekelo (2009) maintains that numerals display freedom of occurrence in Nyakyusa as in;
[27]A –ba –ana ba- bili aba- kwanda ba –a- tim -ile i- ng‟ –ombe. Aug-2-child 2- num 2 -num 2 -PST- graze-perf Aug-9- cow a-ba-ana aba- kwanda babili ba-a- tim-ile i- ng‟-ombe „the two first children grazed cattle‟
Quantifiers are attested with three lexical words, that is –oosa „all‟, -nandi „few/little and –ingi „many/ a lot of‟ their distinction from numerals is that quantifiers indicate indefiniteness. As, [28] a -ba –ndu b-oosa „all persons‟ and
a-ba-ndu ba-bhili „two persons‟
Julius,John (2010) classifies Shimwela modifiers into two categories, quantifiers and qualifiers. Quantifiers include cardinal numerals, ordinal numerals and general quantifiers (many, all), while qualifiers consist such elements as adjectives, associatives and relative clauses.
Some examples are shown here;
Cardinal numerals are as listed below;
[29] 1 -mo, 2 -bhili, 3 -tatu , 4 -nsheshe, 5 -nng‟aano, 6 -nng‟aano na jumo,
7 -nng‟aano na -bhili , 8 -nng‟aano na –tatu , 9 -nng‟aano na -nsheshe
10 -likumi lim 20 makumi ghabhili
In this language ordinals are such elements like –atai 1st , -abhili 2nd , -atatu 3rd ,
-ansheshe 4th , -anng‟aano 5th , -ampelebhesheyo last. The ordinals in Shimwela commonly occur with the associative marker -a, as in this example:
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[30] (a) Muu -ndu jwa ntai „The first person‟ (b) Mwaali jwa mpelebhesheyo „The last girl‟ Words -owe „all‟, -jinji „many‟ , -shooko „few‟ , -ana „other‟ , -pe „only‟ are quantifiers in Shimwela language. Contextually they can be used as in;`
[31] (a) Bhaa –ndu bha -shook , „a few people‟ and
(b) Bhaa-na bha shule bhom „all school children‟
Adjectives provide information about noun‟s dimension physical property, colour, behavior, value etc. as in other Bantu languages adjectives in Shimwela reflect this trait. The adjective stems attested in Shimwela are; -amboone „good‟ , -shooko
„small‟ , kuluungwa „big‟ , a naapi „black‟ , atema „sharp‟, leeu „long‟. In this language the adjectives follow the nouns, they qualify and they have to agree with the head noun by taking noun class prefix (NCP) of the noun they qualify. [32] n- kongo gwa- n- kuluungwa „A big tree‟
As in other Bantu languages, adjectives describe the quality of nouns and there are few adjectives in Nyakyusa language which base on semantic criterion. The
Nyakyusa adjectives include -tali „tall‟ , -ugi „fierce‟ , -elu „white‟ , -bhibhi
„bad‟ , -ololo „kind‟
In the language the adjectives post modify nouns and usually one to three adjectives may co-occur as in the following;
[33] a -ka -ana -ke a -ka -sekele a -ka -tali a -ka -tiitu fiijo Aug 12 -child -POSS Aug-12 –thin Aug-12-tall Aug-12 -black Int. „His/ her young tall [very] black child‟
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In Kagulu adjectives constitute the smallest open word class. Like in numerous
Bantu languages, there are very few adjectives in Kagulu (Petzell, 2008). The adjective comprises a stem and one prefix, i.e the NCP. As the formula for the morphological structure of the adjective is given as; Nominal class prefix [NCP]
+adjective stem as in: [34] (a) munhu mu-goli
„a rich person / the person is rich‟
Kivunjo adjectives are stems which depend on the noun class prefix of the noun they modify to make their morphological structures. They are comprised of a stem plus the class agreement prefix. Adjectives belong to the major word class categories and they modify nouns by describing their features, qualities and states. For instance the stem;
-cha constructs mndu m-cha, which means „a good/ beautiful/ smart person‟
-fui to make mndu -mfui to mean „ a short person‟
Rugemalira (2007) states that with a few restrictions, the numerals, ordinals and general quantifiers enjoy a considerable freedom in noun modification, as exemplified on Mashami data below:
[35] (a) bhandu bhalya bhakwa bhagha`a`nu bhambe bho`o`se N Dem. Poss. Num. Ord. Quant „All those first five people of mine‟
b) bhandu bhalya bhakwa bho`o`se bhambe bhagha`a`nu
„All those first five people of mine‟ (gen. quantifier before ord. and numeral).
c) bhandu bhaly`a bha`kwa bhagh`a`amu bho`o`se
N Dem. Poss. Num. Ord. Quant
„All those first people of mine‟
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d) bhandu bhalya bhakwa bhoose bhambe
N Dem Poss Quant Ord Num
„All those first people of mine‟ (gen. quantifier before ord.)
Other modifiers are free movers as they can interchangeably be placed in pre or post modification to one another. As noted in Mashami the possessive (not demonstrative) is the determiner that immediately follows the noun (Rugemalira 2007).
There may be up to seven syntactic positions after the head noun in Swahili and the possible variations in ordering and co- occurrence are too many to be individually tested. However, it is possible to draw an important conclusion that with the exception of the demonstrative, possessive and relative clause, all other elements in the noun phrase are considerably mobile, (Josephat Rugemalira, 2007).
Examples:
[36] a) Wale watu wangu wawili wa kwanza wazuri wote wa TZ Dem N Poss Num Ord Adj Quant Asso
Those people my two first good all of Tz
„All those first two good people of mine from Tanzania‟.
b)Wale watu wangu wote wawili wazuri wa kwanza wa Tz toka Ulaya Dem N Poss Quant Num Adj Ord Assoc c) Wale watu wangu wa Tz wote wawili wa kwanza wazuri toka Ulaya Dem N Poss Assoc Quant Num Ord Adj
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d) Wale watu wangu wa kwanza wa TZ wazuri wote wawili toka Ulaya Dem N poss Ord Assoc Adj Quant Num „All those first two good people of mine from Tanzania who is from Europe‟.
As exemplified above most languages impose restrictions on some of the dependents of the noun and accord special status to the position immediately after the noun.
Regarding the strict order of the elements, the relative category is fixed at final position of the noun phrase in Runyambo and Matengo; while the possessives and demonstrative take the position immediately after the head noun in these languages.
The numerals, ordinals and general quantifiers enjoy freedom of occurrence.
From the literature on other Bantu languages, the questions that arise are; How many noun dependents can co-occur in a single NP In Nyiha? What is the order of co- occurrence and Semantic role of the elements in the NP in the language?
2.3 Noun Phrase Structure in Bantu Languages.
On the number of noun dependents in a NP in Bantu language, Rugemalira (2005) states that up to six different modifiers are attested in Runyambo, but four appear to be a normal order; and Rugemalira (2007) maintains that there may be up to seven syntactic positions after the head noun in Mashami. Also Ndomba, (2006) observes that there are five positions that co-occur in Matengo NPs.
But Rugemalira (2007) state that the possessive (not the demonstrative) is the determiner that immediately follows the noun in Swahili and the demonstrative follows after the possessive. However, as in `mtu wangu yule` (N poss. Dem) and
`Yule mtu wangu` (Dem. N Poss.), `that person of mine in order to solve the
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apparent competition for determiner status, Swahili also allows the demonstrative to appear before the head noun .In other literature it is stated that there is freedom of occurrence of noun modifiers in Swahili (Carsten, 1993, Van de Velde 2005)
Although works which have limited their scope to the study of noun phrases in specific Bantu languages are not so numerous, most grammatical descriptions of different languages have touched this aspect along with other grammatical aspects. It is difficult to review all such descriptions but at least a review of those which covered Tanzanian Bantu languages will provide insight to our present study. The most recent of these works in Tanzania include Lusekelo (2009), Ndomba (2006),
Ngonyani (2003), Petzell (2007), Rugemalira (2005; 2007) and Rugemalira and
Phanuel (forthcoming). A review of the works below is expected to reveal what has been covered and what has been left out as far as noun phrase structure in Bantu languages is concerned.
Rugemalira (2007) carried out a cross-linguistic study which examined the structure of a noun phrase in several Bantu languages including Mashami (E. 62), Swahili (G.
42), Ha (D. 66), Nyakyusa (M. 31), Safwa (M. 25), Runyambo (E. 21) and Sukuma
(F. 21) and reached a general conclusion that the noun phrase in Bantu is made up of five important elements, which are pre-determiner, head noun, determiner, modifiers, and post-modifiers. He also noted that in many of these languages the demonstratives and the possessives may exchange positions. Rugemalira, further observed that while the relative clause occurs last in the modifier position, other elements in the same slot such as numeral, ordinal and associative, quantifier and adjective tend to vary their positions across languages. The interrogative is the last of all the elements in the noun phrase. The above general observation is summarized in the following
Table: 37
Table2. 2: Bantu Noun Phrase Structure
01 0 1 2 3
PRED Noun Determiner Modifiers Post
Mod.
DEM POSS A B C D E
DISTR DEM NUM ORD QUANT ADJ REL INTER
ASS
Source: Rugemalira (2007:147)
It is worth noting at this juncture that Rugemalira‟s observation was a cross-linguistic one which aimed at establishing the general structure of a Bantu noun phrase.
Therefore, it is possible to find some discrepancies among individual languages in the way they structure their noun phrases.
In Nyakyusa (M. 31), for example, a demonstrative cannot precede the head noun without altering the meaning (Lusekelo, 2009). Also, unlike in many other Bantu languages, Lusekelo (2009) further notes that in Kinyakyusa noun phrase structure, the intensifier precedes the relative expression, which occurs after all other modifiers.
Below is a Nyakyusa noun phrase template:
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Table 2.3: Nyakyusa Noun Phrase Structure.
01 0 1 2
PRED Noun Determiners Modifiers-1 Modifiers-2
DISTR N A B C d E F G
POSS DEM NUM QUANT ADJ INT REL.
Source: Lusekelo (2009)
Ndomba (2006) conducted a study on Samatengo noun phrase structure. His findings revealed that in Samatengo (N. 13), the order of elements in a noun phrase seems to be variable and flexible with slight restrictions on the demonstratives and possessives, which normally precede other dependents. He also noted that there is no clear limit on the highest number of dependents to be included in a Samatengo noun phrase, although most speakers rarely go beyond five. Below is an example of a Samatengo noun phrase with five dependents:
Table 2.4: Samatengo Noun Phrase Structure
0 1 2 3 4 5
Noun DEM POSS ADJ CONJ+Noun REL. ma-si Gala Gangu ma-keli gu-akiliba ga-gapi water That Mine dirty of-the well which is
boiled
“that dirty water of mine from the well which is boiled”
Source: Ndomba (2006:77)
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In Runyambo (E. 21), the case is slightly different.Rugemalira (2005) reports that a
Runyambo noun phrase can take up to six modifiers, although speakers would normally end up with four. As for their order, the possessive would usually appear first after the head noun, while the relative clause appears last. The demonstrative occurs initially and the numeral and the ordinal occur before the adjective. The Table below presents a Runyambo noun phrase with three modifiers.
Table 2.5: Runyambo Noun Phrase Structure
0 1 2 3 4
Noun POSS DEM NUM ADJ
Abantu Banje Babiri Bahango
People My Two Big
“my two big people”
Source: Rugemalira (2005:84)
Findings from Chingoni (N. 12) (Ngonyani, 2003) show that a noun phrase is made up of a head and its qualifiers, which include an adjective, a possessive, number, an associative phrase, and a quantifier. All these must appear after the headword. The possessive immediately follows the head while quantifiers appear last after possessives and adjectives. The last element in the order is the demonstrative. As for the highest number of dependents, it is still not clear since Ngonyani did not mention it. Below is an example of a Chingoni noun phrase:
40
Table2. 6: Chingoni Noun Phrase Structure
0 1 2 3
Noun POSS QUANT DEM.
Videngu Vyangu Viola Vila
Chairs Mine All Those
“all those chairs of mine”
Source: Ngonyani (2003:74)
In Mashami (E. 62), Rugemalira and Phanuel (forthcoming) observe that with the exception of a distributive, all nominal dependents occur after the head noun. As regards the order of these elements, they note that the numeral, ordinal, quantifier, adjective, and the associative vary considerably in their ordering. But they all occupy the slot between possessive and relative marker. The distributive, demonstrative, possessive, relative clause and interrogative marker occupy fixed positions. As for the highest limit in the Mashami noun phrase, Rugemalira and Phanuel argue that due to the existence of various syntactic and semantic restrictions on the co- occurrence of elements in the Mashami noun phrase, it is not possible to expand a noun phrase indefinitely. However, they do not mention exactly the highest possible limit in the order of elements in the Mashami noun phrase. Below is the structure of a
Mashami noun phrase:
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Table2. 7: Mashami Noun Phrase Structure
01 0 1 2 3 4
PRE Nou Determiner Modifier-1 MO MOD
D n s D 2 3
A B A B C D E f
DIS DE PO NU O QUA A A MIS R INT
TR M SS M R NT DJ SS C E ER
D L
Source: Rugemalira and Phanuel (forthcoming: 26)
Petzell (2007) observes that in Kagulu (G. 12) a noun phrase consists of a head noun together with optional pronouns and modifiers. The head of a noun phrase usually precedes its modifiers, but the demonstrative may intermittently precede the noun for discourse effects. In cases where a noun phrase has more than one dependent, the normal order is that a possessive, a demonstrative or a numeral must precede the adjective. As regards the highest number of dependents, Petzell notes that the number of modifiers and determiners in a Kagulu noun phrase rarely goes beyond two. This is because the initial vowel in Kagulu is sometimes used instead of a determiner, thus limiting the number of constituents.
„‟A close look at Kagulu reveals the following; The phrase in Kagulu is made of one-to- three noun dependents in natural settings; and if more than one modifier or determiner appears in a noun dependents in natural settings; the internal order is that of `noun + possessive + demonstrative + numerals + adjectives; and the associative constructions are used to modify noun as adjectives are fewer‟‟ ( Petzell 2008: 76-77).
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Below is a Kagulu noun phrase with three dependents:
Table 2.8: Kagulu Noun Phrase Structure
0 1 2 3
Noun DEM NUM POSS
Amabwa Gano Madatu gangu aniye
Dogs These Three mine
“these three dogs of mine”
Source: Petzell (2007:66)
2.4 Synthesis
The foregoing review has shown that categories used to modify nouns are almost the same in all Bantu languages. These include determiners, numerals, genitives or possessors, adjectives, relative clauses, and noun classifiers (Payne, op. cit). Despite this similarity in the types of noun phrase dependents, the order of these elements across languages is not uniform. There is a wide range of variations across different
Bantu languages with regard to the order of elements in a noun phrase. It has been noted in the above review, for example, that while some languages tend to place all
NP dependents after the head noun as in Chingoni (N. 12) (Ngonyani, 2003),
Samatengo (N. 13) ( Ndomba, 2006) and Nyakyusa (M. 31)) (Amani, 2009), other languages are not that strict. They allow some elements, especially the demonstrative and/or the distributive to precede the head noun. These include languages like
Mashami (E. 62) (Rugemalira, 2007), Kagulu (G. 12) (Petzell 2008), Runyambo (E.
21) (Rugemalira 2005) and Kisukuma (F. 21). It is in recognition of these variations
43
in the order of NP dependents in different languages that the present study was set in order to examine the Nyiha noun phrase structure.
It is also evident from the above review that some languages do not have a clear limit on the number of dependents to be included in their NPs and scholars are skeptical of mentioning the exact number of dependents that these languages allow. In Chingoni
(N. 12) and Mashami (E. 62), for example, the highest limit of dependents allowed in the NP is not mentioned. However, in a few of the reviewed languages, the highest limit of dependents has been revealed. These include Runyambo (E. 21) which allows up to six dependents (Rugemalira, op. cit), Kagulu (G. 12) which normally allows two dependents (Petzel, op. cit), Kisukuma (F. 21) which can take eight dependents (Magashi, op. cit) and Nyakyusa (M. 31) which, according to Lusekelo
(2009), allows up to nine dependents but in observing the maxims of conversation, speakers normally include two or three dependents.
Lack of clarity in the number of NP dependents in many Bantu languages shows that determining the highest limit of NP dependents in these languages is still a problem that needs a critical examination. The present study, among other things, attempts to examine this problem in Nyiha.
2.5 Relevance of the theoretical approach to the present Study
The Syntactical and Morphological approaches have for a long time been applied mainly in the analysis of Noun phrase systems in Indo- European languages.
Syntactical and morphological approaches are the propositions used in the analysis of grammatical and morphological aspects or units of languages, and hence the X- bar theory is prefferably used by linguists in the analysis of elements that make grammar in languages. Even though this theory is used widely throughout the world
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in the study of language, to some extent it can also be used in the analysis of NP in
Bantu languages. The linear elements that compose the phrase structure in a language can better be analysed using The X- bar Theory of Phrase Structure because with such theory one can determine the principle ordering of the elements on the phrase and the constraints that may result from reordering them.
This theory fits the present study due to the nature of the targeted aspect of linguistic unit to be studied. For example the Nyiha noun phrase is made of;
[37] NP = N + Adj.
N = Pref. + N
Adj. = Pref. + Adj.
As for, umwana umuunsi „the small child‟ can be analysed as follows;
NP = umw- ana umuu- nsi
N Adj.
N = umw -ana
Pref. N
Adj= umuu – nsi
Pref Adj
Diagramatically the above phrase can be presented in tree diargram as in;
NP
NCP N
N Adj
N u-mwaana umuunsi
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2.6 Conclusion
In an attempt to present the review of relevant literature, the following ideas are advanced: first, the present study is a typical descriptive in nature as it is much related to other analitical works on Bantu languages. Most of the works on Bantu languages have relied on the linear approach on the analysis of the noun elements.
Generalization has been made with regard to the number of elements in one noun phrase that Bantu languages have five important elements that make noun phrase i.e determiner, head noun, determiner, modifier and post modifier (Rugemalira, 2007).
But such generalization was for the structure of noun phrase, and so it is possible to find some discrepancies among individual languages in the way they structure their noun Phrase. This impressed the researcher to conduct the study on the Nyiha noun phrase. What is revealed by other related literatures was of great significance to the presentation, analysis and discussion of the findigs to be dealt with in chapter four of this work. An interested concern is that most of the studies in the related literature show that with exeption of demonstratives and possessives which come immediately after nouns other elements in Bantu noun phrase are free movers. Could it be the case for the Nyiha noun phrase?
As pointed above the nature and area of this study necessitated the choice of the theory above which was of great significance in the analysis and discussion of the research data in chapter four.
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CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES
3.0 lntroduction
This section deals with the methods which enable the study to realize its goals in a systematic manner. It provides information on the methodology and procedures in data collection,the population sample and sampling techniques, sources of data collection, research instruments and methods of data analysis.Lastly, the anticipated outcome and the conclusion have been analyzed in this chapter. The organization of any research work has great implication on arriving at the valid and reliable outcome.
Hence, in order to accomplish the study on Nyiha noun phrase this work was organized relying on the sections below.
3.1 Sources of data
It is widely accepted that in social sciences research, no single research technique is sufficient in gathering the requisite information. Also where two or more methods of data collection are employed in a study of the same rich human behavior, triangulation is known to be the most used principle (Cohen et al, 2000). This study used three data collection techniques to supplement each other. They are (i) observation of oral conversation aimed at gathering oral data from spoken texts; (ii) investigation of existing written documents; and (iii) administering NP questionnaires to native speakers of Nyiha. The use of more than one specific method
47
enables the researcher to cross and counter check the data gathered, thereby strengthening it and making it highly reliable (Cohen et al. 2000)
3.2 Research design
There are several research designs applicable to language description works. In this study, the research design to be used is qualitative in nature. Specifically, a descriptive work was involved with a focus on a single case. It described the elements of the noun phrase structure, the principles of ordering the noun dependents, its semantic significance and the number of elements in a single noun phrase.
Out of different kinds of research design in existence by different scholars, the researcher intended to adopt descriptive research design in accomplishing this task.
Kerlinger (1969) points out that descriptive studies are not only restricted to fact findings, but may often result in the formulation of important principles of knowledge and solution to significant problems, highlighted by (Donald and Delno,
2006)
Being a descriptive research, the researcher mainly relied on the application of the X- bar Theory of Phrase Structure generated by Cook and Newson (1996). In cosideration of this theory the ordering of the elements in the language studied was atested. But this theory was to be supplemented by syntactical and morphological approaches as no one theory can sufficiently satisfy the analysis of the aspects of languages that are interested to be studied. A combination of more approaches results into coming up with the best results.
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3.3 Study area and target population
Area of study is the research site which indicates the geographical region used in the study. The idea is to start with larger population and through progressive elimination end up with the actual site where data is collected (Orondho and Kombo, 2002).
The area of study was Mbozi district, Mbeya region in South Western Tanzania in which the language is spoken. Nyiha is natively spoken in various areas of Mbozi with the speakers scattered in all places of the district. The target population included all native speakers of Nyiha language from whom a representation of sampled population was used. However, the study was conducted in Ruanda village located in Iyula ward. The choice of this area was attributed to a number of factors; firstly the researcher is from the area. This could make it easier for the researcher to access the area and obtain reliable data due to his familiarity with the respondents.
Secondly, the area has less interaction with the urban area where Kiswahili dominates. This helped the researcher to check down the influence of Kiswahili into
Nyiha. Lastly, it was easier for the researcher to identify potential respondents in
Nyiha due to the same factor of being familiar with the language himself and with many native speakers of the Language in the area.
3.4 Sampling technique and Sample size.
Sampling is the process of selecting a number of individuals or objects from a population such that the selected group contains elements representative of the characteristics found in the entire group (Orodho and Kombo, 2002). Under this study purposive sampling technique was employed in obtaining the sample.
Also, sample is a finite part of a statistical population whose properties are studied to gain information about the whole Webster, (1985). A sample in this case is a small
49
group of population as a selected representation of the whole population that is targeted to the study. In this study only twelve (12) informants were involved.
The total informants involved in this study were 12 of whom six (6) participants aged between 50-70, the rest six comprised those aged between 35- 49 years. Different ages helped to get both origin or old Nyiha and the new one by the young generation.
Gender was also considered; therefore 3 female and 3 male informants were employed in this study for both groups. From this population a number of at least 200 tokens of NPs of the Nyiha were collected and worked out.
In this study a sample of a few informants were opted for. Secondly, specific people who speak Nyiha were selected. These were involved in filling in questionnaire. This is to avoid the influence of Kiswahili, the national language. For questions, at least 6 respondents were involved in obtaining data out of which 3 were male and 3 females.
3.5 Data collection techniques and research instruments.
The use of more than one specific method enabled the researcher to cross-check and strengthens the data gathered and such data becomes reliable in this way. In this case, three data collection procedures were involved in this study. These include elicitation, texts collection and questionnaire.
3.5.1 Elicitation
„‟Elicitation has been the primary method of data collection for this work. This method enables the researcher to elicit i.e to draw out, concise information, either in writing or in speech, aimed at a certain phenomenon‟‟ (Petzell, 2008:18). In this work elicitation was administered both by means of questionnaires and interviews.
Both translational elicitation „how do you say [……..]‟, as well as non-translation 50
elicitation (Samarin 1967:77) „tell me about [………]‟ or „can you say [………]‟ were used. Therefore, in carrying this study, elicitation was used. It involved asking native speakers about their language particularly on the noun phrase structure. In fact only six (6) informants were involved. This is because we avoid using several informants who may give very different answers due to dialectical differences. This would provide the basic information about the different word classes of dependents in Nyiha language.
3.5.2 Texts collection
As mentioned earlier, Nyiha is not well documented. Therefore, several texts were obtained from some few written works. The total of 200 tokens of NPs were collected and worked in this dissertation. Such tokens were from both written and spoken sources.Since in written language NPs tend to be more complex grammatically than NPs used in spoken languages (Rijkhoff, 2002). Then to even this problem the two sources were used.
The tokens from sources were collected through random procedures but the selection of the sources of data was determined by the availability of the materials. Relatively there is not enough published and unpublished material for most of the Ethnic languages in Tanzania, the Nyiha as well, because they are not well described. Thus, the tokens were also from the narratives and stories as well as from interviews and questionnaires from native speakers.
3.5.3 Questionnaire
Questionnaires are concrete and predetermined questions with the same wording and order to all respondents with the purpose of standardizing responses .They are 51
economical methods of data collection in terms of time and coverage and also they make a respondant free from interviewer‟s bias (Kothari, 1990; Babbie, 1992). In this study a questionnaire was prepared and administered to two native Nyiha speakers.
The questionnaire contained questions in which respondants had to fill in Nyiha.
Only six (6) secondary school teachers were asked to fill in the questionnaires.
This questionnaire was based on Mreta‟s (1998) format that he applied in his study of
Chasu as well as on Amani‟s (2009) format adopted on the study of Nyakyusa. Also, a sentence list questionnaire that was prepared by LOT Project (2006) was used. The researcher prepared the questionnaire and asked the informant to fill it. The filling of such questions was handled as follows: the researcher read the questions from the questionnaire and informants answered them in Nyiha; then the researcher wrote or transcribed the answers in the spaces given in the questionnaire
3.6 Data analysis
This study employed a descriptive framework where the data were analysed, interpreted and explained. The descptive work mainly uses words and tables in the analysis and presentation of data. The analysed noun phrases were chosen using the criteria of length (number of the modifying elements), order and types of modifying elements.The acceptable constructions were firstly grouped according to the type of modifiers used, their orders, length and meaning.
Three data analysis methods were used in this study. Firstly, data from elicitation and questionnaires were compared. The most frequent noun dependants were identified.
Also, the order of the various elements was identified.
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Secondly, for the text gathered from both native speakers through narratives and family descriptions and written documents were translated with the help of native speakers for noun identification as well as phrase clarifications. Then various orders were identified.
Thirdly, the meaning of each noun phrase was identified. It means features that dominate the formation of Nyiha noun phrase and semantic roles of its elements were analyzed. In the process of analyzing those features, the determiners and modifiers and the order of the words in the Nyiha noun phrase elements were highlighted and presented statistically.
3.7 Anticipated outcome
Consequently, a major goal of the study was to create a database that allowed the speakers of the community to rediscover their linguistic heritage in the future and that can be continuously extended by both the speakers and other researchers. The data was analyzed by using general linguistic theory and was the basis of description of the morph syntax of Nyiha.
Masamba (2002), for instance insists that there is a need to conduct fieldwork and prepare series of descriptive studies. The reference grammar therefore, is essential for the organization of the data and for providing necessary information about the language‟s properties, example by defining word such as noun, adjectives and verb types.
3.8 Conclusion.
The purpose of any researcher to whatever particular research is to arrive at sound and reliable results of the research work. This depends on the methods and 53
organizations of the research activities like selecting the appropriate sample and using relevant instruments for data collection depending on the nature of the topic. In this consideration the resarcher adopted three techniques in data collection on Nyiha which are elicitation, text collection and administering questionnaires to the native speakers of the language. The data obtained was analysed qualitatively and discussed in relation to the previous studies which are related to the research topic.
Also a comparison between the data obtained from different technique of data collection was made in order to arrive at a general supposition in relation to the language characteristics.
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CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
4.0 Introduction
This Chapter analyzes and discusses the findings obtained in the field by putting into considerations the research questions and objectives outlined in the first Chapter of this work. The chapter covers five important areas. The first section analyzes the structure of Nyiha noun and extends further to describe the noun class system. The second part looks at the criteria used in categorizing NP dependents in Nyiha and the third section is devoted to identification of Nyiha NP constituents and their order of occurrence. In the fourth section other elements, out of the targeted ones that comprises NP in Nyiha language are examined. The last section looks at co- occurrence and recurrence restrictions of elements in Nyiha NP.
4.1 The Structure of Nyiha Noun
The noun in Nyiha comprises two important elements; noun classes prefix (NCP) and a stem. The NCP provides information about gender, grammatical number as well as grammatical person (Maho, 1999:55), as exemplified below:
55
[38] iikwi i – i- kwi „tree‟
3NCP- NC-stem
umuuntu u -mu- ntu „person‟
1NCP-NC- stem
amazina a- ma- zina „names‟
6NCP-NC- stem
The Nyiha noun, like mostly any other Bantu language noun is made up of three major parts as the examples above indicate. Thus we get the NCP followed by NC and the Stem.
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Nouns in Nyiha are distributed into 18 noun classes on the basis of their prefixes.
The detailed description of the form and meanings associated with these noun classes is provided in section 4.2 below.
4.2 Nyiha Noun Class Systems
One of the principle features that identify Bantu languages is the distribution of nouns into noun classes (Maho, 1999:44; Petzel, 2007:41). Nyiha is a typical Bantu language with 18 noun classes. These noun classes are morphologically realized with various affixes which appear on the head nouns and on their dependents such as adjectives, numerals, possessives, demonstratives, quantifiers etc. As in many other
Bantu languages, in Nyiha, these noun dependents show concordial agreement with their head nouns. This is illustrated in example 43 below where the possessive abha, the demonstrative bhala and the numeral bha copy the prefix of the head noun to show concordial agreement:
[39] a- baa- ntu ba-la ba- bili aba ku -mbeeye ba- sogooye
2NCP-2NC-person 2-Dem 2-Num Rel Ass-Mbeya 2-Perf-PL left
„those two people who come from Mbeya have left‟
The following Table presents Nyiha noun classes and their concordial forms:
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Table 4.1: The Nyiha Noun Class Prefix and Noun System
N AU NC Stem gloss poss Ad Nu this that that C G P j m 1 2 1 U Mu Ntu „person‟ gwa um wo uuno uuyo uula u 2 A Baa Ntu „persons‟ ba aba ba aaba aabo baala 3 I Li Kwi „tree‟ lya il lyo iili iilyo liila 4 A Ma Kwi „trees‟ ga am gaa aaga aago aaga a 5 I Lyi No „tooth‟ lya il lyo iili iilyo liila 6 A Mi No „teeth‟ gaa ami gaa aaga aago laala 7 I Shi Teengu „chair‟ sha ishi sho iishi iisho shiila 8 A Ma Teengu „chairs‟ gaa am gaa aaga aago gala a 9 I N Ngoole „sheep‟ ya li yoo iino iiyo yiila 10 I N Ngoole „sheep‟pl zya I zi iizi iizyo ziila 11 U Lu Kwi „firewood‟ lw ulu lwo uulu uulw luula o 12 A Ha Dala „narrow haa aha hoo aaha aaho haala passway‟ 13 U Tu Dala „narrow twa utu tu uutu uutw tuula passways‟ o 14 U Bu Hata „laziness‟ bwa Bu bu uubu uubw buul o a 15 U Ku Lya „to eat‟ kwa - - uuku uukw kuul o a 16 Pa Shibaan „at the sh pa - aapa aapo paala je playgroun d‟ 17 Ku Shibaan „to the sh ku - uuku uukw kuul je playgroun o a d‟ 18 Mu Shibaan „in the sh/m mu - uum uumu muul je playgroun w u a d‟
The table above presents the head nouns and the agreement prefix for possessives, adjectives, numerals and demonstratives in Nyiha.In Nyiha, it is not uncommon to find cases of homonyms among noun class prefixes from different classes. A noun 58
class prefix from one class may coincide in form with a prefix from another class.
This is evident in the Table above where it is found that the class 2 prefix looks the same as that of class 4, 6, 8 and 12. They all take an augment of „a‟. The same is true with class 1 noun class „ mu-„ which looks similar to class 18 prefix. Despite these similarities, the context and the agreement patterns taken by nouns to which these prefixes are attached help us to tell which prefix belongs to which class. For instance, although the class 1 prefix takes the same form as that of class 18, nouns to which these prefixes are attached take different concordial forms for adjectives, numerals as well as demonstratives.
4.3 Semantic Basis of Noun Classes
It has been observed by scholars that nouns belonging to the same class often have some degrees of semantic coherence (Maho, 1999:64; Katamba, 2003:114). Nouns in
Nyiha reflect this phenomenon, although, as Katamba (ibid) observes, the degree of coherence varies across classes. Below is a semantic classification of Nyiha noun classes:
Class 1 and 2 are classes that signify and are referent to human nouns. Class 1 is marked with the prefix mu-. When followed by a non identical vowel, the mu- undergoes gliding and is realized as mwa- When followed by a consonant, the prefix mu- drops the vowel and is realized as m-. Class 2 is a plural to class 1, and it is marked by the prefix bha-. here are examples of nouns belonging to these classes: múuntu „person‟, bháantu „persons‟; mwáana „child‟ bháana „children‟ ; and muliintu „lady/girl‟ bhalintu „ladies‟.As can be noted in the above example, class one is the singular form of the plurals in class two.
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The classes 3 and 4 consist of nouns denoting plants, trees and miscellaneous non human objects. The prefix for class 3 is i- which stands the same as a noun class for this class. This prefix takes concordial agreement with demonstratives of the same class by maintaining double vowel in its beginning . Class 4 is plural to class 3 and its prefix is ama-. Some of the nouns belonging to these classes are presented in example as: Iikwi „tree‟, aamakwi „trees‟; Ilyaango„door‟, amalyaango „doors‟ ; iguunda „farm‟ amaguunda „farms‟ .The classes whose prefixes are li- and ama- respectively are class 5 and 6. Class 5 refers to singular nouns and class six is its plural counterpart. Nouns in these classes refer to parts of the body and other heterogeneous objects. They include the following Iliiso,‟eye‟, amiiso „eyes‟, iizina
„name‟, amazina „names‟ , líjí „egg‟, aamají „eggs‟.
Class 7 applies the prefix shi-, while class 8 uses the prefix ama-. Class 8 is a plural form of class 7. It is also a plural to class 12 (ha-). Most of the household items are found in these classes. Below are some examples ishitéengu „chair‟ amatéengu
„chairs‟; ishiisu „knife‟ ivyiisu „knives‟ ishiintu „thing‟ viintu
„things‟ The vowel lengthening is in most cases maintained in both singular (class 7) and plural (class 8).
As in other Bantu languages, the common prefix for these two classes namely 9 and
10 is the homorganic nasal which is represented as N. The nouns Included in these classes are names of animals, some borrowed nouns and names of other miscellaneous objects whose singular and plural forms are the same. Below are examples of nouns in these classes: iimbúzi „goat(s)‟; and
i nyuúmba „house(s)‟ The common prefix applicable in class 11 is lu-. Most of the nouns in this class get their plural forms in class 10, whose prefix is N-. Most of the long and thin objects are found in this class as for ulugoje „rope‟ and ulutala „ a
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narrow plot‟ .The other next two classes are used to derive diminutives from other classes. Class 12 uses the prefix ha- and gets its plural form (class13) with the use of prefix tu- . Since in Nyiha the formation of diminutives is not very much common and productive, just a few examples have been attested. They include the following: ahadala „narrow passway‟, utudala „narrow passways‟; ahaguunda „small plot‟, utuguunda „small plots‟ and ahaana „little child‟ utwaana „little children‟
A class for abstract nouns is 14. Nouns in this class use the prefix ubu-. Examples of some nouns for this class are highlighted: ubuhata „laziness‟; ubulozi „witchcraft; ubugoosi „elderly‟ and ubupiina „poverty‟. Class 15 contains the infinitive forms of verbs and it uses the prefix ku-. In Bantu languages, infinitives function as nouns since they can trigger their own agreement with the verb and other dependents. While in some Bantu languages, such as Runyambo (Rugemalira, 2005) place some underived nouns in this class, in Nyiha, class 15 does not contain any underived nouns. This is also the case in Kagulu (Petzell, 2007) and Pangwa (Hauli, 2009).
Examples of class 15 nouns in Nyiha include the following: kumweela „to drink; kwiimara „to marry‟ and kulyá „to eat‟.
Lastly there are classes for locatives. They are made of such prefixes as pa-, ku- and mu- respectively. They are class 16, 17 and 18 Like in most Bantu languages; primary nouns associated with these classes in Nyiha are very limited. Most of these convey locative adverbial concepts. They include the following:
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[40] (a) pashibaanje pa shi banje NCP 16 playground „on, at, near the playground‟
(b) Kushibaanje ku shi baanje NCP 17 playground
(c) Mushibaanje mu shi baanje NCP 18 playground „in the playground‟
Locative prefixes are also used to derive nouns from other classes into locative classes. When used in this sense, the noun to which the locative prefix is attached retains its primary prefix as shown in the example below: [41] (a) pa m guunda „on, at, near the farm‟ (b) ku m guunda„to, from the farm‟ (c) mu m nguunda „in the farm‟
As clarified in the above examples, when attached to primary noun classes, the three locative class prefixes convey three distinct prepositional functions. Class 16 refers to near or explicit location (example a), class 17 shows remote or general location (as in example b) and class 18 refers to enclosed or inside location (example c). Besides conveying spatial information, the class 16 locative prefix in Nyiha is also used in the identification and referent to days of a week in expression of occurrence of certain event as anaysed in the examples below
cardinal numerals to show frequency of occurrence of a certain activity or event as shown in example, pamaande „Monday‟ ; pashibiili „Tuesday‟ and pashitaatu
‟Wednesday‟.
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When used with the days of a week as in above examples the class 16 pa – is semantically used to convey the meaning of specification of the occurrence of a certain event being particularized on a specific day. For instance;
[42] U-mu -liindu wa – akwe a -papiilwe pashinai Aug-1-girl 1-Poss 1-PAST-born Thursday „His/her girl was born on Thursday‟ Maho (1999) observes that some noun class pairings are more frequent among Bantu languages than others. He provides the examples of pairings 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10,
11/6, 11/10 and 14/6 arguing that these are more common across the Bantu zones.
Table 4.2: Regular Singular/Plural Pairings of Noun Classes in Nyiha.
Class Singular Class Plural
1 muu-ntu „person‟ 2 bhaa-ndu „persons‟
3 i-ikwi „tree‟ 4 ama-kwi „trees‟
5 i- izina „name‟ 6 ama-zina „names‟
7 ishi-teengu „chair‟ 8 ama-teengu „chairs‟
9 ii-mbuzi „goat‟ 10 mbuzi „goats‟
4.4 Criteria for categorization of Nyiha NP constituents
In establishing the types of elements that can become noun dependents in a noun phrase, three criteria are put into consideration, namely the morphological criterion, the syntactic criterion and the semantic criterion (Rugemalira, 2007; Rugemalira and
Phanuel, forthcoming).
The morphological criterion focuses on the type of agreement affix that a given set of dependents takes. Different types of noun dependents take different sets of agreement
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affixes (cf. Table 9). The agreement affixes for adjectives, for example, are different from those taken by demonstratives. So, the agreement pattern of a given word provides a clue for its categorization within a noun phrase. However, due to some overlaps across categories, the morphological criterion cannot be relied on solely.
The syntactic criterion looks at positioning and co-occurrence of elements within an
NP. If two elements cannot co-occur in an NP, we may posit that the two elements occupy the same syntactic position and the language in question does not allow stacking of such elements. This may provide a ground for considering such elements as belonging to the same syntactic category. This is evident in examples 43-46 where the stacking of some elements results in ill-formed constructions:
[43] *iishi shiila shi-teengu *‟this that chair‟ (demonstratives)
[44] *mwaana wáane wáakwe *‟my his/her child‟ (possessives)
[45] *bhaa-ntu abhiinji bhóonti *‟all many people‟ (quantifiers)
[46] *makwi ga- bhili gane *‟two four trees‟ (numerals)
Therefore, the fact that these elements cannot co-occur in an NP provides the basis for grouping them in the same syntactic categories.
There are few cases where elements of the same category can co-occur because stacking is permitted. In such cases co-occurrence cannot be relied on as a signal of category membership. Adjectives provide a good example of such elements as shown below:
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[47] a- ha- liindu a- ha -ansi a- ha- zelu
Aug-12-girl Aug-12-small Aug-12-white „Small white girl‟
However, as Rugemalira and Phanuel (forthcoming) observe, even in cases like the above where the adjectives seem to co-occur, there are clues of categorical membership since the adjectives belong to different subcategories. Ahaansi „small‟ belongs to the category of general adjectives, while ahazelu „white‟ belongs to the category of colour adjectives.
The semantic criterion focuses on the compatibility/non-compatibility of semantic features of elements in question. Even in cases where stacking is permitted, two elements with non-compatible semantic features cannot co-occur, as they will lead to a semantically ill-formed construction like „a green yellow book‟ , „a thin fat boy‟, and „your their book‟. The semantic criterion also restricts the repetition of a semantic feature as in watu wengi wane „many four people‟, where the numeral and the general quantifier are repeated (Rugemalira, 2007). In example 48 below, the
Nyiha construction is ill-formed due to stacking of adjectives which convey incompatible semantic features, big and small:
[48] * i-ikwi i-ipiti il-iinsi li-gwiiye
Aug- 3-tree Aug - 3- big Aug- 3- small SM- fall- PERF *‟a big small tree has fallen‟.
4.5 Elements that Constitute a Noun Phrase in Nyiha
Basing on the morphological, syntactic and semantic properties of words outlined in the foregoing section, two main categories of words have been attested as NP dependents in Nyiha, namely determiners and modifiers. Determiners include demonstratives and possessives. Modifiers encompass two sub-categories, quantifiers
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and qualifiers. Quantifiers include cardinal numerals, ordinal numerals and general quantifiers (many, all), while qualifiers include adjectives, relative clauses as well as interrogatives.
4.5.1 Determiners
As Rugemalira and Phanuel (op. cit) note, determiners pick out the entity denoted by the head noun. In Nyiha, two categories of words play the role of determiners: these are demonstratives and possessives.
4.5.1.1 Demonstratives
Demonstratives are deictic and Dryer (2007) maintains that demonstratives are characterized with a feature that they are used to indicate proximity and non- proximity of location of the referent in relation to the speaker and hearer‟s position.
Another function of the demonstrative is to indicate the referentiality in the language.
This means in the text the entities mentioned earlier can be referred to by demonstratives. Generally, demonstratives change morphologically in accordance to the noun class of the head noun.
In Nyiha, demonstratives occur after the head of an NP and like in other Bantu languages, they show concordial agreement with the head noun by taking the agreement affix. All demonstratives particularly closer proximal demonstratives
(this/that) take the initial vowel /a/, /i/ and / u/ depending on the noun class of the word referred. Demonstratives in Nyiha perform two important functions. The first function is to show proximity and remoteness of the referent from the speaker and the hearer and the second is to show referentiality in the language.
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When used to show proximity and remoteness, Nyiha demonstratives follow a three- order system of referring to objects, as they are found in three series, namely proximal demonstratives, non-proximal demonstratives and distal demonstratives.
Proximal demonstratives are used for referents that are close to the speaker. They take the form of initial vowel + ROOT + FV, as shown in example [49] (a). Non- proximal demonstratives are used for referents which are close to the addressee.
These take the form of initial vowel + ROOT + /o/ as in example [49] (b) below.
Distal demonstratives are used to refer to distant referents from both the speaker and the addressee. The form of this set of demonstratives is initial vowel + ROOT + la.
This is shown in example [49] (c). The X-bar representation of the noun phrase structure which has a head-noun and demonstrative as a determiner is given in [49]
(d).
[49] (a) u- mwaan-u u-uno „this child‟ Aug-1-person Dem.
(b) u- mwaan-u u-uyo „that child‟ Aug-1- person Dem.
c) u-mwaan-u u-ula „that child‟ Aug-1-person Dem.
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d) NP
NCP N'
N' Dem
umw- aana u-ula
As evident in the above examples, in Nyiha NPs, the head noun comes before the demonstrative and concordial agreement between the initial vowels of the demonstrative the head noun initial one is adhered. Therefore, the position of a demonstrative in this language is in the post-head position, this demonstrative must have its particle occurring in the post head position, and all other modifiers must follow after the demonstrative. This is further clarified in examples [50] (a) and [51]
(b). The X-bar representation appears in 64 (c).
[50] (a) i-idala i-ili lye litushile kwigamba Aug-3-passway Dem Rel. PRES. This passway which passes at the hill‟
b) i- teengu lii-la ilya shi-nama sh-ooka Aug-7-chair Dem Ass. 5-leg Num „That chair with one leg‟
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c) NP
N Rel'
Dem Rel'
Rel VP
i-idal i-ili lye litushile kwigamba
This behaviour of demonstratives in Nyiha seem to reflect many other Bantu languages as they mostly post modify the head noun being referred as shown in [51] below:
[51] a) umundu uyu „this person‟ person Dem
b) abhandu abha „these people‟ people Dem
c) Mwaana yula „that child‟ child Dem
The above are Nyakyusa demonstratives
In Mashami, bhandu bhalya „those people‟
Swahili, watu hawa „these people‟
Nyambo, omuti ogu „this tree‟
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However, unlike some of Bantu languges which enjoy the freedom of movements for their post head elements the Nyiha elements are not free movers. Example from the above statement the noun phrase can be presented as in; iidala iili lye litushile kwigamba
N Dem Rel V A
Such order of elements can hardly be move from one point to another. In this case this is a noun phrase made up with two phrases NP and Rel.
As regards definiteness, Nyiha demonstratives can be used to show that both the speaker and the addressee have prior information about the object being mentioned even if it is not within the range of their visibility. Petzell (2007) calls demonstratives used in this way anaphoric demonstratives. This is possible with the distal demonstratives, as shown in example 52:
[52] u -mwaanu uula gwe twayaanzile Aug- 1-child -Dem ASS „That child (we talked about)‟
4.5.1.2 Distributive constructions
Only one element has been noted to play the distributive function in Nyiha NP. This is the word uukuti „each/every‟. Like determiners, the distributive occurs before all the noun classes and the determiner and distributive cannot co-occur. Example [53] below presents an NP with a distributive:
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[53] Uukuti mw-antaanda „each/every woman‟
Distr -1- woman
4.5.1.3 Possessives
In Nyiha, as in other Bantu languages, the possessives are likely to occur immediately after the head noun. Like other noun dependents, possessives show concordial agreement by taking agreement affixes of the possessive nouns. Table 11 below presents Nyiha possessives and examples 54-57 present NPs with possessives:
Table 4.3: Nyiha Possessives
Person possessive stem Gloss
1SG -ane „my‟
1PL -itu „our‟
2SG -aho „your‟
2PL -inyu „your‟
3SG -akwe „his/her/its‟
3PL -abo „their‟
[54] shi-teengu sha-aane shiila 7- chair 7- Poss „My own chair‟ .
[55] a) i-imbuzi zy-iitu zi-teezile 9-goats 9-Poss 9-Perf-loose „our goats have lost‟
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b) NP
N Poss
N i-imbuzi zy-iitu As presented in a tree diagram the possessive is a post head word in Nyiha. This is also reflected in other Bantu languages that maintain the same order of elements.
[56] u-mu-untu waaho uula a-tendiim-e Aug-1-person Poss Dem -1- sit – Perf „That person of yours has sat‟
[57] ba- shiili kulima ish- iisi sh -aabo ishi -piti 2- Neg - cultivate 7- farm 2- Poss 7- big „They have not cultivated their big farm‟.
4.5.2 Modifiers
Modifiers introduce additional properties to the noun that has been picked
(Rugemalira and Phanuel, forthcoming). These may be divided into two groups. The first group constitutes quantifiers and the second includes qualifiers. Quantifiers include cardinal numerals, ordinal numerals and general quantifiers (many, all), while qualifiers include such elements as adjectives, associative (connective) phrases and relative clauses. Below is a description of each of these elements.
4.5.2.1 Cardinal Numerals
Counting in Nyiha basically ends up at five. Counting from 5 to nine is done by adding the exceeding number to five. Most south-western Tanzanian languages such as Chindali, Malila, Laambya, Fipa and Safwa reflect this phenomenon. Numeral
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stems for numbers 1-3 take noun class prefixes (NCPs) of the nouns they modify, while those for numbers 4-9 do not take NCPs. Number 10 takes the class 5 prefix li- and it is considered a noun, since it can inflect to produce plural forms and take a class 6 prefix ma-. The basic numerals include the following:
[58] 1 –ooka/eeka
2 -bhili
3 -tatu
4 -ne
5 saanu
Example [59] below presents the Nyiha numeral agreement patterns for noun classes
1 and 2 for numbers 1 through 5 and the tenth numerals.
[59] 1 muundu júmo „one person‟
2 bhaandu bhábhili „two persons‟
3 bhaandu bhátatu „three persons‟
4 bhaandú bane , four persons‟
5 bhaandú bas’aanu „five persons‟
10 bhaandu ikuumi lyooka „ten persons‟
20 bhaandu makuumí gábhili „twenty persons‟
When used to express frequency of occurrence of a certain activity, the cardinal numerals are marked with a class 12 dimunitive prefix ha-, as shown in the following example:
[60] hooka „once‟
habhili „twice‟
hatatu „thrice‟
hane „four times‟
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hasaanu „five times‟
4.5.2.2Ordinal Numerals
When used as ordinal numerals, the numeral stems (i.e numbers 1 through five) are used with Bantu prefix for class 12, ka- though for Nyiha ha- is the prefix used for class 12 though is optional. Thus such prefix is used in nominalizing the numerals 2-
5 as the list of ordinal numerals in Nyiha stipulated below:
[61] -kwaanda 1st
ha -bubhíli „2nd‟
ha -buátátu „3rd‟
ha-bune „4th‟
ha-busaanu „5th‟
In counting, the ordinals commonly occur and maintain concordial agreement with noun class of the refent noun as exemplified below:
[62] u- muu-ntu u - wa kwaanda Aug. -1-person Aug- Ass-1 Ord. „The first person‟
[63] i- nkaaya i- ya busaanu Aug- 5- home 5- Ass Ord. „The fifth homestead‟
[64] u- mwaaha u-wa butatu Aug 14-year Aug- 14-ASS Ord. „The third year‟
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4.5.2.3 Quantifiers
While numerals indicate the actual number of a noun, quantifiers are distinct in that they do not show the actual number of the nouns they modify. They function to indicate indefiniteness (Lusekelo, forthcoming). Words which function as noun quantifiers in Nyiha include the following:
[65] -oonti „all‟
-iínji „many/a lot of‟
-iinsi „few/little‟
The quantifier for many iinji can represent the concept „other‟ by attaching the appropriate noun class prefix to the quantifier stem as indicated in the NP below:
(a) A-ba-sookile a-ba-anji ba- fishile Aug-2-strangers 2- Qunt 2-Perf. Arrive „other strangers have barrived‟
b) NP
N Quant
N
A-ba-sookile a-ba-anji
(b) Ing‟oombe iz -iinji zi-binile Aug -10 cettle 10 -Qunt 10- Perf sick „ other cattle have fallen sick‟
(c) baa- tuush -ile aha dala aha- anji Aug-2- pass Past 12- passway 12-Qunt. „they have passed another way‟
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As can be observed in examples above the principle of concordial agreement is maintained which also is the determinant of morphological constructions of the general quantifier. As in:
[66] ba -nsukuulu bo-onti’
2-children school 2-all
„All students‟
[67] bhaa-ntu a- bii-ínji
2-people ASS-2- many
„Many people‟
[68] bhaa-ndu bhá- anji
2 -people 2- other
„Other people‟
4.5.2.4 Adjectives
Adjectives describe the quality of nouns. They provide information about the noun‟s dimension, physical property, colour, behaviour, value, speed, age etc. Most Bantu languages have just a few underived adjectives (Petzell, 2007; Rugemalira, 2008).
This is because properties that are expressed by adjectives in other language families can be expressed by other word categories in Bantu languages such as verbs and associative constructions. As a Bantu language, Nyiha reflects this phenomenon. The following adjective stems are attested in Nyiha:
[69] -iinza „good‟
-iinsi „small‟
-mpiti „big‟
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-nkuulu „old‟
-iilu „black‟
-zelu „white‟
-tali „long‟
-shemamuu „red‟
In Nyiha, all adjectives post-modify the nouns they qualify and they have to agree with the head noun by taking the noun class prefix (NCP) of the nouns they qualify.
Like in other Bantu languages, adjectives in Nyiha are featured by co-occurance in which one to three ajectives may co-occur as in the statement below:
[70] (a) a-ha-ana haakwe a- ha- tali a- ha –ansi a- hi -ilu nkaani Aug-12-child-Poss Aug-12-tall Aug-12-small Aug-12-black Int. „His/her young tall [very] black Child‟ One of the distinguishing characteristics of adjectives is that they can be intensified.
In Nyiha, there is one element; nkaani „very‟ which has been noted to perform the function of intensifying adjectives. This element occurs immediately after the adjective it intensifies, as shown in the following examples:
[71] (a) bha -ntu bi-inji nkaani
2- people 2-Quant Int „So many people‟.
b) NP
N Int‟
Quant Int „
Int
bha-ntu bi-inji nkaani 77
[72] i-inswi nyi-insi nkaani
Aug- 10-fish 10-few Int „there are very few fish‟.
4.5.2.5 Associative Constructions
The associative construction conjoins elements within the NP. In Nyiha, the associative phrase uses the associative marker –a. The associative marker has also been referred to as connective (Meeusen, 1967 cited in Petzel, 2007), genitival marker, or –a- binder (Loogman, 1965 cited in Petzel, ibid). The associative construction agrees with the head noun by taking the agreement class prefix (ACP).
The associative construction can be used with several other elements such as ordinal numerals (example [73] a) where a tree diagram has been used to illustrate the construction (b), locative constructions (example [74]), adjective constructions
(example [75]) as well as possessives (example [76]).
[73] (a)muu-ntu uwa kwaanda
1 -person ASS first „The first person‟
b) NP
N Ass
muu-ntu uwa kwaanda
[74] i-ikwi ilya- kwiguunda
9-tree ASS 17 -farm „Farm tree‟
[75] shi-iso she shi- insi
7-knife ASS 7- „A small knife‟
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[76] shi-nama sha Seenje
11-leg ASS aunt „Aunt‟s leg‟.
4.5.2.6 Relative clauses
In Nyiha, the relative is overtly marked using the segment which takes the shape of the noun class prefix (NCP). The relative marker is then followed by a discontinuous demonstrative which occurs before the main verb. The demonstrative helps to restrict the information provided by the relative construction to the noun being modified.
Below are some examples:
[77] iimbuzi yee yaasovile yiloleshile
10-goat REL-escape-PST SM-find-Perf „The goats that escaped have been found‟.
[78] umzeehe uwaaho uuno wee ayiinzile aku-kunye-tula
1 -elder your Dem REL- come SM-want INF-OM-take „This father of yours who has come will take you away‟.
[79] bhaa-ntu bhá-tatu bhe-biinzile bhala bh- iinza
2-people 2-three REL-arrive-PERF-PL DEM 2-good
„Those three people who have come are good‟.
4.5.2.7 Interrogative Words
The interrogative word seeks further specification of the head noun. The list of interrogative words in Nyiha is as follows:
[80] naanu „who‟
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lii „when‟
shooni „ „why‟
-haliinga „how many‟
kwii „where‟
-likwi „which‟
These can be exemplified in 93 and 94 below:
[81] bhaa-ndu bhá -lííngá?
2- people 2-how many „How many people?‟
[82] muu-ndu alikwi?
1 -person who? „Which person? (who?) „
4.6 Order of elements in Nyiha noun Phrase
In Nyiha, a noun phrase can constitute one or several dependents. When more than one dependents team up in a single NP, they do not occur randomly but they follow a certain order. Below are some possible combinations and their orders: however, ordering of one to three dependents is common and it does not rise so much constraints. The interesting part could be ordering elements that are beyond four.
Two dependents belonging to different categories can modify an NP. In example 96 below, the noun bhaa-ntu „people‟ is followed by two dependents; the adjective á- bhiínji „many‟ and the intensifier nkaani „very‟. The order of these dependents is strict in that they cannot exchange positions. In Nyiha, therefore, the intensifier must follow the adjective it intensifies. Placing the intensifier in the pre-adjectival position leads to an ill-formed construction as shown in [83]:
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[83]* bhaatu nkaani biinji ba-afuye
2-people Int- 2-many 2-die-PERF- PL „So many people died‟.
As opposed to a well constructed one in [84];
[84] bhaa-ntu a-bhiinji nkaani bha-fuuye
2-people many very- 2- die-PERF- PL „So many people die‟.
However, strict ordering of two dependents as in [84] above does not apply to all categories. For instance, when the adjective occurs with a numeral, the two may exchange positions without affecting the meaning and grammaticality of an NP. In the numeral wooka „one‟ and the adjective umpiti „big‟ can freely exchange positions. And so do the numeral ne „four‟ and the adjective iilu‟black‟ in example
[86].
[85] (a) i-ikwi lyooka i-ipiti
3-tree 3-one -3-big „One big tree‟.
(b) i-ikwi i-ipiti lyooka
3-tree 3-big 3-on ‟One big tree‟.
[86] (a) bhá-ána bane abh-iilu
2-child four 2- black ‟Four black childre‟.
(b) bhá-áná abh-iilu bhane
2- child 2-black four „Four black children‟.
There may be three dependents in a single NP. In [87] below, the possessive waane
„my‟, the numeral wooka „one‟ and the adjective muunsi ‟small‟ all follow the head
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noun mwáana „child‟. Similarly, in [88] there are three dependents modifying the noun ijeembe „hoe‟. The possessive lyáho „your‟ and the adjective lyiinza „good‟, follow the noun while the demonstrative liila „that‟ precedes the head noun.
[87] mw-aana wane w-ooka um-uunsi ateezile
1-child 1 -my 1- one 1- small SM-PRES-get lost ‟One small child of mine is lost‟.
[88] i-jeembe liila ilyaaho ily-iinza livunjishile
5- hoe Dem your 5-good PRES-break-PASS „That good hoe of yours is broken‟.
It is evident from [87] and [88] above that the possessive occupies a fixed position immediately after the head noun and any attempt to move it to a different position may lead to an ill-formed NP as in [89] and [90] below:
[89] *umw-ááná wooka uwaane u-muunsi ateezile
1- child one 1- my 1-small SM-PRES- get lost *‟One small child of mine is lost‟.
[90] *umw-ááná u-muunsi waane wooka ateezile
1-child 1-small 1-my one SM-PRES-get lost *‟ One small child of mine is lost‟.
4.6.1 Order of four dependents
Four dependents may surround the head noun in Nyiha. In example [91], the demonstrative shiila „that‟ , the possessive sháane „my‟, the adjective shihozu
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„sharp‟ and the relative construction shee naalemile „which I held‟, all modify a single head noun shiisu „knife‟.
[91] shiila ishiisu shaane ishihozu shee naalemile shiila shi-vunzishile
DEM 7-knife my 7-sharp REL-hold DEM 7-Perf- break
„That sharp knife of mine which I held is broken „.
The relative construction and the adjective presented in 91 above may exchange positions. Therefore, it is possible in Nyiha to place the relative construction before the adjective or in any position other than the end of an NP. This is further illustrated in the following examples:
[92] i-mbuzi iny-iinsi inyiilu zitatu zwee zyaatezile ziloleshile
10-goat -10-small black three REL-escape- Perf SM-find
„Three small black goats which escaped have been found‟
[93] imbuzi zwee zwaatezile inyiilu iny-iinsi- zitatu ziloleshile
10-goats REL- escape-PST three -10-small PERF find
„Three small black goats which escaped have been found‟
4.6.2 Order of five dependents
Five dependents can modify an NP in Nyiha. In example 94 below, the head is followed by five dependents, namely a possessive, numeral, an ordinal, an adjective and a relative clause. Similarly, in example [95] the demonstrative, the possessive, the adjective, the associative and the relative clause modify the head.
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[94] illiji lyabo lyooka ilyá- kwaanda-liila –iipiti lye lyaa-nyetulilwe ilii iipa
5-egg their one ASS- first 5- Dem big REL 5 PASS take Dem
‟One big first egg of theirs which was taken is here‟.
[95] uula umw-ááná wiinu umuunsi uwá kumbeeye wee ayiinzile magwiila mubhiinu
DEM 1- child your ASS-1-small of 17-Mbeya REL- PSTcome yesterday -
PRES-sick
„That small child of yours from Mbeya who came yesterday is sick‟
4.6.3 Order of six dependents
A more complex Nyiha NP can have up to six dependents, although this can hardly be uttered in normal conversation. In the sentence below, the possessive procedes the head noun and the other five dependents which are the demonstrative, the quantifier, the numeral, the associative construction and the adjective follow the head noun:
[96] a-amaji giinu gaala a-miinza goonti gasaanu gee gaa-fumile kwiyuula ga- pasushile
Aug-6-egg Poss Dem –Aug-6 good Quant Num Rel PASS bring from17-Iyul
6-Perf break
„All those five good eggs of yours from Iyula are broken‟.
The above analysis reveals that there are ten elements which can function as NP dependents in Nyiha. These elements have been identified as demonstratives (DEM), distributives (DISTR), possessives (POSS), adjectives (ADJ), numerals (NUM), quantifiers (QUANT), relative constructions (REL), associative constructions (ASS), intensifiers (INT) as well as interrogative markers (INTER). However, due to some
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co-occurrence and recurrence constraints (cf. 4.6), it is not possible to include all ten elements in the same NP and as a result, the longest Nyiha NP can hardly go beyond six dependents.
As regards the order of these dependents, it has been observed that in Nyiha NP some elements seem to occupy fixed positions, while others allow some flexibility. Five elements, namely demonstratives, distributives, possessives, intensifiers, and interrogatives seem to be highly restricted in their positions. The demonstrative and the distributive strictly occupy the position before the head noun and the two cannot co-occur. The possessive has its position immediately after the head noun and the intensifier must follow the adjective it intensifies. The interrogative and part of the demonstrative occupy the final position in an NP. The two cannot co-occur and their presence restricts the occurrence of any other dependents after them. Other elements including numerals, adjectives, intensifiers, relative clauses, associative constructions and quantifiers may exchange positions in the slot between the possessive and the demonstrative particle or interrogative. This can be summarized in the following
Table
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Table 4.4: Nyiha Noun Phrase Template
01 0 1 2
PRED Noun Determiners Modifiers 1 Modifiers 2
DISTR N A B C D E F G
POSS DEM NUM QUANT ADJ INT REL
4.7 Recurrence and Co-occurrence of Elements in Nyiha NP
4.7.1 Recurrence of the Elements in Nyiha NP
If elements of the same category can appear more than once in the same NP, such elements are said to display the characteristics of recurrence. In Nyiha, two categories of elements, namely the adjective category and the relative construction have been noted to show this behaviour in an NP.
More than one adjective may be stacked in a single NP provided they belong to different subcategories such as size, shape, colour, etc in order to avoid semantic repetition. Example [97] presents an NP with a series of three adjectives: mutaali
„tall‟,mw iilu „black‟ and mwiinza „good‟.
[97] u mu- ntu umu -tali u mw -iinza umw -iilu ayiinzile
1- person - 1- tall 1 -good 1 - black SM-arrive-PERF „The tall black good person has arrived‟
The adjectives in 107 above belong to different subcategories, i.e. height, colour, and behaviour. When adjectives belong to the same semantic category, stacking is not
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possible and any attempt to do so may result in an ill-formed NP as in example [98] below:
[98] *ishiisu- shooka ishiinsi shipiti shi-sovile
7-knife NUM- 7-small 7- big 7SM- PERF- loose *‟One small big knife has been lost‟
As shown in example [98] above, stacking of the two adjectives shiinsi „small‟, and shipiti „big‟ does not result in a well formed sentence since they both belong to the category of dimension.
Another category of elements which can recur in the Nyiha is the relative construction. There may be two or more relative clauses modifying the head noun.
Example [99] presents a sentence with two relative clauses:
[99] umujaaha uula wee afumile kuzaambia, wee azwaaye imputuule mubhiinu
1-boy Dem- REL-come from 17-Zambia REL- SM –PRES wear 5-short 5- sick
„The boy who comes from Zambia, who is wearing a short, is sick‟
4.7.2 Co-occurrence of the Demonstrative and Possessive.
If two elements can occur together in a noun phrase, such elements are said to display characteristics of co-occurrence. In most cases, elements which can co-occur in an NP belong to different syntactic categories. It is on such grounds that co- occurrence is regarded as one of the criteria for category membership.
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In Nyiha data it is pointed that the possessive frequently occurs immediately after a head noun. In only one order the two did co-occur (N Poss Dem) and the possessive comes immediately after the head noun. It is only one order that has the demonstrative occurring immediately after the head noun in all data
[100] (a) N Dem Poss A i-nk-uku iino i-ya-ane i- nz-elu Aug-9-hen Dem Aug-9-Poss Aug-9-Adj
N Poss Dem A i-nk-uku i-ya-ane iino i-nz-elu Aug-9-hen Aug-9-Poss Dem Aug-9-Adj
N Poss A Dem i-nk-uku i-ya-ane i-nz-elu iino Aug-9-hen Aug-9-Poss Aug-9-Adj Dem „this white hen/fowl of mine‟
(b) Dem N Poss A * iino i-nk uku i-ya-ane i-nz-elu
Dem Aug-9-hen Aug-9-Poss Aug-9-Adj
(c) Dem N Poss A iino nku-uku ya-ane nze-elu
Dem 9-hen 9-Poss 9-Adj
„this is my white hen/fowl‟
(d) Dem N Poss A iino nku-uku yaane i-inz-elu
Dem 9-hen 9-Poss Aug-9-Adj
„this is the white hen / fowl of mine‟
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The Nyiha data in [100] above indicates that (i) both the possessive and demonstrative may occur immediately after the head noun, (ii) when the possessive immediately follows the head noun it must drop a pre-prefix, and (iii) the demonstrative can not preced the head noun otherwise the meaning changes. In [100] indicates that when the two elements co-occur in a Nyiha NP, both the possessive and demonstrative may occur immediately after the head noun. But when the possessive immediately follows the head noun it must drop a pre- prefix. [100] b) indicates that the demonstrative can not preced the head noun as the possessive has a pre-prefix, if so, the sentence becomes ill-formed. And [100] c&d) give the other different meanings conveyed by the same order of element but with different morphology. It can be noted that in [100] c) all the augments get dropped and the
Semantics resulted is associated with an indefinite noun. But [100] d) the augment in the adjective iinzelu is maintained and it functions to indicate definitiness or specificity. This issue, i.e the free movement of a demonstrative, an adjective and a possessive is also observed by Carstens (1993) for Swahili.
The notion determiner vs. modifier gets further clarification if we borrow some ideas from European languages (cf. Givon, 2001; Dryer, 2007). Determiners occur only before head nouns, i.e to the far left of the NP to indicate definiteness/ indefiniteness.
On the other hand, modifiers give further description of the head nouns and occur after the determiners. But in Bantu languages, the notion determiner is questioned because some Bantu languages have claimed to possess no overt articles for example
Swahili ( Carstens, 1993) but when the noun drops its augment then adnominal demonstratives take over the determiner position (Van de Velde, 2005).
For Nyiha we noted that both sets of determiners, i.e. possessives and demonstratives occur immediately after the head nouns but the two sets of modifiers occur after the
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determiners. In other words, in their co-occurrence in a single NP, determiners occur immediately after the head noun and modifiers-1 are intermediate as they occur after the determiners, and the final position is occupied by intensifiers and relative clauses that are modifiers -2.
4.8 The upper limit of noun dependents in Nyiha NP
Although it was pointed out earlier that a more complex Nyiha NP can take as many as six dependents, in normal conversation such complex NPs are not so common. A normal Nyiha NP can hardly go beyond four dependents. This is because there is a tendency among speakers to avoid long and complex constructions.
The findings also reveal that demonstratives are the most frequently occurring elements in Nyiha NPs. This is because, unlike other elements which perform only single function, demonstratives are multifunctional as they can show proximity and definiteness.
4.9 Conclusion
This Chapter has analyzed the Nyiha noun, the noun class system and has identified the type of elements that can occur with the head noun in the NP. It has been noted in the course of this analysis that several elements can team up to modify the NP in
Nyiha. These include demonstratives (DEM), distributives (DISTR), possessives
(POSS), adjectives (ADJ), numerals (NUM), quantifiers (QUANT), relative constructions (REL), associative constructions (ASS), intensifiers (INT) as well as interrogative markers (INTER). It has also been noted in the Chapter that there are some recurrence and co-occurrence restrictions among some of these elements. In the last section of the Chapter, it has been revealed that noun phrases which are
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conjoined pose a problem in verbal. The following Chapter is going to provide a summary, a conclusion, and recommendations in relation to the findings discussed in this chapter.
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CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.0 Introduction
This finalizing chapter has the main focus on the reflection on the objectives of the study. Therefore, it provides a summary and conclusion of the presentations and discussions provided in the previous chapters. The chapter also gives a summary of answers to the questions posed in chapter one, and finally the recommendation and suggestions for further studies will be dealt with.
5.1 Summary of the findings
The main concern for this study was to describe the categories of noun modifiers in the process of noun phrase formation in Nyiha language. The study also concentrated on examining the ordering and co-occurrence of elements of noun phrase in the language. The findings of this study revealed that the characteristic of on noun phrase formation in Nyiha is to a great extent similar to other Bantu languages.
For instance while Rugemalira (2007) claims that the syntactic criteria pertain to the position that an element may occupy in the noun phrase and limits on co-occurrence of an element with other elements. But if an element can not co-occur with another it may be because the two occupy the same syntactic position and stacking is not permitted. This is evident in Nyiha possessive and adjective as well as in these examples:
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[101] (a) Inyuumba yaakwe yiinyu *„his/her your house‟
(b) umujaaha umiilu umuzelu *„the black white boy‟
Through this study about five important ideas were discovered. First the possessive is usually placed at a fixed position in the order of three elements mostly it comes immediatelly after noun. Umwana waane uula umuunsi „(N Poss Dem Adj).
„that little child of mine‟ when the ordering may be altered the meaning of the phrase is affected as for; umwana uula umuunsi waane (N Dem Adj Poss) „the little child is mine‟.
Second, even though some Bantu languages (Kiswahili, Mbungwe and Makuwa allow the demonstrative or both the possessive and demonstrative to occur before the head noun Amani (2009) it is not permitted in the Nyiha noun phrase.
[102] Swahili G42 N +poss+Adj+A+Dem+Num (Krifka 1985)
(Dem)+N+Poss+ (Dem)+ (Num)+A+(Num) (Polome 1967)
Makhuwa P30 (Dem)+ N+(Poss)+(Dem)+ other elements
Nyiha Uumushi uula umtoosu uwaakwe afuuye „his kind wife is dead‟
N+ (Dem) + Adj+ (Poss) +other elements.
Thirdly, about nine elements can function as Noun Phrase dependents in Nyiha; however, the Nyiha noun phrase can hardly go beyond six dependents if more than that it may lead to stacking which will raise constraints on the meaning of the phrase.
The nine elements are DEM, POSS, ADJ, DIST, NUM, QUANT, REL, ASS, and
INT, some of these dependents like Distributive and Interrogative constructions are limited in their usage.
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The other interesting idea in Nyiha is that; both the possessive and demonstrative may occur immediately after the head noun,; when the possessive immediately follows the head noun it must drop a pre-prefix, as in; a-baliindu baabo, „their girls‟ as it is opposed to a-balliindu a-baabo, ‘their girls‟ and the demonstrative can not preced the head noun otherwise the meaning changes.
[103]
(a)Dem N Poss A * iiyo i-nkuu-nda i-ya-ane i-nz-elu
(b)Dem N Poss A iino nkuunda ya-ane nze-elu „this is my white peagonl‟
(c)Dem N Poss A iino nkuunda yaane i-inz-elu „this is the white peagon of mine‟
The construction of the above phrases is the same but with different functional maeanings. However, by maintaining a class prefix (AUG) i- the NP in (a) is ill formed and thus unacceptable to the users of the language.
Lastly, the ordering of the demonstrative is fixed maily as a post head word in normal construction on the nyiha noun phrase. But in the constructions with more than five dependents, the demonstrative may be moved in a pre head position.as it can be observed in the following
[104]uula umwana waane wooka umpiti umtali umwiilu
Dem N Poss Num Adj Adj Adj
But such construction is restricted on Nyakyusa noun phrase as in
Umwaana gwangu uju jumo unywamu umpiimba untiitu
N Poss Dem Num Adj Adj Adj
Source; Amani (2009)
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5.2 Answering Research questions
In the is process of analysing and describing Noun Phrase in Nyiha, the research questions that guided this study have been answered. This section summarises the answers to the questions. Two questions guided this study; the first one was:
What are the word categories that modify the Nyiha noun? The answer to this question is that in the process of forming noun phrase the Nyiha noun allow to nine word elements that can modify it, they include possessives, demonstratives,
Adjectives, relatives, interrogatives, numerals, quantifiers, associatives and intensifiers. The most commonly used categories are Poss. , Dem. , Adj., Rel.,
Quant and Ass. Almost all noun dependents post modify the headword in Nyiha language and the possessive and in demonstratives immediately follow the headword. Other noun elements are free movers and usually they come after Dem.
And Poss.
The second question read: What are the noun dependents that co-occur in the Nyiha
NP and in which order? In Nyiha it has been noted that both sets of determiners i.e. demonstratives and possessives occur immediately after the head nouns but the two sets of modifiers occur after the determiners. In other respect, in their co-occurrence a single NP, determiners occur immediately after the head noun and modifiers are intermediate as they occur after the determiners, and the final position is occupied by intensifiers and relative clauses thus in some cases they are referred to as modifiers-
2.
Generally it can be concluded that throughout this study, the various ordering of the elements in the noun phrase in Nyiha have been discussed. The conclusion drawn was as follows; about nine dependents of head noun were attested in Nyiha data as
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exemplified in 5.2 above. A quick glance at the data may point out that it is true that the rules for the ordering of the elements within NPs are open because various possibilities of using two noun dependents for a noun phrase are attested. Also, the possessives, demonstratives, numerals and quantifiers may occur immediately after the head noun.
Another important issue discussed in this study is the preferred order of elements. It has been concluded here that the likely preferred order in Nyiha is 0 1 2 where a head noun here (labeled 0) co-occurs with the determiner (labeled 1) and a modifier
(labeled 2). Such number systems and labels are borrowed from (Rugemalira 2007:
147).
5.1 Order of elements in Bantu languages
01 0 1 2 Pred. Noun Determiners Modifiers-1 Modifiers-2 A B C D E F G Distr. N Poss Dem Num Quant A Int Rel
According to Rugemalira (ibid) the preffered order of the Bantu languages is 01 0 1 2 which is refuted by the Nyiha data and it is the order of 0 1 2 with the elements as in
(105):
(105) (a) N Dem A u- m- sookile uula u- m- limi
Aug -1- stranger Dem Aug-1-cultivator.
„that cultivator stranger‟
(b) N Quant Int. a- baa -ntu a- b- ingi nkaani
Aug-2-person Aug-2-Qunt Int
„so many people‟
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5.3 Recommendetions for further study.
The scope of this study is the elements that constitute noun phrase structures in
Nyiha. As far as this language is concerned, just a few studies have been done by few linguists; however, most of these studies pay no attention to the syntax of the language. Thus the situation leaves areas like noun and verb morphology, phonological aspects, tense and aspect systems of the language uncovered. In this case it calls for the linguists to conduct studies on the just mentioned aspects.
This study also based on data collected from Nyiha spoken in Mbozi district. But we have seen in chapter two that Nyiha speaking communities are scattered in many other areas of northern Zambia and Western Malawi.Therefore,it is worth thinking on conducting studies of comparative nature of aspects related to this language.
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DATA COLLECTION TECHNIQUES.
Apendex 1. Elicitation method.
This has been the primary technique of data colletion for this work. This method enables the researcher to elicit i.e to draw out concise information, either in writing or in speech aimed at a certain phenomenon (Petzell, 2008). In this work elicitation was administered both by means of questionnaires and interviews. Both translational elicitation „ how do you say [……..] as well as non-translation elicitation (Samarin
1967), „Tell me about […….] or „can you say […..] were used
THE QUESTIONNAIRE FOR NOUN PHRASE ELEMENTS
Below is a sample of filled out questionnaire. It was filled in normal orthography in
Nyiha by the researcher after receiving responses from Mrs. Maston Shitindi ( Faida
Lwenje) in March, 2012). The researcher described and transcribed the questionnaire
Sehemu ya 1 (Part 1)
Maelekezo ya jumla (General information)
Jibu maswali yafuatayo kwa kifupi (answer the following questions in Nyiha)
1. Jinsia yako ni (your sex) KE na umri wako ni miaka(your age) 42
2. Ulizaliwa katika kijiji cha( born in a village called) Sambewe kata ya (ward)
Isansa na wilaya ya (district) Mbozi
3. sasa unaishi katika kijiji cha ( you live in a village called) Ruanda kata ya (ward)
Iyula na wilaya ya (district) Mbozi
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4 . lugha uazoweza kuongea (languages you speak) lugha ya kwanza ni (Mother tongue) Nyiha na lugha nyingine ni (other languages) Kiswahili.
5. lugha ya kwanza ya mama yako ni (your mother‟s mother tongue) Nyiha. na lugha ya kwanza ya baba yako ni (your father‟s MT) Nyiha
Sehemu 2 (Part 2)
Noun phrase qustionnaire
Tafadhari naomba ushirikiano wako ili kujua matumizi ya lugha yetu ya Kinyiha.
(I beg your cooperation to know how do we use our Nyiha language in various situations)
Kwa kutumia Kinyiha unawezaje kusema sentensi zifuatazo?
(how can you say the following in Nyiha language?) i) Mtoto wangu wa kwanza anaumwa. (my first child is sick) u-mwa-ana wane uwa-kwaanda mubiinu
1-stem- Dem- NCP- Ord- Pres ii) Mti mkubwa mrefu sana umeanguka ( a big and very tall tree has fallen) ii - kwi ii-piti ii -tali nkaani liguuye
NCP-Stem- CP-big CP-big – Int perf. iii) Hili ni shamba langu mwenyewe (this is my own farm) i-guunda ii-li lyaane neeka
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Pre-Stem NCP-Dem –Poss own iv) Yule ni mbuzi wako na hao ni wa kwake ( that is your goat and those are his/her‟s) ii- mbuzi y -iila y -aaho z -iila z- yaaho
NCP-Stem- NCP-Dem. NCP-Poss- NC-Dem NC- Poss v) watoto hao waliiba pesa zangu ( those children stole my money) a –ba -ana ii- bo bi- bile intalama zy-aane
NCP- Stem NCP-Dem. Pst N- NCP-Poss. vi) watu hawa wote watano wanatoka Rukwa (all those five people are from Rukwa) a-baa-ntu aa- ba bo-onti ba- saanu ba- kufuma ku- ruukwa
NCP- stem- Dem- NCP-Quant NC- Num -NCP-from- Rukwa vii) wanaume wale wote wa mwanzo wanne walifika mapema ( all those first four people arrived ealier) aba-naavuli boonti ba-ala ba-ne aba- kubwaandilo ba-fishile
NCP- Stem- Quant- NCP- Dem. –Num –NCP – Ord NCP- Perf. viii) kisu hicho cha chuma ni kikali sana ( that iron knife is very sharp) ix) msichana mrefu, mweupe na mrembo ameolewa jana ( the short, white and beautiful girl has been married yesterday)
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u-mu-liintu u-muutali , u-muzelu uula u-mwiinza ayi- malliilwe magwiila
1 - Stem- 1-Adj. 1 - Adj. Dem- Adj 1- PST x) wanafunzi walipitia kanjia kembamba kwenda shuleni (students passed through a narrow passway to school.
Aba-nsukuulu baa-tushile a-ha-dala a-ha-ansi kusogola ku-nsukuulu
2 - Stem -2 - Perf- 12- Stem- Adj - 12 - Stem xi) wameenda shambani kwao woote watano ( all five people have gone to their farm) boonti basaanu ba- sogooye ku- shiizi sha-abo
Qunt. Num 2- Perf 17- Stem xii) ng‟ombe Yule mmoja ambaye alikuwa ameibiwa ameuwawa kule chini (the cow that was stolen is killed downward) i-ng‟oombe yi- ila yooka ye bi-biile ba-yigozile ku-lutala
NCP- Dem Num Rel. 2-Perf -Perf 12-stem xiii) vijana wengi sana waliopita hapa wako wapi? ( where are the big number of youth who have just passed here?
Aba-jaaha abi-inji nkaani be ba-tuushile iipa balikwii
2 – stem 2- Adj. Int Rel.-2- Pst Dem- Inter.
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xiv) hiki ni kitu gani? (what is this?) shooni ishi
Inter Dem xv)wasichana wake wa kwanza na wa pili hawajafika ( his/her first and second daughter have not arrived) aba- liintu ba-akwe uwa kwaanda nu wa bu-bili ba-tafishile
2 -stem 2- Poss Ass Ord Ass Ord 2- Pres
Sehemu ya 3 (Part 3).
Jibu maswali yafuatayo kwa kinyiha (Answer the following questions in Nyiha)
Sasa unaongea kuhusu nyumba yako ( here you talk about your house)
1. Sema kwa kinyiha; hii nyumba yangu ndogo
I -nyuumba ya-ane ii-no nyi- insi
House 2- Poss- Dem - Adj.
„This is my small house‟
2.Nyuumba izya-ane zyee na-zee-nzile kumlowo
House- 2 – Poss Ass -2- built Mlowo
„My house I constructed at Mlowo
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Hapa unaongea kuhusu kazi ya kulima (here you talk about cultivation task)
3.mwambie mwanao sifa za jembe uliloazima ikiwa linakufaa au hapana
Jembe la jirani yangu ni zuuri sana i-jeembe ilya jirani wa-ane lyiinza nkaani ( my neighbour‟s hoe is very good)
5- hoe -Ass neighbough – 2-Dem. Adj Int
4. mtaarifu kaka yako kuhusu mazao utakayoyapanda katika shamba mliloenda kulilima juzi.
(inform your brother what are you going to plant on the plot you cultivated a day before yesterday.
Ku-mguunda we twa- alimile iigolo inkubwaala impaalala na mangaagu
17- farm Rel. 2Ass- pst-cultivate - plant -groundnuts -maaize.
Kwa sasa unaongea kuhusu familia yako. (you talk about your family)
5.Niambie historai fupi ya familia yako kwa kinyiha (what‟s your family‟s short history)
Inkaaya yaane yili na baantu basaanu; abaane biitu bali batatu umuliintu wooka na bajaaha babili. Umuliintu apapiilwe umwaha wa 90. na bajaaha wooka wa 92 ubuunji gwa 95. Bhonti bakusambiilila insukulu kumbeeye.Umulume waane wu shitiindia. a-kuboomba imboombo iya buseremaara. a)i- nkaaja ya-ane yi-li na baa-ntu ba-saanu
NCP-family- 2-Poss NC-consists 2-people 2-Num
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(my family consists of five members) b) aba-ana bi-inntu bali ba-tatu umu-liintu wooka na ba-jaaha ba-bili
2-child -2 Poss 2- Num -1- girl Num 2- boys 2-Num
(we have three children, one daughter and two sons) c)umu- liintu a-papiilwe umw-aaha wa 90.
1- girl 1- PST 5- year Ass.
(The girl was born in 1990) d) aba-jaaha wooka wa 92 ubuu-nji wa 95
2- son Num. Ass 1992 2- other Ass 1995
(for the sons one was born in 1992 and the other 19195) e) boonti ba-kusambiilila i-nsukuulu ku-mbeeye
Quant 2- studying school 17- Mbeya
( all boys are schooling in Mbeya) f) umu- lume waa-ne wu Shitindi
1- husband -1- Poss Ass.
(my husband‟s name is Shitindi) g) a- kuboomba imbombo i-ya buselemaala
1- work job Ass carpenter.
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(he woks as a carpenter)
The informant’s short story English version.
My family consists of five members.We have three children; one daughter and two sons. The daughter was born in 1990 and one of the son was born in 1992 and the other in 1995. All of our children are schooling in Mbeya. My husband is Shitindi and is working as a carpenter.
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