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A Morpho-Semantic Analysis of the Persistive, Alterative and Inceptive Aspects in Siswati

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A Morpho-Semantic Analysis of the Persistive, Alterative and Inceptive Aspects in Siswati Nichols, Peter John (2011) A morpho‐semantic analysis of the persistive, alterative and inceptive aspects in siSwati. PhD thesis, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies). http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/12769/ Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. 1 UNIVERSITY OF LONDON School of Oriental and African Studies A Morpho-semantic Analysis of the Persistive, Alterative and Inceptive Aspects in siSwati A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics by Peter John Nichols February 22nd 2011 2 I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the School of Oriental and African Studies concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part by any other person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination. Peter John Nichols 3 Abstract This study develops an analysis of three aspects in siSwati, a southern African Bantu language spoken in Swaziland and South Africa: PERSISTIVE aspect, encoded by the aspect marker -sa-, ALTERATIVE aspect, encoded by -se - and INCEPTIVE aspect encoded by be-. A distinctive characteristic of two of the aspects is that they link two separate time periods and so I have described them as dual-time period aspects. One is the PERSISTIVE which is an aspect already well-documented and studied cross-linguistically in the Bantu languages and other groups and the other I have analysed as the ALTERATIVE which is a new term I have applied to an aspect not formerly recognized in linguistic studies. The PERSISTIVE aspect links two separate time periods in which an activity is persisting in both or not persisting in both, while the ALTERATIVE aspect links two separate time periods with an activity polarity switch (same activity) or an activity switch (different activity). The INCEPTIVE aspect indicates the beginning of (with stative verbs), or entry into (with dynamic verbs) a situation or state. In siSwati temporal cognition, change (ALTERATIVE ) is afforded greater salience than continuity (PERSISTIVE ). The PERSISTIVE has two senses differentiated by whether external forces are surmounted or not, so a PERSISTIVE aspect which describes a situation that continues unopposed is ‘weak’, and one which describes a situation surmounting obstacles is ‘strong’ and -sa- encodes ‘weak’ PERSISTIVE . The ALTERATIVE has a sub-sense which encodes Exclusivity. The analysis is set within the framework of the cognitive linguistic enterprise and draws on Botne and Kershner's cognitive approach to the analysis of Bantu TAM systems (Botne and Kershner, 2008) and their tertiary timeline, dual domain cognitive model which can be used effectively to represent and analyse the dual-time period aspects. Fauconnier’s Mental Spaces Theory supplemented by Cutrer's recent work is also applied in representing my research findings (Cutrer, 1994, Fauconnier, 1985) and the cognitive approach produces fresh insights into the roles of -sa - and -se - as space builders and dual-time period aspect markers and be- as a tense/aspect marker and auxiliary. 4 Contents: Page Acknowledgements 10 Abbreviations 11 1. Introduction 14 2. Overview of siSwati Structure 19 2.1 Definition of central terms and concepts 19 2.2 Morpho-syntactic overview of siSwati 25 2.2.1 Noun classes and agreement 26 2.2.2 The siSwati verb 28 2.2.3 Tense, Aspect and Mood morphology 29 2.2.3.1 TAM systems – a general overview 29 2.2.3.2 TAM systems – a siSwati overview 34 2.2.4 Verbal aspect and aspectual inflection in statives 44 2.3 The moods in siSwati 45 2.3.1 INDICATIVE mood 46 2.3.1.1 INDICATIVE sub-mood: PARTICIPIAL 51 2.3.1.2 INDICATIVE sub-mood: Compound tenses 53 2.3.1.3 INDICATIVE sub-mood: Compound tenses: Stative 61 2.3.1.4 INDICATIVE sub-mood: Compound tenses: FUTURE 63 2.3.1.5 INDICATIVE sub-mood: Compound tenses: REMOTE PAST 65 2.3.2 POTENTIAL mood 67 2.3.3 SUBJUNCTIVE mood 68 2.3.4 IMPERATIVE mood 69 2.3.5 INFINITIVE mood 69 2.4 Copulative predication 70 2.5 Word order 72 2.6 Summary 73 5 3. Methodology 74 3.1 Introduction 74 3.2 Elicitation Tools for siSwati fieldwork 76 3.3 Overview of methodology 86 3.4 The interview (imibutfo ) stage 91 3.5 The examples ( tibonelo ) stage (consultant discussions) 95 3.6 Morphological analysis 97 3.7 Methodological issues 99 3.8 Summary 102 4. The encoding of PERSISTIVE aspect in siSwati 103 4.1 Introduction 103 4.2 The PERSISTIVE aspect in siSwati 104 4.3 The PERSISTIVE as a dual-time period aspect and the intervening period 107 4.4 The PERSISTIVE in ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ situations 110 4.5 The encoding of PERSISTIVE aspect by -sa- > -se- 114 4.6 The PERSISTIVE and the aspect marker -se - 120 4.7 Negation, aspectuality and the counter-expectational in siSwati 126 4.8 The PERSISTIVE and stative verbs 131 4.9 The ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ PERSISTIVE and PERFECTIVE compound tenses 137 4.10 The semantic duality of conjunction and auxiliary solo 141 4.11 Situational analysis of PERSISTIVE and ALTERATIVE aspectuality 151 4.12 Summary 153 5. The encoding of ALTERATIVE aspect in siSwati 155 5.1 Introduction 155 5.2 The ALTERATIVE aspect in siSwati 156 5.2.1 A semantic review of the ALTERATIVE aspect 160 6 5.3 The ALTERATIVE aspect marker -se- with nyalo and manje 164 5.4 Phonological change of the ALTERATIVE -se- 173 5.5 The ALTERATIVE Exclusivity sub-sense 178 5.5.1 Polarity and ALTERATIVE Exclusivity sub-sense 180 5.5.2 Aspectual analysis of ANTERIOR, ALTERATIVE and Exclusivity 183 5.5.3 A semantic analysis of se-nga-ka 184 5.5.4 A morphological analysis of se-nga-ka 186 5.5.5 Re-analysis of the siSwati aspectual taxonomy 187 5.6 Constructions and compounds with the ALTERATIVE auxiliary -se- 190 5.7 Reduplication of aspectual markers 200 5.8 The morpho-semantic complexity of the dual-time period aspect markers 202 5.9 The REMOTE FUTURE tense and the ALTERATIVE 205 5.9.1 The negative FUTURE marker ngeke and the ALTERATIVE 205 5.10 Summary 208 6. Encoding the INCEPTIVE and CONDITIONAL aspects in siSwati 210 6.1 Introduction 210 6.2 The compound tenses with tense/aspect marker be - and auxiliary -be 211 6.3 Be- as IMPERFECTIVE aspect marker in the compound tenses 214 6.4 INCEPTIVE and CONDITIONAL aspectuality 221 6.5 Analytic and contracted compound forms 228 6.6 A morpho-semantic analysis of the auxiliary ngabe 233 6.7 Summary 235 7. The salience of change ( ALTERATIVE ) and continuity (PERSISTIVE ) in siSwati temporal cognition 237 7.1 Introduction 237 7.2 Analysis of the role of adjectives in siSwati 237 7.3 A cognitive linguistics approach to change and continuity 241 7 7.4 Tense selection, change and continuity 242 7.5 Cognitive models of time, dual-time period aspects and change and continuity 244 7.6 Summary 248 8. The analytical application of Mental Spaces Theory 250 8.1 Introduction 250 8.2 Mental Spaces Theory 250 8.2.1 Mental Spaces Theory and tense-aspect in everyday language 268 8.3 Analytical application of Mental Spaces Theory 276 8.4 Summary 297 9. The analytical application of Botne and Kershner’s cognitive model of Bantu TAM systems 299 9.1 Introduction 299 9.2 EGO -centred and time-based cognitive models for time 301 9.2.1 Cognitive model for [MOVING TIME] (English) 301 9.2.2 Cognitive model for [MOVING EGO] (English) 302 9.2.3 [TEMPORAL SEQUENCE] cognitive model 303 9.3 Cognitive models of time and the siSwati TAM System 306 9.3.1 Cognitive models and grammaticalization of FUTURE markers 309 9.4 Overview of Botne & Kershner’s cognitive linguistics approach 311 9.4.1 Aspectuality in the Privileged and Dissociated domains 317 9.4.2 The Organising Principles applied to Nugunu 322 9.5 Botne and Kershner’s cognitive model and the siSwati TAM system 325 9.6 Botne & Kershner’s model as analytical tool 332 9.6.1 The joint role of conjunction/auxiliary solo with PERSISTIVE -sa- 332 9.6.2 ALTERATIVE aspect in greetings and responses 338 9.6.3 PERFECT tense/aspect and ALTERATIVE -se - 341 9.6.4 ALTERATIVE with FUTURE tenses ( SIMPLE and IMPERFECTIVE ) 347 8 9.6.5 Counter-expectational ALTERATIVE and ‘strong’ PERSISTIVE 352 9.7 Summary 355 10. Conclusions 357 10.1 Re-analysis of the siSwati system 361 10.2 Taxonomy of compound tenses in siSwati 363 10.3 Relevance to current understanding and implications for future research 365 References 367 Appendices 370 Appendix 1 Pictogram conventions 370 2 Pictograms Absolute tenses INDICATIVE captioned 374 3 Pictograms Absolute tenses INDICATIVE uncaptioned 381 4 Pictograms Relative tenses INDICATIVE captioned 388 5 Pictograms Stative tenses INDICATIVE captioned 395 6 Pictograms STATIVE PERFECT tenses INDICATIVE captioned 399 7 Time Line Sheets and Time Reference Symbols 403 8 Research interview sheet 411 Text conventions: 1.
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