Forming Wh-Questions in Shona: a Comparative Bantu Perspective Jason Zentz Yale University, [email protected]

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Forming Wh-Questions in Shona: a Comparative Bantu Perspective Jason Zentz Yale University, Jason.Zentz@Yale.Edu Yale University EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale Linguistics Graduate Dissertations Department of Linguistics Spring 5-2016 Forming Wh-Questions in Shona: A Comparative Bantu Perspective Jason Zentz Yale University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ling_graduate Part of the Syntax Commons Recommended Citation Zentz, Jason, "Forming Wh-Questions in Shona: A Comparative Bantu Perspective" (2016). Linguistics Graduate Dissertations. 2. http://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ling_graduate/2 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Linguistics at EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. It has been accepted for inclusion in Linguistics Graduate Dissertations by an authorized administrator of EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract Forming Wh-Questions in Shona: A Comparative Bantu Perspective Jason Arik Zentz 2016 Bantu languages, which are spoken throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa, permit wh- questions to be constructed in multiple ways, including wh-in-situ, full wh-movement, and partial wh-movement. Shona, a Bantu language spoken by about 13 million people in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, allows all three of these types. In this dissertation, I conduct the first in-depth examination of Shona wh-questions, drawing on fifty hours of elicitation with a native speaker consultant to explore the derivational relationships among these strategies. Wh-in-situ questions have received a wide variety of treatments in the syntactic lit- erature, ranging from covert or disguised movement to postsyntactic binding of the wh- phrase by a silent question operator. In Bantu languages, wh-in-situ questions are often taken to be derived via a non-movement relation (e.g., Carstens 2005 for Kilega, Diercks 2010 for Lubukusu, Muriungi 2003 for Kîîtharaka, Sabel 2000 for Kikuyu and Duala, Sabel & Zeller 2006 for Zulu, Schneider-Zioga 2007 for Kinande), but alternatives have rarely been considered. I demonstrate how movement-based analyses that have been proposed for wh-in-situ in non-Bantu languages make the wrong predictions for Shona wh-in-situ, which lacks word order permutation, extraction marking, island effects, and intervention effects. These properties provide support for the traditional Bantuist view that therela- tion between the pronunciation site of an in-situ wh-phrase and its scopal position in the left periphery is not movement; I claim that in Shona it is unselective binding. Many Bantu languages, including Shona, prohibit wh-phrases from appearing in the canonical preverbal subject position. Wasike (2007) demonstrates that this restriction ap- plies to topicalized non-subjects as well as preverbal subjects. I replicate these results for Shona and argue that they cast doubt on Sabel & Zeller’s (2006) attempt to characterize the ban with an appeal to improper movement. I argue instead that restrictions on the distribution of wh-in-situ in Bantu are tied to restrictions on the domain for focus licens- ing. This claim is further bolstered by an examination of crosslinguistic variation within Bantu with respect to whether the ban on in-situ preverbal wh-subjects applies in embed- ded clauses. I observe a previously unnoticed generalization: languages that universally ban in-situ preverbal wh-subjects (like Zulu) have immediately after the verb (IAV) focus effects; languages that do allow in-situ preverbal wh-subjects in embedded clauses (like Shona, Lubukusu, and Kîîtharaka) also lack IAV effects. Full wh-movement in Shona gives rise to questions that bear a certain similarity to En- glish wh-questions. However, using a range of diagnostics including extraction marking, island effects, reconstruction effects, and the distribution of temporal modifiers, Iargue that what appears to be full wh-movement in Shona actually has a cleft structure: the wh-phrase moves to become the head of a relative clause, which is selected by a copula in the matrix clause. Just as in wh-in-situ, an ex-situ wh-phrase is pronounced lower than its scopal position, and the relation between these two positions is established via unselec- tive binding. Additional evidence for this proposal comes from the sensitivity of partial wh-movement to island boundaries below but not above the pronunciation site of the wh- phrase, a pattern that has been predicted by previous analyses (e.g., Abels 2012a, Sabel 2000, Sabel & Zeller 2006) but for which empirical support has been lacking until now. I therefore unify full and partial wh-movement under a single analysis for cleft-based wh- ex-situ that involves a step of relativization (independently needed for relative clauses) and a step of unselective binding (independently needed for wh-in-situ). Forming Wh-Questions in Shona: A Comparative Bantu Perspective A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Jason Arik Zentz Dissertation Directors: Robert Frank & Raffaella Zanuttini May 2016 Copyright © 2016 by Jason Arik Zentz All rights reserved. Contents List of Figures x List of Tables xi List of Abbreviations xii List of Bantu Languages xv Acknowledgments xviii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Wh-question formation strategies ....................... 2 1.2 The Bantu language family ........................... 4 1.3 An introduction to Shona ............................ 6 1.3.1 General background .......................... 6 1.3.2 Source of data .............................. 8 1.3.3 Phonology ................................ 10 1.3.4 Orthography .............................. 13 1.3.5 Morphosyntax ............................. 13 1.3.5.1 Noun classes ......................... 13 1.3.5.2 The verbal complex ..................... 15 1.3.5.3 Sentence structure ...................... 17 iii Contents 1.3.5.4 Wh-questions ........................ 18 1.4 Analytical preliminaries ............................. 21 1.4.1 The morphosyntax of the verbal complex ............... 21 1.4.2 Derivational operations ........................ 22 1.5 Preview of the dissertation ........................... 23 2 Wh-in-situ 25 2.1 Introduction ................................... 25 2.1.1 What is wh-in-situ? ........................... 25 2.1.2 The basic picture of Bantu wh-in-situ ................. 26 2.1.3 Theoretical issues at stake ....................... 31 2.1.4 Roadmap ................................ 32 2.2 Relating the scopal and pronunciation positions ............... 32 2.2.1 Unselective binding ........................... 33 2.2.2 Disguised movement .......................... 36 2.2.2.1 Explanation and predictions ................ 36 2.2.2.2 Evaluation: Postverbal word order ............. 39 2.2.3 Lower copy spell-out .......................... 45 2.2.3.1 Explanation and predictions ................ 45 2.2.3.2 Evaluation: Extraction marking .............. 46 2.2.4 Covert movement ............................ 48 2.2.4.1 Explanation and predictions ................ 48 2.2.4.2 Evaluation: Island sensitivity ................ 51 2.2.5 Computation of alternatives ...................... 62 2.2.5.1 Explanation and predictions ................ 62 2.2.5.2 Evaluation: Intervention effects .............. 63 2.2.6 Summary ................................ 70 2.3 Accounting for restrictions on the distribution of in-situ wh-phrases .... 71 iv Contents 2.3.1 The ban on in-situ preverbal wh-subjects ............... 72 2.3.1.1 The basic facts ........................ 72 2.3.1.2 Apparent island sensitivity within preverbal subjects .. 75 2.3.1.3 Variation in the availability of embedded preverbal wh- subjects. ........................... 80 2.3.1.4 Summary ........................... 84 2.3.2 Focus licensing ............................. 85 2.3.2.1 Wh-in-situ as focus-in-situ ................. 85 2.3.2.2 The information structure status of the preverbal position 92 2.3.2.3 IAV and embedded preverbal wh-subjects ......... 99 2.3.2.4 Integrating information structure with movement vs. non- movement analyses ..................... 102 2.3.2.5 Summary ........................... 104 2.3.3 Improper movement .......................... 104 2.3.3.1 Explanation. ......................... 105 2.3.3.2 Theoretical evaluation: Improper movement and free riders. ............................. 105 2.3.3.3 Empirical evaluation: Wh-phrases within topicalized non- subjects. ........................... 106 2.3.4 Anti-locality ............................... 112 2.3.5 Summary ................................ 113 2.4 Outstanding issues ............................... 113 2.4.1 Wh-phrases in the complement of the preverbal subject ...... 113 2.4.2 Other analyses of wh-in-situ ...................... 117 2.5 Conclusion .................................... 117 3 Full wh-movement 119 3.1 Introduction ................................... 119 v Contents 3.1.1 What is full wh-movement? ...................... 119 3.1.2 The basic picture of Bantu full wh-movement ............ 120 3.1.3 Theoretical issues at stake ....................... 122 3.1.4 Roadmap ................................ 123 3.2 Apparent full wh-movement: Shona wh-ex-situ via clefting ......... 123 3.2.1 The basics of Shona wh-ex-situ .................... 124 3.2.1.1 Left-edge wh-phrases .................... 124 3.2.1.2 Right-edge wh-phrases ................... 127 3.2.2 Island sensitivity ...........................
Recommended publications
  • The Stacking Behavior of Valence-Increasing Verbal Extensions and Their Arguments in Shona1
    The Stacking Behavior of Valence-Increasing Verbal Extensions and Their Arguments in Shona1 Mattie Wechsler Abstract Most Bantu Languages exhibit several verbal affixes that change the meaning or argument structure of the verbs to which they attach. Two of the most cross-Bantu common of these morphemes are the applicative and causative. which are both valence­ increasing. making many intransitive verbs transitive and transitive verbs ditransitive. In addition to having these affixes. most Bantu languages also exhibit the ability to stack more than one of them at once. creating more complex structures. Shona (a language of Zimbabwe). however. displays a typologically unusual restriction. allowing only two postverbal objects at the most. In addition to this descriptive generalization. this paper provides a detailed account of verbal extensions and their objects in Shona. ultimately showing that many Shona objects behave asymmetrically. Towards the latter half of this report. the focus shifts to an analysis of the argument limit and asymmetrical object phenomena involving case. In order to explain seemingly conflicting data. this paper hypothesizes the presence of three structural case-assigners in Shona. as well as proposing several criteria for prosperous case-assignment. 1 I'd like to thank my amazingly patient and insightful Shona consultant, Collence Nyazenga. TABLE OF CONTENTS 0. Abbreviations .................................................................................................................. 3 I. Introduction ..................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Identity, Territory, and Power in the Eastern Congo Rift Valley Institute | Usalama Project
    RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE | USALAMA PROJECT UNDERSTANDING CONGOLESE ARMED GROUPS SOUTH KIVU IDENTITY, TERRITORY, AND POWER IN THE EASTERN CONGO RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE | USALAMA PROJECT South Kivu Identity, territory, and power in the eastern Congo KOEN VLASSENROOT Published in 2013 by the Rift Valley Institute 1 St Luke’s Mews, London W11 1DF, United Kingdom PO Box 52771 GPO, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya THE USALAMA PROJECT The Rift Valley Institute’s Usalama Project documents armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The project is supported by Humanity United and Open Square, and undertaken in collaboration with the Catholic University of Bukavu. THE RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE (RVI) The Rift Valley Institute (www.riftvalley.net) works in Eastern and Central Africa to bring local knowledge to bear on social, political, and economic development. THE AUTHOR Koen Vlassenroot is Professor of Political Science and director of the Conflict Research Group at the University of Ghent. He is associated to the Egmont Institute and a RVI fellow. He co-authored Conflict and Social Transformation in Eastern DR Congo (2004) and co-edited The Lord’s Resistance Army: Myth or Reality? (2010). He is the lead researcher on the DRC for the Justice and Security Research Programme. CREDITS RVI ExECUTIVE DIRECTOR: John Ryle RVI PROgRAMME DIRECTOR: Christopher Kidner RVI USALAMA PROJECT DIRECTOR: Jason Stearns RVI USALAMA DEPUTY PROJECT DIRECTOR: Willy Mikenye RVI Great LAKES PROgRAMME MANAgER: Michel Thill RVI Information OFFICER: Tymon Kiepe EDITORIAL consultant: Fergus Nicoll Report DESIgN: Lindsay Nash Maps: Jillian Luff, MAPgrafix PRINTINg: Intype Libra Ltd., 3/4 Elm Grove Industrial Estate, London SW19 4HE ISBN 978-1-907431-25-8 COVER CAPTION Congolese woman carrying firewood in the hills of Minembwe, South Kivu (2012).
    [Show full text]
  • Lunyole Phonology Statement App 1.Doc
    Date: 4 th September, 2006 Issue: 1 Status: Approved SIL Uganda-Tanzania Branch Lunyole Project Lunyole Phonology Statement Author: Rev. Enoch Wandera Namulemu Approvers: Steve Nicolle – Linguistics Consultant © SIL International 2006 Document Title: Lunyole Date:4 th September, 2006 Phonology Statement Issue: 1 Status: Approved Table of Contents 1 Distribution List ............................................................................................................................ 5 2 Document Storage: ........................................................................................................................ 6 3 Document History Log .................................................................................................................. 6 4 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 7 5 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 8 5.1 Name of the Language and its speakers ................................................................................ 8 5.2 Geography ............................................................................................................................. 8 5.3 Demography .......................................................................................................................... 8 5.4 Language family ...................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Marie-Neige Umurerwa
    “For me, switching from one language to another is like switching from one music or rhythm to another, from one tone to another” Hello! My name is Marie-Neige Umurerwa. My family and I live in Lier (a city in the province of Antwerp). I am a Belgian-Rwandan French-speaking. I speak six languages: Kinyarwanda, French, Lingala, Kiswahili, English and Dutch. Thanks to my mother, I have had the opportunity to travel a lot and I lived in different countries. I came to Belgium at the age of 9. That is how I acquired my multilingualism. I have always loved learning languages. For me, switching from one language to another is like switching from one music or rhythm to another, from one tone to another. Depending on what you feel, depending on how you experience things at the moment. For me, language is a translation of emotions. The more languages we speak, the more opportunities we have to access the hearts and emotions of people. Learning one or more languages should be done spontaneously and with pleasure, like a game. The sooner we start learning languages as a child, the more effective it will be. Rwanda has four official languages, and everyone is able to speak more than one language. In a discussion, people easily switch from one language to another. We switch from English to French or from Kinyarwanda to Swahili. After a visit to my home country, I went to a restaurant with my family. The waiter came to take our order. When it was my turn, my eyes were fixed on the menu and without even realizing it I place my order in Kinyarwanda! Of course, my family laughed and when I looked up, I saw the waiter - in shock - asked me; "Excuseer Mevrouw, ik heb niks begrepen, wat zei u?” This situation happens to me often.
    [Show full text]
  • Prioritizing African Languages: Challenges to Macro-Level Planning for Resourcing and Capacity Building
    Prioritizing African Languages: Challenges to macro-level planning for resourcing and capacity building Tristan M. Purvis Christopher R. Green Gregory K. Iverson University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language Abstract This paper addresses key considerations and challenges involved in the process of prioritizing languages in an area of high linguistic di- versity like Africa alongside other world regions. The paper identifies general considerations that must be taken into account in this process and reviews the placement of African languages on priority lists over the years and across different agencies and organizations. An outline of factors is presented that is used when organizing resources and planning research on African languages that categorizes major or crit- ical languages within a framework that allows for broad coverage of the full linguistic diversity of the continent. Keywords: language prioritization, African languages, capacity building, language diversity, language documentation When building language capacity on an individual or localized level, the question of which languages matter most is relatively less complicated than it is for those planning and providing for language capabilities at the macro level. An American anthropology student working with Sierra Leonean refugees in Forecariah, Guinea, for ex- ample, will likely know how to address and balance needs for lan- guage skills in French, Susu, Krio, and a set of other languages such as Temne and Mandinka. An education official or activist in Mwanza, Tanzania, will be concerned primarily with English, Swahili, and Su- kuma. An administrator of a grant program for Less Commonly Taught Languages, or LCTLs, or a newly appointed language authori- ty for the United States Department of Education, Department of Commerce, or U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 16 the Locative Applicative and the Semantics of Verb Class in Kinyarwanda Kyle Jerro University of Texas at Austin
    Chapter 16 The locative applicative and the semantics of verb class in Kinyarwanda Kyle Jerro University of Texas at Austin This paper investigates the interaction of verb class and the locative applicative inKin- yarwanda (Bantu; Rwanda). Previous analyses of applicative morphology have focused al- most exclusively on the syntax of the applied object, assuming that applicativization adds a new object with a transparent thematic role (e.g. Kisseberth & Abasheikh 1977; Baker 1988; Bresnan & Moshi 1990; Alsina & Mchombo 1993; McGinnis 2001; Jeong 2007; Jerro 2015, in- ter alia). I show instead that the interpretation of the applied object is contingent upon the meaning of the verb, with the applied object having a path, source, or goal semantic role with motion verbs from different classes. The general locative role discussed in previous work appears with non-motion verbs. I outline a typology of the interaction of the locative applicative with four different verb types and provide a semantic analysis of applicativiza- tion as a paradigmatic constraint on the lexical entailments of the applicativized variant of a particular verb. 1 Introduction The applicative has been traditionally analyzed as a valency-increasing morpheme which adds a new object and an associated thematic role to the argument structure of a given verb (see Dixon & Aikhenvald 1997 and Peterson 2007 for a typological overview of va- lency-changing morphology cross-linguistically). An example from Kinyarwanda (Ban- tu; Rwanda) is given in (1b), with the applicative morpheme -ir:1 (1) a. Umu-gabo a-ra-ndik-a in-kuru. 1-man 1S-pres-write-imp 9-story ‘The man is writing the story.’ b.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Parameters of Morpho-Syntactic Variation
    This paper appeared in: Transactions of the Philological Society Volume 105:3 (2007) 253–338. Please always use the published version for citation. PARAMETERS OF MORPHO-SYNTACTIC VARIATION IN BANTU* a b c By LUTZ MARTEN , NANCY C. KULA AND NHLANHLA THWALA a School of Oriental and African Studies, b University of Leiden and School of Oriental and African Studies, c University of the Witwatersrand and School of Oriental and African Studies ABSTRACT Bantu languages are fairly uniform in terms of broad typological parameters. However, they have been noted to display a high degree or more fine-grained morpho-syntactic micro-variation. In this paper we develop a systematic approach to the study of morpho-syntactic variation in Bantu by developing 19 parameters which serve as the basis for cross-linguistic comparison and which we use for comparing ten south-eastern Bantu languages. We address conceptual issues involved in studying morpho-syntax along parametric lines and show how the data we have can be used for the quantitative study of language comparison. Although the work reported is a case study in need of expansion, we will show that it nevertheless produces relevant results. 1. INTRODUCTION Early studies of morphological and syntactic linguistic variation were mostly aimed at providing broad parameters according to which the languages of the world differ. The classification of languages into ‘inflectional’, ‘agglutinating’, and ‘isolating’ morphological types, originating from the work of Humboldt (1836), is a well-known example of this approach. Subsequent studies in linguistic typology, e.g. work following Greenberg (1963), similarly tried to formulate variables which could be applied to any language and which would classify languages into a number of different types.
    [Show full text]
  • Reglas De Congo: Palo Monte Mayombe) a Book by Lydia Cabrera an English Translation from the Spanish
    THE KONGO RULE: THE PALO MONTE MAYOMBE WISDOM SOCIETY (REGLAS DE CONGO: PALO MONTE MAYOMBE) A BOOK BY LYDIA CABRERA AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION FROM THE SPANISH Donato Fhunsu A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature (Comparative Literature). Chapel Hill 2016 Approved by: Inger S. B. Brodey Todd Ramón Ochoa Marsha S. Collins Tanya L. Shields Madeline G. Levine © 2016 Donato Fhunsu ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Donato Fhunsu: The Kongo Rule: The Palo Monte Mayombe Wisdom Society (Reglas de Congo: Palo Monte Mayombe) A Book by Lydia Cabrera An English Translation from the Spanish (Under the direction of Inger S. B. Brodey and Todd Ramón Ochoa) This dissertation is a critical analysis and annotated translation, from Spanish into English, of the book Reglas de Congo: Palo Monte Mayombe, by the Cuban anthropologist, artist, and writer Lydia Cabrera (1899-1991). Cabrera’s text is a hybrid ethnographic book of religion, slave narratives (oral history), and folklore (songs, poetry) that she devoted to a group of Afro-Cubans known as “los Congos de Cuba,” descendants of the Africans who were brought to the Caribbean island of Cuba during the trans-Atlantic Ocean African slave trade from the former Kongo Kingdom, which occupied the present-day southwestern part of Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville, Cabinda, and northern Angola. The Kongo Kingdom had formal contact with Christianity through the Kingdom of Portugal as early as the 1490s.
    [Show full text]
  • The Use of the Augment in Nguni Languages with Special Reference to the Referentiality of the Noun Eva-Marie Bloom Ström & Matti Miestamo
    [Draft, August 2020; to appear in Lutz Marten, Rozenn Guérois, Hannah Gibson & Eva-Marie Bloom-Ström (eds), Morphosyntactic Variation in Bantu. Oxford: Oxford University Press.] The use of the augment in Nguni languages with special reference to the referentiality of the noun Eva-Marie Bloom Ström & Matti Miestamo Abstract This chapter examines the use of the augment, a prefix preceding the noun class prefix, in a number of language varieties in the Nguni subgroup of Bantu languages. The study of these closely related varieties, which show striking similarities as well as differences in the use of the augment, gives new insights into developmental tendencies of the augment. All contexts in which the augment can be omitted are non-fact contexts. Contrary to what has previously been argued for some varieties, however, we find that the presence vs. absence of the augment does not mark a referentiality distinction. It is argued that referentiality constitutes a semantic and pragmatic explanation to the absence and presence of the augment in different contexts in a diachronic perspective, but that this function is eroded in present-day Nguni. What remains is a limited referentiality distinction for some speakers in some varieties. The loss of function explains why the augment is included in the noun in nearly all contexts in some varieties, and omitted everywhere in others. Due to its loss of function, the augment has become free to participate in sociolinguistic and stylistic variation in some Bantu languages. Key-words: negation, non-fact, referentiality, augment, morphosyntax, Nguni 1. Introduction The aim of this paper is to explore the connection between the use of a nominal prefix in Bantu referred to as the augment1 and (non-)referentiality, such as has been claimed to exist in Swati: 2 (1) a.
    [Show full text]
  • An African Basketry of Heterogeneous Variables Kongo-Kikongo-Kisankasa
    ISSN 2394-9694 International Journal of Novel Research in Humanity and Social Sciences Vol. 8, Issue 2, pp: (2-31), Month: March - April 2021, Available at: www.noveltyjournals.com An African Basketry of Heterogeneous Variables Kongo-Kikongo-Kisankasa Rojukurthi Sudhakar Rao (M.Phil Degree Student-Researcher, Centre for African Studies, University of Mumbai, Maharashtra Rajya, India) e-mail:[email protected] Abstract: In terms of scientific systems approach to the knowledge of human origins, human organizations, human histories, human kingdoms, human languages, human populations and above all the human genes, unquestionable scientific evidence with human dignity flabbergasted the European strong world of slave-masters and colonialist- policy-rulers. This deduces that the early Europeans knew nothing scientific about the mankind beforehand unleashing their one-up-man-ship over Africa and the Africans except that they were the white skinned flocks and so, not the kith and kin of the Africans in black skin living in what they called the „Dark Continent‟! Of course, in later times, the same masters and rulers committed to not repeating their colonialist racial geo-political injustices. The whites were domineering and weaponized to the hilt on their own mentality, for their own interests and by their own logic opposing the geopolitically distant African blacks inhabiting the natural resources enriched frontiers. Those „twists and twitches‟ in time-line led to the black‟s slavery and white‟s slave-trade with meddling Christian Adventist Missionaries, colonialists, religious conversionists, Anglican Universities‟ Missions , inter- sexual-births, the associative asomi , the dissociative asomi and the non-asomi divisions within African natives in concomitance.
    [Show full text]
  • Name Language E-Mail Phone City French Swahili Lingala Hemba Kiluba Kirundi Kinyarwanda Swahili French French Swahili Lingala 4
    Name Language E-mail Phone City French Swahili 1 Beatrice Mbayo Lingala [email protected] 859 -457 -7205 Lexington Hemba Kiluba Kirundi Kinyarwanda 2 Brigitte Nduwimana [email protected] 859-913-1419 Lexington Swahili French French 3 Christine Yohali Swahili [email protected] 859-368-2276 Lexington Lingala 4 Durar Shakir Arabic [email protected] 618-924-0629 Lexington Kinyarwanda 5 Lodrigue Mutabazi [email protected] 615-568-1689 Lexington Swahili Swahili 6 Modest M Bittock Kinyarwanda [email protected] (859)285-3740 Lexington Kirundi 7 Ranuka Chettri Nepali [email protected] 859-312-8216 Lexington 8 Shaza Awad Arabic [email protected] 606-215-9571 Lexington Kirundi Kinyarwanda 9 Tite Niyonizigiye [email protected] 859-368-3167 Lexington Swahili French Somali 10 Abdirizak Mohamed [email protected] 502-450-1346 Louisville Mai-Mai Dari Farsi Urdu Persian 11 Abdul Hasib Abdul Rasool [email protected] 502-337-4550 Louisville Hindi Russian Ukrainian Pashto Somali Swahili 12 Amina Mahamud [email protected] 207-415-5118 Louisville Mai Mai Hindi Dari Persian 13 Aneela Abdul Rasool Farsi [email protected] 502-337-5587 Louisville Urdu Hindi Nepali 14 Buddha Subedi [email protected] 502-294-1246 Louisville Hindi 15 Chandra Regmi Nepali [email protected] 502-337-5524 Louisville Kinyarwanda Swahili 16 Chantal Nyirinkwaya French [email protected] 502-299-4169 Louisville Kirundi Lingala Burmese 17 Hnem Kim [email protected] 502-298-4321 Louisville Chin Kinyarwanda 18 Jean de Dieu Nzeyimana Kirundi
    [Show full text]
  • Orature and Morpholexical Deconstruction As Lexicographic
    Orature and Morpholexical Deconstruction as Lexicographic Archaeological Sites: Some Implications for Dictionaries of African Languages1 Francis Matambirofa, Department of African Languages and Literature, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe ([email protected]) Abstract: This article takes a multidisciplinary approach to African lexicographic practice. It has as its primary premise the assumption that without words there can be no dictionaries to compile and discuss. Owing to this fact, the article focuses on a specific strategy for collecting words which belong in a special category of their own, namely archaic or obsolete words. Such words are important because of the need to mark them as such in any general purpose dictionary. Most, if not all dictionaries of African languages seem not to have this category, giving the misleading impression that there are no such words in African languages. Apart from digging up archaic or what we have also referred to as artefact words, the article also argues that the words have a substantial and intrinsic etymological value. Thus they can be used in specialised etymological dictionaries of African languages or even in standard general dictionaries. The multidisciplinary aspect resides in the methodology proposed for the recovery of archaic words. It is considered necessary that disciplines such as oral literature, oral history, historical linguistics and to a limited extent theoretical linguistics and computational linguistics, and, symbolically, archaeology and lexicography itself, be brought to bear on the subject of inquiry. The article is also an attempt at working out a method which African lexicographers can employ as an instrument to dig up artefact words for etymological and other such purposes.
    [Show full text]