Derek Nurse, Sarah Rose , John Hewson ONLINE SERIES 'Documents on Social Sciences and Humanities' in Niger-Congo
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Replacive Grammatical Tone in the Dogon Languages
University of California Los Angeles Replacive grammatical tone in the Dogon languages A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics by Laura Elizabeth McPherson 2014 c Copyright by Laura Elizabeth McPherson 2014 Abstract of the Dissertation Replacive grammatical tone in the Dogon languages by Laura Elizabeth McPherson Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor Russell Schuh, Co-chair Professor Bruce Hayes, Co-chair This dissertation focuses on replacive grammatical tone in the Dogon languages of Mali, where a word’s lexical tone is replaced with a tonal overlay in specific morphosyntactic contexts. Unlike more typologically common systems of replacive tone, where overlays are triggered by morphemes or morphological features and are confined to a single word, Dogon overlays in the DP may span multiple words and are triggered by other words in the phrase. DP elements are divided into two categories: controllers (those elements that trigger tonal overlays) and non-controllers (those elements that impose no tonal demands on surrounding words). I show that controller status and the phonological content of the associated tonal overlay is dependent on syntactic category. Further, I show that a controller can only impose its overlay on words that it c-commands, or itself. I argue that the sensitivity to specific details of syntactic category and structure indicate that Dogon replacive tone is not synchronically a phonological system, though its origins almost certainly lie in regular phrasal phonology. Drawing on inspiration from Construction Morphology, I develop a morphological framework in which morphology is defined as the id- iosyncratic mapping of phonological, syntactic, and semantic information, explicitly learned by speakers in the form of a construction. -
5 Phonology Florian Lionnet and Larry M
5 Phonology Florian Lionnet and Larry M. Hyman 5.1. Introduction The historical relation between African and general phonology has been a mutu- ally beneficial one: the languages of the African continent provide some of the most interesting and, at times, unusual phonological phenomena, which have con- tributed to the development of phonology in quite central ways. This has been made possible by the careful descriptive work that has been done on African lan- guages, by linguists and non-linguists, and by Africanists and non-Africanists who have peeked in from time to time. Except for the click consonants of the Khoisan languages (which spill over onto some neighboring Bantu languages that have “borrowed” them), the phonological phenomena found in African languages are usually duplicated elsewhere on the globe, though not always in as concen- trated a fashion. The vast majority of African languages are tonal, and many also have vowel harmony (especially vowel height harmony and advanced tongue root [ATR] harmony). Not surprisingly, then, African languages have figured dispro- portionately in theoretical treatments of these two phenomena. On the other hand, if there is a phonological property where African languages are underrepresented, it would have to be stress systems – which rarely, if ever, achieve the complexity found in other (mostly non-tonal) languages. However, it should be noted that the languages of Africa have contributed significantly to virtually every other aspect of general phonology, and that the various developments of phonological theory have in turn often greatly contributed to a better understanding of the phonologies of African languages. Given the considerable diversity of the properties found in different parts of the continent, as well as in different genetic groups or areas, it will not be possible to provide a complete account of the phonological phenomena typically found in African languages, overviews of which are available in such works as Creissels (1994) and Clements (2000). -
MANDE LANGUAGES INTRODUCTION Mande Languages
Article details Article author(s): Dmitry Idiatov Table of contents: Introduction General Overviews Textbooks Bibliographies Journals and Book Series Conferences Text Collections and Corpora Classifications Historical and Comparative Linguistics Western Mande Central Mande Southwestern Mande and Susu- Yalunka Soninke-Bozo, Samogo, and Bobo Southeastern Mande Eastern Mande Southern Mande Phonetics Phonology Morphosyntax Morphology Syntax Language Contact and Areal Linguistics Writing Systems MANDE LANGUAGES INTRODUCTION Mande languages are spoken across much of inland West Africa up to the northwest of Nigeria as their eastern limit. The center of gravity of the Mande-speaking world is situated in the southwest of Mali and the neighboring regions. There are approximately seventy Mande languages. Mande languages have long been recognized as a coherent group. Thanks to both a sufficient number of clear lexical correspondences and the remarkable uniformity in basic morphosyntax, the attribution of a given language to Mande is usually straightforward. The major subdivision within Mande is between Western Mande, which comprises the majority of both languages and speakers, and Southeastern Mande (aka Southern Mande or Eastern Mande, which are also the names for the two subbranches of Southeastern Mande), a comparatively small but linguistically diverse and geographically dispersed group. Traditionally, Mande languages have been classified as one of the earliest offshoots of Niger-Congo. However, their external affiliation still remains a working hypothesis rather than an established fact. One of the most well-known Mande languages is probably Bamana (aka Bambara), as well as some of its close relatives, which in nonlinguistic publications are sometimes indiscriminately referred to as Mandingo. Mande languages are written in a variety of scripts ranging from Latin-based or Arabic-based alphabets to indigenously developed scripts, both syllabic and alphabetic. -
Ekoid: Bantoid Languages of the Nigeria-Cameroun Borderland
EKOID: BANTOID LANGUAGES OF THE NIGERIA-CAMEROUN BORDERLAND Roger Blench DRAFT ONLY NOT TO BE QUOTED WITHOUT PERMISSION Roger Blench Kay Williamson Educational Foundation 8, Guest Road Cambridge CB1 2AL United Kingdom Voice/ Fax. 0044-(0)1223-560687 Mobile worldwide (00-44)-(0)7967-696804 E-mail [email protected] http://www.rogerblench.info/RBOP.htm TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. The Ekoid-Mbe languages: Overview ....................................................................................................... 1 2. Classification................................................................................................................................................ 3 2.1 External.................................................................................................................................................. 3 2.2 Internal................................................................................................................................................... 3 3. Phonology..................................................................................................................................................... 5 4. Morphology.................................................................................................................................................. 6 5. Conclusions .................................................................................................................................................. 7 References....................................................................................................................................................... -
The Syntactic Diversity of Sauxov in West Africa Hannah Sande Georgetown University Nico Baier Mcgill University Peter Jenks UC Berkeley
Chapter 34 The syntactic diversity of SAuxOV in West Africa Hannah Sande Georgetown University Nico Baier McGill University Peter Jenks UC Berkeley Surface SAuxOV orders abound in West Africa. We demonstrate that apparent ex- amples of this word order have important structural differences across languages. We show that SAuxOV orders in some languages are due to mixed clausal headed- ness, consisting of a head initial TP and head-final VP, though this order can be concealed by verb movement. Other languages are more consistently head-initial, and what appear to be SAuxOV orders arise in limited syntactic contexts due to specific syntactic constructions such as object shift or nominalized complements. Finally, we show that languages which have genuine SAuxOV, corresponding to a head-final VP, tend to exhibit head-final properties more generally. This obser- vation supports the idea that syntactic typology is most productively framed in terms of structural analyses of languages rather than the existence of surface word orders. 1 Introduction The order subject-auxiliary-object-verb (SAuxOV) is quite common across West Africa. At the same time, it is well-known that syntactic differences exist among the languages with this surface order (Creissels 2005). Our goal in this paper is to identify structural differences across languages for which SAuxOV order occurs, Hannah Sande, Nico Baier & Peter Jenks. 2019. The syntactic diversity of SAuxOV in West Africa. In Emily Clem, Peter Jenks & Hannah Sande (eds.), Theory and descrip- tion in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 667–701. Berlin: Language Science Press. -
Design and Implementation of Yoruba Language Mobile Tutor
DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF YORUBA LANGUAGE MOBILE TUTOR Nicholas A. Omoregbe, Ambrose A. Azeta, Adewole Adewumi, Olayemi O. Omotoso Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Covenant University (NIGERIA) Abstract Yoruba is a popular indigenous language in Nigeria alongside Hausa and Igbo. English language is however the main medium of communication especially in schools and institutions of learning. Over the years there has been unhealthy rivalry and competition between English language and the indigenous Nigerian languages with the latter struggling for survival. The rivalry is further worsen by the wide adoption of mobile technology which is mostly bundled with resources written in English language. Young Nigerians who have not been exposed to Yoruba language as their native language often find it difficult to speak, read, learn and write Yoruba language. There is the fear of trading Nigerian indigenous languages for English Language as the main means of communication due to modernization. The focus for this work is to present the design and implementation of an interactive mobile application with basic tutorials in the learning of Yoruba language on handheld devices. The system has features that assist users to do basic translation of English to Yoruba and fundamental tutorials that will enable people to learn, write, read and speak Yoruba language fluently. The application was designed and modelled with Unified Modelling Language and developed using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. The application runs seamlessly on handheld devices which has a deep level of penetration and adoption in Nigeria. Keywords: Handheld, indigenous language, mobile, Nigeria, tutor and Yoruba. 1 INTRODUCTION Yoruba is a language spoken natively by about thirty million people in Nigeria and in the neighbouring countries of the Republic of Benin and Togo [1]. -
The Body in Yoruba: a Linguistic Study
The Body in Yorùbá A Linguistic Study Mark Dingemanse The Body in Yorùbá A Linguistic Study Mark Dingemanse Scriptie als vereiste ter verkrijging van de graad van doctorandus in de Afrikaanse Taalkunde onder begeleiding van Dr. Felix K. Ameka Juli 2006, Universiteit Leiden àtàrí ‘crown of the head’ oṛ ùn ‘neck’ èjìkà ‘shoulder’ àyà ‘chest’ kókó oṃ ú ‘nipple’ oṃ ú ‘breast’ apá ‘arm’ inú ‘belly, inside’ idodo ‘navel’ orúnkún ‘knee’ ojúgun ‘shin’ oṛ ùn-ẹsẹ̀ ‘ankle’ Contents Preface i Acknowledgements ii Abbreviations and conventions ii Index of tables and figures iv 1 Preliminaries 1 1.1 Yoruba: a brief linguistic profile 1 1.1.1 Phonology 2 1.1.2 Some notes on grammar 4 1.2 Previous research on body-part terminology 6 1.2.1 Philology 6 1.2.2 Onomasiology 7 1.2.3 Phenomenology 8 1.2.4 Ethnoanatomy 9 1.2.5 Embodiment and the cognitive sciences 11 1.2.6 Psychology: types of body knowledge 12 1.2.7 Various other approaches and recent work 13 1.3 This study 15 1.3.1 The data base 16 1.3.2 English as a metalanguage? 16 1.3.3 Some notes on terminology 17 2 Yoruba body-part terms 19 2.1 Yoruba body-part terms 19 2.1.1 Orí and ojú, the head and the face 19 2.1.2 Ara, the body 22 2.1.3 Hands, fingers, and toes 26 2.1.4 Terms not included in the illustrations 28 2.2 Body-part terms in the grammar of Yoruba 29 2.2.1 Fixed idioms 29 2.2.2 Spatial relations 30 2.2.3 ‘Body-part syntax’: four common constructions 32 2.3 Organizing principles 35 2.3.1 Partonomic structures 36 2.3.2 Other organizing principles 39 2.4 The body as a whole 41 2.4.1 Some crucial -
An Introduction to Liberian English
DOCUMENT RESUME FL 013 561 ED 226 617 AUTHOR Singler, John Victor; AndOthers An Introduction toLiberian English. TITLE Lansing. African Studies INSTITUTION Michigan State Univ.', East Center.; Peace Corps,Washington, D.C. PUB DATE 81 , NOTE 253p. 1 PUB TYPE Guides - Classroom Use -Materials (For Learner) (051) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC11 Plus Postage. Education; Dialogs DESCRIPTORS African Languages; *Cultural (Language); Grammar; LanguageVariation; *Listening Comprehension; *NonstandardDialects; *Second Language,Instruction; Standard SpokenUsage; Vocabulary IDENTIFIERS *English (Liberian); *Liberia ABSTRACT The aim of this text is tointroduce Liberian English, which includes the manyvarieties of English spoken by Liberians, to Peace Corps volunteers.The text is dividedinto two sections. The first part talksabout Liberian English,while the sedond part uses LiberianEnglish to describe aspectsof contemporary --------Li-berfairdiature. Part one containsdiscussions of the histories, varieties, pronunciation, and grammarof Liberian English. Where possible, differences fromvariety to variety of LiberianEnglish and grammar are noted.1Parttwo of the with regard to pronunciation i(referred to as text concentrates on"mainstream" Liberian English vernacular Liberian English),particularly as it is spokenin Monrovia. Emphasis is onunderstanding the type of Englishwidely by people who have gone toWestern schools. used in informal contexts understanding of the The aim of the text is tofacilitate volunteers' language; there is no emphasison learning to speak the language because of the Liberianattitudes toward varieties ofLiberian English other than LiberianStandard English. (NCR) **********************************************************.************* the best that can be made * * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are * * from the original document. *********************************************************************** is Jr) VC) C\I CD 1.1.1 AN INTRODUCTION TO LIBERIAN ENGLISH BY JOHN VICTOR S I NGLER wi th J. -
12 Godié (Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Volta-Congo, Kru)
12 Godié (Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Volta-Congo, Kru) John Hewson/Christa Beaudoin-Lietz 12.1 General This chapter reports on the verbal constructions of Godié, and since the source materials, mostly Marchese 1986a, give information about other Kru languages much cognate information has also been added. Though the various languages differ among themselves, even within one complex (Hasselbring and Johnson 2002), there are elements in the verbal structure that they all share1. The Kru language family is a group of languages spoken mainly in southwestern Ivory Coast and in Liberia. The total numbers of speakers of Kru languages is relatively small. Marchese (1986a) gives an estimate of 1.8 million, Encyclopaedia Britannica (2006) gives 3 million. The speakers of Godié, which belongs to the Eastern Kru languages, are reported by the Ethnologue as numbering some 27,000 in Ivory Coast. A nine vowel system is common, and most have nasal vowels, including Godie, which has nine oral vowels plus four central vowels, as in (1). (1) Basic vowel system Additional central vowels i u i u e o e o a a These are tone languages; Godié has three tones, Low, Mid, and High, and we have used an acute accent to mark H, no accent on M, and grave accent on L, as in the following: sú „push‟, su „tree‟, s „be hot‟ (Marchese 1986:16). 12.2 Word order In Kru languages the word order depends on the type of sentence. The basic word order is S V O Other. When an auxiliary is present, the word order is necessarily as in (2), where VN represents a nominalized verb. -
Supplementary Material for Linguistic Situation in Twenty Sub-Saharan African Countries: a Survey-Based Approach
Supplementary material for Linguistic situation in twenty Sub-Saharan African countries: a survey-based approach Katalin Buzasi (word count: 9942) 1 Introduction The aim of this supplementary material is to present available data on indigenous and European languages in the twenty sample countries and to compare them with the Afrobarometer (hereafter AB). The linguistic situation of each country is described in a table. Reported values are understood as percentages. Column 1 lists the name of groups as used and spelled in the AB codebook. The classification and the names of ethnic and linguistic groups in Q79 and Q3 are usually identical. Exceptions, if exist, are explained in the General notes under the tables. Column 2 and 3 show the share of the listed ethnic and linguistic groups based on Q79 (on ethnicity) and Q3 (on home language), respectively. Column 4 presents the share of the population speaking the listed languages as additional languages from Q88E. The total share of speakers is computed in Column 5. In order to cross-check the Afrobarometer data, the remaining columns (Column 6 to 11) present linguistic information from Ethnologue (Lewis et al. 2014), the latest available national censuses, and other sources. However, census questionnaires are not standardised across countries: certain countries collect information on ethnicity, while others on home languages or both. The column headings make it clear which one of the two is reported. The General notes have two additional aims. First, they list some references which contain information on the historical origins of the language situation, the spread of languages and their use in various domains (education, media etc.) and the design of language policies. -
Investigating the Relatedness of the Endangered Dogon Languages
Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2013 Investigating the Relatedness of the Endangered Dogon Languages Moran, Steven ; Prokić, Jelena Abstract: In this article we apply up-to-date methods of quantitative language comparison, inspired by algorithms successfully applied in bioinformatics to decode DNA and determine the genetic relatedness of humans, to language data in an attempt to shed light on the current situation of a family of languages called Dogon, which are spoken in Mali, West Africa. Our aim is to determine the linguistic subgroupings of these languages, which we believe will shed light on their prehistory, highlight the linguistic diversity of these groups and which may ultimately inform studies on the cultural boundaries of these languages. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqt061 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-84673 Journal Article Originally published at: Moran, Steven; Prokić, Jelena (2013). Investigating the Relatedness of the Endangered Dogon Languages. Literary and Linguistic Computing, 28(4):676-691. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqt061 Literary and Linguistic Computing Advance Access published September 17, 2013 Investigating the relatedness of the ............................................................................................................................................................endangered Dogon languages Steven Moran University -
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UNIVERSITY OF LONDON See over for Abstract of Thesis notes on completion Author (ful] names) Title of thesis ...ID.X.X ihT.X+lfe X H o K ) 0 L O Q 1 ...... XXXLC..QX....XNX ,XjXM0.]X...!XX...^...Lk.X7y^.... ....................................................................... Degree X .U l> .3X tX D U N & l This thesis investigates the forms, functions and behaviour of tone in the phonology, lexicon, morphosyntax and the phonology-grammar interfaces in Ikaan (Benue-Congo, Nigeria). The analysis is based on an annotated audio corpus of recordings from 29 speakers collected during ten months of fieldwork complemented with participant observation and informally collected data. The study demonstrates that tone operates at a wide range of levels of linguistic analysis in Ikaan. As phonemes, tones distinguish meaning in minimal pairs and are subject to phonological rules. As morphemes, tones and tonal melodies bear meaning in inflection, derivation and reduplication. In the syntax, tones mark phrase boundaries. At the phonology-semantics interface, construction-specific constraints on tonal representation distinguish between predicating and referential nominal modifiers. Combined with intonation and voicing, tones distinguish between statements and morphosyntactically identical yes/no questions. The research identifies a range of unusual tonal behaviours in Ikaan. The two tones H and L follow markedly different phonologies. In the association of lexical and grammatical tonal melodies, H must be realised whereas non-associated L are deleted. Formerly associated but de-linked L however are not deleted but remain floating. The OCP is found to apply to L but not to H. H is downstepped after floating L b.ut not after overt L.