TENSE AND ASPECT IN CHICHEWA, C I T U M B U K A AND CISENA A description and comparison of the tense - a s p e c t systems in three southeastern Bantu languages Andrea Kiso Tense and aspect in Chichewa, Citumbuka and Cisena A description and comparison of the tense-aspect systems in three southeastern Bantu languages Andrea Kiso ©Andrea Kiso, Stockholm 2012 ISBN 978-91-7447-542-5 Printed in Sweden by US-AB, Stockholm 2012 Distributor: Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University Meinem Vater Abstract This dissertation describes and compares the tense-aspect systems found in three south- eastern Bantu languages, viz. Chichewa, Citumbuka and Cisena. For each language, an in-depth description of the tense-aspect categories and their use is given based on the analysis of different sources of data: audio recordings of arranged conversations and narratives, questionnaires in which native speakers of Chichewa, Citumbuka and Cisena translated English sentences into their own language, and parallel corpora of Biblical texts as well as direct elicitation and consultation sessions. The description provides evidence of dialectal variation in the tense-aspect systems in each language that has not been described systematically before. Furthermore, it discusses specific diachronic changes, such as the development of the present progressive marker -ku- into a present tense marker in Chichewa. Remoteness distinctions in the past and future tenses, which are common across Bantu, are also found in the three languages under investigation here. The use of these categories is studied in detail and a certain extent of flexibility in their use is observed. For some varieties of Chichewa, a remoteness distinction is even found for past imperfective forms referring to habits or continuous events in the past, a distinction that has not been described previously. Further emphasis is placed on the comparison of tense-aspect markings in negated as opposed to affirmative clauses. In all three languages, the perfect marker -a- is only found in affirmative clauses while a past tense marker or a particular form only found in clauses of this type, a negative perfect marker, occurs in the corresponding negative. The comparison of the three tense-aspect systems shows that the overall design of the systems and the distinctions that are made in the three languages are, despite certain differences, rather similar while the markers that express these distinctions differ across languages in many respects. 1 Acknowledgements The Department of Linguistics at Stockholm University is a place where you can grow, professionally and personally. I want to thank my colleagues in the department, not all of whom are going to be mentioned by name in the following, for the inspiring and pleasant time with them. My supervisors, Osten¨ Dahl and Eva Lindstr¨om, were critical and demanding, and at the same time tremendously supportive and kind. They would let me work indepen- dently, but were always available when I needed advice and looked over the different versions of my manuscript with great dedication and care. Thanks to Tore Janson, this thesis has been critically evaluated in a preliminary defence, I am grateful for his comments. My fellow Ph.D. students Emil Perder, Kerstin Lindmark, Thomas H¨orberg, Francesca Di Garbo, Yvonne Agbetsoamedo, Benjamin Brosig and Robert Ostling¨ (and later on, also Ghazaleh, Pernilla, Desalegn and Susanne) made my days at the department and around Stockholm pleasurable. They as well as Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm provided valuable feedback to the first versions of my thesis during our Ph.D. tutorials. Francesca Di Garbo and Rapha¨el Domange assisted me with their LATEX skills in the final stage of editing my thesis, and Rickard Franz´enhelped me design the front cover page. Tove Gerholm provided invaluable help and advice with various grant proposals and job ap- plications. P¨aivi Juvonen, Eva Lindstr¨om, Rickard Franz´enand Ljuba Veselinova contributed in many ways to making me feel at home in the department from the first day. The entertaining and insightful lunch breaks with Mikael Parkvall fascinated me, as did the lectures by Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm. Martin Volk's programming skills and his accessible teaching helped me a great deal in building my own corpus and database. From Lars Wallin, Joel B¨ackstr¨om, Mats Jonsson and Anna-Lena Nilsson I learned numerous things about Swedish Sign Language. I feel privileged to have met them as teachers as well as colleagues. Without the help of many people in Malawi, writing this work would not have been possible. Mary Kamba Kajasiche, Ellin Rambiki, Annie Ntambo, Grace Chimphonda, Bertha Singini, Mr Dakamau, Mrs Goba, Mrs Kasonda, Mr Dzinza and Mr Nthekwe gave me a good deal of their time and showed me the meaning of hospitality. From the InWEnt teacher trainers' programme, my sincere thanks go to Gentry Chipeta, Lizinet Daka, Elick Kwenda, Paul Mfune, Edith M'mela, Bertha Singini, Grace Phambana, Mary Phiri, Ivy Nthara, Efrina Limeza, Margret Magalasi and Henry Chilora for taking part in my study. Dunstain Mwaungulu and Justice Kamakwa readily answered my 3 questions via email and chat, always with great patience and enthusiasm. Al Mtenje at the University of Malawi provided me with the most valuable feedback and in a most pleasurable way. Also Pascal Kishindo from the University of Malawi kindly replied to my questions via email. Traveling to and working in Malawi enriched my perspectives in countless ways, and I have deep respect for the ubuntu (the humanity to and because of others) that I experienced among Malawians. I am also grateful to Barb Heins who provided me kindly with her insights and data from Mozambican Cisena, and to Andrew Goodson who gave valuable comments on my Chichewa chapters. From Christa R¨ober, I learned how to apply my linguistic knowledge in the teaching of reading, writing and grammar. She was the one who involved me in the InWEnt teacher trainers programme in Malawi in the first place, thank you for your confidence in me. Utz Maas introduced me to language typology and structuralism, his way of teaching was most stimulating, and he trusted me with my first teaching opportunities. Despite the geographical distance, my friends in Germany have been close to me during these years. Thank you, Sabine, Sebastian, Friederike, Tobias, Jaro, Lesya, Tina, J¨org, Hyeonyoung, Kurt, Maya and Claudia for wonderful visits and holidays, letters, phone calls and for always making me feel welcome, Tilmann for intellectual and satirical stimulation, technical support and deeply felt friendship. I also thank Francesca, Karin, Yvonne, Rickard, Eva, Vandana, Tove, Joel and Ljuba for being great friends. My parents' support made a lot of things possible, they and my grandmothers taught me love, dedication and courage. My father's open-mindedness and his love inspire me in countless ways, I dedicate this work to his memory. Gladstone makes sad days less sad and cheerful days even more cheerful, thank you for being there for me. 4 Contents 1. Introduction 11 2. Bantu languages 13 2.1. Classification of Bantu languages . 13 2.2. Structural properties of Bantu languages . 17 2.2.1. Phonology............................... 17 2.2.2. Morphology .............................. 18 2.3. Some features of the group N languages in general and Chichewa, Citum- buka and Cisena in particular . 21 2.3.1. The group N-languages . 21 2.3.2. Comparison of a few structural and lexical features of Chichewa, CitumbukaandCisena ........................ 22 2.3.3. Sociolinguistic data . 28 3. The state of the art: Tense and aspect from a cross-linguistic perspective and in Bantu 33 3.1. On the definition of tense and aspect and the research tradition in this field 33 3.2. Theoretical approaches to tense and aspect . 35 3.2.1. Reichenbach's time line with reference points . 36 3.2.2. The inherent temporal properties of verbs according to Vendler . 38 3.2.3. Smith's two-component model of grammatical aspect . 40 3.3. Tense and aspect from a cross-linguistic perspective . 45 3.3.1. Tense-aspect categories . 46 3.3.2. Tense and aspect in Bantu languages . 54 3.3.3. Tense, aspect and negation . 61 4. Method: Data collection and analysis 65 4.1. Structuralism, language typology and basic linguistic theory . 65 4.2. Data collection . 70 4.2.1. The questionnaire . 70 4.2.2. Recordings of arranged conversations . 73 4.2.3. Recordings of narratives . 74 4.2.4. Oral, direct elicitation sessions . 74 4.2.5. Parallel texts: Bible translations . 75 5 Contents 4.3. Dataanalysis ................................. 77 4.3.1. Tone.................................. 78 4.4. Datavalidity ................................. 80 5. The tense-aspect systems in each language: Chichewa 81 5.1. Verbal vs. non-verbal predication . 83 5.2. Expressing the present . 85 5.2.1. Earlier findings . 85 5.2.2. The present investigation . 87 5.3. Expressing the past . 97 5.3.1. Earlier findings . 97 5.3.2. The present investigation . 103 5.4. Expressing the future . 131 5.4.1. Earlier findings . 131 5.4.2. The present investigation . 133 5.5. Sequencing: temporal clauses, itives, ventives and consecutive marking in narratives ................................... 139 5.5.1. Subordinate clauses . 139 5.5.2. temporal clause -sana-: `before. ' . 142 5.5.3. temporal clause -ta-: `after/when. ' (past) . 143 5.5.4. temporal clause -ka-: `when. ' (future) . 145 5.5.5. Itive -ka-:`togoand...'....................... 147 5.5.6. Ventive -dza-:`tocomeand...'................... 149 5.6. Suffixed aspectual markings . 150 5.6.1. persistive -be ............................. 150 5.6.2. repetitive -nso ............................. 151 5.7. Tense-aspect and negation . 151 5.7.1. Earlier findings . 152 5.7.2. The present investigation: tense-aspect and standard negation . 154 5.7.3. The present investigation: negation in subjunctive and non-finite verb forms .