View bantu linguistics research papers on academia. The acquisition of bantu languages katherine demuth brown. Bantu languages definition bantu languages are a subset of nigercongo languages mostly spoken in the center and south part of africa english oxford living dictionary, n. Bantu languages are spoken largely east and south of the present day country of cameroon. Cultural phylogeography of the bantu languages of subsaharan.
Comparative tense and aspect in the mara bantu languages. Jul 03, 2003 geographically, bantu languages are spoken in the southern half of africa. Bantu substratum interference in mozambican portuguese. Jul 07, 20 in this study, we have used language phylogenies in conjunction with the explicit mapping of ancestral locations to make inferences about the specific route taken during the dispersal of bantu languages. Some languages allow several morphemes in the ta slot, but most do not nurse 2008. In many ways object marking among bantu languages is reminiscent of romance object clitics. Grammatical and lexical comparison of the greater ruvu bantu languages malin petzell university of gothenburg, sweden harald hammarstrom max planck institute for psycholinguistics, the netherlands abstract this article discusses lexical and grammatical comparison and subgrouping in a set of.
The bantu languages, numbering as many as 500, have been at the center of cuttingedge theoretical research in phonology, morphology, syntax and. The linear ordering of tamneg markers in the bantu. Twelve bantu languages are spoken by more than five million people, including rundi, rwanda, shona, xhosa, and zulu. Bantu languages, which are spoken south of a line vaguely drawn from northwestern cameroon to southern somalia. Studies on tense and aspect in isixhosa and related bantu languages have a long history going from as far back as doke 1931, mclaren 1936 and bennie 1939 to, more recently, louw 1963. Modes of compounding in bantu, romance and chinese 207 several theoretical and empirical analyses, comparatively, nn compounding in bantu languages has been largely neglected. Distal aspects in bantu languages steve nicolle sil international and digo language and literacy project, kenya 1. These were assigned letters as and divided into decades groups a10, a20, etc. It is probably the origin of rap and has its own origin in the. The bantu languages are a large family of languages spoken primarily in the southern part of africa. Going a bit west of the central bantu zone, one finds other tense aspect verbal. Forms quoted result from intense cooperation with bickmore and his.
Although mokpe and these other languages employ two or more negative morphemes, these morphemes are not free variants. Derek nurse looks at variations in the form and function of tense and aspect in bantu, a branch of nigercongo, the worlds largest language. The augment originates in the protobantu pronominal prefix, which is usually identical to the subject prefix of verbs. Bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. A comparative grammar of the south african bantu languages. Heaths anterior aspect m is included in my list of tenses as p1.
Introduction, purpose and definition this short paper attempts to provide an introductory description of the phenomenon of verbal extensions in bantu languages with special. This collection brings together most of the worlds leading bantuists, as well as some of the most promising younger scholars interested in the history, comparison, and description of bantu languages. Morphologythe most distinctive morphological feature of bantu languages is the grouping of nouns in different classes, marked by a prefix. These concepts are clarified with a better understanding of how the verb is structured in bantu languages, which is my next topic. It includes all the countries in central and southern africa. Grammatical and lexical comparison of the greater ruvu bantu. East bantu, southeast it is particularly controversial whether bantu language history was treelike. The bantu languages are spoken in a very large area, including most of africa from southern cameroon eastward to kenya and southward to the southernmost tip of the continent. In favour of the tree model, bantu languages are thought to have spread and diversi. A comparative study of the bantu and semibantu languages by johnston, harry hamilton, sir, 18581927.
All members of a given class share the same prefix. On the verbal origin of the verbal suffixes of bantu verb suffixes. Second, distinct from the template, bantu languages sometimes show a tendency for specific suffixes to be ordered according to semantic compositionality, or scope. Introduction tense aspect aspectinbantu aspectingyeli anterior. Bantu languages such as swahili, zulu, chichewa or bemba are spoken by an estimated 240 million speakers in 27 african countries, and are one of the most important language groups in africa in terms of geographical and demographic distribution. Through the elicitation of 91 swahili sentences and the collection of one oral text, this research compares the tam systems of several mara bantu languages tanzaniakenya with the aim of finding any shared individualidentifying innovations nichols 1996 that can either affirm mara as a coherent genetic linguistic subgroup schoenbrun 1990 or point toward a different historical.
The augment originates in the proto bantu pronominal prefix, which is usually identical to the subject prefix of verbs. Introduction the inflectional morphology of the bantu verb has been the subject of many previous comparative and descriptive studies. Most bantu languages have tones which serve to make lexical andor grammatical distinctions. The binding of the reflexive is, certainly, an aspect of syn tactic binding in the.
This chapter provides an overview of the common syntactic features as well as the syntactic microvariation found in the bantu languages. However, upon wider comparison, no consistent pattern emerges across languages. Kiango university of dar es salaam, tanzania abstract the headword of a dictionary entry serves different functions. Common tenseaspect markers in bantu 173 or can be linked processually and chronologically since ka itive is the most widespread geographically and statistically, it would be the best. There are about 520 languages in the bantu family, 670 languages in the southern bantoid branch which includes bantu, and 1,532 in nigercongo. A comparative study of the bantu and semibantu languages. Map of the ikoma, ngoreme, and surrounding language areas in mara region, tanzania. Lodhi department of asian and african languages uppsala university abdulaziz. The matrices follow a standard format, in which tense and aspect intersect. Geographically, bantu languages are spoken in the southern half of africa. Files are available under licenses specified on their description page. Over 500 languages are classified in this family, including swahili, xhosa, and zulu.
Bantu words in american english montclair state university. Verbal extensions in bantu the case of swahili and nyamwezi. Introduction1 when two nominal constituents are in a relation of dependency in the bantu languages, the. The augment, also called the preprefix or just initial vowel, is a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns in certain bantu languages shape. The exact place of bantu in this framework is controversial, and there is no comprehensive overview of bantu. The study of bantu languages of subsaharan africa has provided the basis for significant contributions to research in linguistics. Pdf on the verbal origin of the verbal suffixes of bantu. Bantu language article about bantu language by the free. As indicated, bantu languages have a number of argument structure changing. In this study, we have used language phylogenies in conjunction with the explicit mapping of ancestral locations to make inferences about the specific route taken during the dispersal of bantu languages.
Middle passage bantu languages slang black english africanamerican vernacular english play the dozens. Bantu languages are spoken in central, japanese, and southern subsaharan africa south of a line between nigeria and somalia. Genetically, they form part of benuecongo, itself a part of the huge nigercongo phylum. Apr 27, 2020 the bantu languages are a large family of languages spoken primarily in the southern part of africa. This module offers a comprehensive introduction to the structure of the bantu languages. As seen, both in proto bantu pb and in most bantu languages which have these suffixes, the default suffix ordering is causativeapplicativereciprocalpassive, or carp. A verb form will always have at least one aspect but may have more, it can only have one tense, and it tends to have tense marked farther to the left and aspect farther to the right. Derek nurse tense and aspect in bantu world of digitals. They then combine many of these to form 26 intermediate groupings of which about half are controversial. The linear ordering of tamneg markers in the bantu languages.
In bantu languages, the verbal element is characteristically conflated to mark tense and aspect and more often than. Bantu language is a crossword puzzle clue that we have spotted over 20 times. New developments in the classification of bantu languages and. Benuecongo languages, the largest branch of the nigercongo language family, in terms of the number of speakers, the number of languages, and the wide geographic spread, stretching from the beninnigeria border across nigeria and cameroon through central africa to eastern africa. There are at least two ways one might present the influences of african languages and phonological theory on each other.
All structured data from the file and property namespaces is available under the creative commons cc0 license. As the source of bantu languages is generally argued to be in southwest adamawa, new data on bantu and related languages is important to the. As seen, both in protobantu pb and in most bantu languages which have these suffixes, the default suffix ordering is causativeapplicativereciprocalpassive, or carp. Pdf distal aspects in bantu languages steve nicolle academia. Southern bantu languages simple english wikipedia, the free. Each word must end in a vowel though in some modern dialects in eastern equatorial, west and south africa the terminal vowel may be elided in rapid pronunciation, or be dropped, or absorbed in the terminal. Argument binding and morphology in chichewa1 stanford university. However, it should be noted that african languages have contributed significantly to virtually every other aspect of phonological theory. Bantu languages express at least some aspectual distinctions by such compounds. Students of bantu languages have a great deal of material to work with, since the family is so large and speakers are widely scattered across africa.
In recent years they have been used to advance morphological as well as syntactic theory, and in the study of interface relations in grammatical theory. A comparative grammar of the south african bantu languages comprising those of zanzibar, mozambique, the zambesi, kafirland, benguela, angola, the congo, the ogowe, the cameroons, the lake region, etc. Walker a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts in the faculty of graduate studies linguistics we accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard. The southern bantu languages, also known as bantu zone s, are a group of languages in the bantu language family. The southern bantu languages, however, are also a valid linguistic group. A wide variety of romance languages have clitics appearing verbinitially that mark objects, but there is also wide range of variation with respect to the properties of those clitics. Derek nurse appears at variations in the form and carry out of tense and side in bantu, a division of nigercongo, the worlds largest language phylum. The phenomenon, in fact, is even more constrained and unproductive than in romance notable exceptions are attested in some bantu languages, e. Verbal extensions in bantu the case of swahili and nyamwezi abdulaziz y. Most bantu languages have tones which serve to make lexical and or grammatical distinctions. Guthrie classification of bantu languages wikipedia. Pdf tense, aspect and case in bantu and significance in.
The results clearly support the pathway through the rainforest scenario for the expansion of bantu through much of subsaharan africa. It particularly highlights the importance of information structure for the analysis of morphosyntax in this language family. Going a bit west of the central bantu zone, one finds other tenseaspect verbal. Case and grammatical relations across languages amsterdam. New developments in the classification of bantu languages. The 250 or so narrow bantu languages are conventionally divided up into geographic zones first proposed by malcolm guthrie 19671971. Guthries divisions of the bantu languages were based on geography, not on language characteristics. Bantu words in american english terms you should know for week 11 part 02 are. In some other bantu languages, the stem for all requires the same agreement like adjectives see. What derek nurse says in general about diverse publications on tam tense, aspect and mood in bantu languages also holds true for what may be found in current literature on tam in swahili. Tense and aspect are morphological features and in some languages like english, they are marked mainly by inflection on the verb. At the risk of overgeneralization, most of this work has been concerned with the. Intermediate groupings are then tentatively combined into a few. Bantu substratum interference in mozambican portuguese speech varieties abstract bantu phonological constraints exert varying types of interference in the varieties of portuguese spoken in mozambique.
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