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Predication In African Languages
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Book Synopsis Predication in African Languages by : James Essegbey
Download or read book Predication in African Languages written by James Essegbey and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2024-07-15 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses patterns of predication and their grammatical and semantic implications in a variety of African languages. It covers several prominent topics about predication in the languages, including locative predication, expressions of tense, aspect, and mood in relation to verbal complexes and verb serialisation, verb semantics, and nominalization of predicates. The chapters take inspiration from Felix Ameka’s approach to the study of language according to which the main task of a linguist is to collaborate with language users to understand communicative practices in different contexts and to uncover how these practices impact grammatical and semantic aspects of the language. Accordingly, the descriptions and analyses in this book serve to understand language variation in different ecologies, rather than to impose pre-established descriptive frames on less described languages. Together, the chapters in the book represent a bird’s eye view of predication strategies in various African languages and can therefore serve as readings for both introductory and advanced level courses on predication from a typological or comparative perspective.
Book Synopsis African Languages from a Role and Reference Grammar Perspective by : Jens Fleischhauer
Download or read book African Languages from a Role and Reference Grammar Perspective written by Jens Fleischhauer and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-05-08 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume is a collection of papers which apply Role & Reference Grammar (RRG) to African languages. RRG is a functional theory of syntax which has been developed on the basis of two leading questions: First, how would a syntactic theory look like which starts from ‘exotic’ languages rather than English? Second, how can the interaction between syntax, semantics and pragmatics in different grammatical systems best modelled and explained? Although RRG took linguistic diversity serious from its very beginning, African languages have been underrepresented in the development of the theory. Given the sheer number African languages deserve a wider coverage in a syntactic theory which takes linguistic diversity seriously. The volume is intended to fill this gap and comprises a selection of papers which investigate different aspects related to the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface of different African languages. This includes: argument doubling and dislocation in iziZulu, complex referential phrases in Gĩkũyũ, serial verb constructions in Igbo, locative complements in Hausa and Zarma Chiine and focus constructions in Emai. The papers will extent the current RRG approach to new languages and phenomena.
Book Synopsis Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages by : Gerrit J. Dimmendaal
Download or read book Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages written by Gerrit J. Dimmendaal and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2011-06-08 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This advanced historical linguistics course book deals with the historical and comparative study of African languages. The first part functions as an elementary introduction to the comparative method, involving the establishment of lexical and grammatical cognates, the reconstruction of their historical development, techniques for the subclassification of related languages, and the use of language-internal evidence, more specifically the application of internal reconstruction. Part II addresses language contact phenomena and the status of language in a wider, cultural-historical and ecological context. Part III deals with the relationship between comparative linguistics and other disciplines. In this rich course book, the author presents valuable views on a number of issues in the comparative study of African languages, more specifically concerning genetic diversity on the African continent, the status of pidginised and creolised languages, language mixing, and grammaticalisation.
Book Synopsis The Languages and Linguistics of Africa by : Tom Güldemann
Download or read book The Languages and Linguistics of Africa written by Tom Güldemann and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2018-09-10 with total page 1085 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative handbook takes a fresh look at the currently underestimated linguistic diversity of Africa, the continent with the largest number of languages in the world. It covers the major domains of linguistics, offering both a representative picture of Africa’s linguistic landscape as well as new and at times unconventional perspectives. The focus is not so much on exhaustiveness as on the fruitful relationship between African and general linguistics and the contributions the two domains can make to each other. This volume is thus intended for readers with a specific interest in African languages and also for students and scholars within the greater discipline of linguistics.
Download or read book African Languages written by Bernd Heine and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-08-03 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an introduction to African languages and linguistics, covering typology, structure and sociolinguistics. The twelve chapters are written by a team of fifteen eminent Africanists, and their topics include the four major language groupings (Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Afroasiatic and Khoisan), the core areas of modern theoretical linguistics (phonology, morphology, syntax), typology, sociolinguistics, comparative linguistics, and language, history and society. Basic concepts and terminology are explained for undergraduates and non-specialist readers, but each chapter also provides an overview of the state of the art in its field, and as such will be referred to also by more advanced students and general linguists. The book brings this range of material together in accessible form for anyone wishing to learn more about this challenging and fascinating field.
Book Synopsis An Introduction to African Languages by : George Tucker Childs
Download or read book An Introduction to African Languages written by George Tucker Childs and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces beginning students and non-specialists to the diversity and richness of African languages. In addition to providing a solid background to the study of African languages, the book presents linguistic phenomena not found in European languages. A goal of this book is to stimulate interest in African languages and address the question: What makes African languages so fascinating? The orientation adopted throughout the book is a descriptive one, which seeks to characterize African languages in a relatively succinct and neutral manner, and to make the facts accessible to a wide variety of readers. The author's lengthy acquaintance with the continent and field experiences in western, eastern, and southern Africa allow for both a broad perspective and considerable depth in selected areas. The original examples are often the author's own but also come from other sources and languages not often referenced in the literature. This text also includes a set of sound files illustrating the phenomena under discussion, be they the clicks of Khoisan, talking drums, or the ideophones (words like English lickety-split) found almost everywhere, which will make this book a valuable resource for teacher and student alike.
Book Synopsis An Introduction to African Languages by : G. Tucker Childs
Download or read book An Introduction to African Languages written by G. Tucker Childs and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2003-12-19 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces beginning students and non-specialists to the diversity and richness of African languages. In addition to providing a solid background to the study of African languages, the book presents linguistic phenomena not found in European languages. A goal of this book is to stimulate interest in African languages and address the question: What makes African languages so fascinating? The orientation adopted throughout the book is a descriptive one, which seeks to characterize African languages in a relatively succinct and neutral manner, and to make the facts accessible to a wide variety of readers. The author’s lengthy acquaintance with the continent and field experiences in western, eastern, and southern Africa allow for both a broad perspective and considerable depth in selected areas. The original examples are often the author’s own but also come from other sources and languages not often referenced in the literature. This text also includes a set of sound files illustrating the phenomena under discussion, be they the clicks of Khoisan, talking drums, or the ideophones (words like English lickety-split) found almost everywhere, which will make this book a valuable resource for teacher and student alike.
Book Synopsis Aspect and Modality in Kwa Languages by : Felix K. Ameka
Download or read book Aspect and Modality in Kwa Languages written by Felix K. Ameka and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008-04-10 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the thesis that in the Kwa languages of West Africa, aspect and modality are more central to the grammar of the verb than tense. Where tense marking has emerged it is invariably in the expression of the future, and therefore concerned with the impending actualization or potentiality of an event, hence with modality, rather than the purely temporal sequencing associated with tense. The primary grammatical contrasts are perfective versus imperfective. The main languages discussed are Akan, Dangme, Ewe, Ga and Tuwuli while Nzema-Ahanta, Likpe and Eastern Gbe are also mentioned. Knowledge about these languages has deepened considerably during the past decade or so and ideas about their structure have changed. The volume therefore presents novel analyses of grammatical forms like the so-called S-Aux-O-V-Other or “future” constructions, and provides empirical data for theorizing about aspect and modality. It should be of considerable interest to Africanist linguists, typologists, and creolists interested in substrate issues.
Book Synopsis Focus Strategies in African Languages by : Enoch Oladé Aboh
Download or read book Focus Strategies in African Languages written by Enoch Oladé Aboh and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2008-08-27 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last two decades, focus has become a prominent topic in major fields in linguistic research (syntax, semantics, phonology). Focus Strategies in African Languages contributes to the ongoing discussion of focus by investigating focus-related phenomena in a range of African languages, most of which have been under-represented in the theoretical literature on focus. The articles in the volume look at focus strategies in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic languages from several theoretical and methodological perspectives, ranging from detailed generative analysis to careful typological generalization across languages. Their common aim is to deepen our understanding of whether and how the information-structural category of focus is represented and marked in natural language. Topics investigated are, among others, the relation of focus and prosody, the effects of information structure on word order, ex situ versus in situ strategies of focus marking, the inventory of focus marking devices, focus and related constructions, focus-sensitive particles. The present inquiry into the focus systems of African languages has repercussions on existing theories of focus. It reveals new focus strategies as well as fine-tuned focus distinctions that are not discussed in the theoretical literature, which is almost exclusively based on well-documented intonation languages.
Book Synopsis Quotative Indexes in African Languages by : Tom Güldemann
Download or read book Quotative Indexes in African Languages written by Tom Güldemann and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2008-11-06 with total page 707 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book represents the results of a synchronic and diachronic cross-African survey of quotative indexes. These are linguistic expressions that signal in the ongoing discourse the presence of a quote (often called "direct reported speech"). For this purpose, 39 African languages were selected to represent the genealogical and geographical diversity of the continent. The study is based primarily on this language sample, in particular on the analysis of quotative indexes and related expressions from a text corpus of each sample language, but also includes a wide range of data from the published literature on other African as well as non- African languages. It is the first typological investigation of direct reported discourse of this magnitude in a large group of languages. The book may thus serve as a starting point of similar studies in other geographical areas or even with a global scope, as well as stimulate more detailed investigations of particular languages. The results of the African survey challenge several prevailing cross-linguistic generalizations regarding quotative indexes and reported discourse constructions as a whole, of which two are of particular interest. In the syntactic domain, where reported discourse has mostly been dealt with under so- called sentential complementation, the study supports the minority view that direct reported discourse and also a large portion of indirect reported discourse show hardly any evidence for the claim that the reported clause is a syntactic object complement of some matrix verb. With respect to grammaticalization, the work concludes that speech verbs are, against common belief, not a frequent source of quotatives, complementizers, and other related markers. Far more frequent sources are markers of similarity and manner; generic verbs of equation, inchoativity, and action; and pronominals referring to the quote or the speaker. Another more general conclusion of the study is that especially direct reported discourse can be fruitfully analyzed as part of a larger linguistic domain called "mimesis". This comprises expressions which represent a state of affairs by means of enactment/ performance rather than with the help of "canonical" linguistic signs and includes, besides reported discourse, world-referring bodily gestures, ideophone-like signs, and non-linguistic sound.
Book Synopsis Studies in African Linguistic Typology by : F. K. Erhard Voeltz
Download or read book Studies in African Linguistic Typology written by F. K. Erhard Voeltz and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2006-03-22 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twenty-one papers that make up this volume reflect the broad perspective of African linguistic typology studies today. Where previous volumes would present language material from a very restricted area and perspective, the present contributions reflect the global interest and orientation of current African linguistic studies. The studies are nearly all implicational in nature. Based upon a detailed survey of a particular linguistic phenomenon in a given language or language area conclusions are drawn about the general nature about this phenomenon in the languages of Africa and beyond. They represent as such a first step that may ultimately lead to a more thorough understanding of African linguistic structures. This approach is well justified. Taking the other road, attempting to pick out linguistic details from often fairly superficially documented languages runs the risk that the data and its implications for the structure investigated might be misunderstood. Consequentially only very few studies of this nature giving the very broad perspective, the overview of a particular structure type covering the whole African continent are represented here.
Book Synopsis The Routledge Handbook of African Linguistics by : Augustine Agwuele
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of African Linguistics written by Augustine Agwuele and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 647 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of African Linguistics provides a holistic coverage of the key themes, subfields, approaches and practical application to the vast areas subsumable under African linguistics that will serve researchers working across the wide continuum in the field. Established and emerging scholars of African languages who are active and current in their fields are brought together, each making use of data from a linguistic group in Africa to explicate a chosen theme within their area of expertise, and illustrate the practice of the discipline in the continent.
Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of African Languages by : Rainer Vossen
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of African Languages written by Rainer Vossen and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 1104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Une source inconnue indique : "This book provides a comprehensive overview of current research in African languages, drawing on insights from anthropological linguistics, typology, historical and comparative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. It covers a wide range of topics, from grammatical sketches of individual languages to sociocultural and extralinguistic issues."
Book Synopsis Intransitive Predication by : Leon Stassen
Download or read book Intransitive Predication written by Leon Stassen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 792 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basing his analysis on a wide sample of languages, Stassen investigates cross-linguistic variation in one of the core domains of all natural languages - 'cognitive space' - the topography of which is the same for all languages.
Book Synopsis Predication in Caribbean English Creoles by : Donald Winford
Download or read book Predication in Caribbean English Creoles written by Donald Winford and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first major study of the conservative or basilectal English creoles of the Anglophone Caribbean since Bailey's (1966) and Bickerton's (1975) descriptions of Jamaican and Guyanese Creole respectively. The book offers a comprehensive, unified treatment of the core areas of CEC predication, including the verb complex, auxiliary ordering, voice and valency, copular and attributive predication, serial verb constructions and complementation. Particularly note-worthy is its utilization of an extremely rich data base and a variety of sources to provide an up-to-date, state of the art account of predicate structures in CEC. The book presents new analyses of several areas of CEC syntax, including such phenonema as passivization, serialization and complementation, which have not been thoroughly analyzed, if at all, in the previous literature. The areas covered in the book involve a wide range of grammatical phenomena centering around the various sub-classes of verb and their subcategorization. The book consists of an introduction, a conclusion, and six chapters, each of which explores some aspect of the behavior of verbs (or verb-like predicators) and the constructions in which they occur. The book is intended to be a pre-theoretical account of the facts of CEC predication. However, to further elucidate the workings of the grammar and add some degree of explicitness to the description, the author also presents more formal analyses of the grammatical phenomena, employing the framework of Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG).
Download or read book Journal of African Languages written by and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 850 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Negation Patterns in West African Languages and Beyond by : Norbert Cyffer
Download or read book Negation Patterns in West African Languages and Beyond written by Norbert Cyffer and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume deals with issues on negation patterns in languages of West Africa and the adjacent north and east. The first aim is to provide data on various aspects of negation in African languages. Although the topics addressed here reflect a great diversity of negation patterns, the following typological features have been identified to be prominent in our region: conflict or even incompatibility between negation and focus, use of other indirect means of negating non-indicative mood (covered under the term Prohibitive ), different negation patterns in different Tense-Aspect-Moods (e.g. Imperfective vs. Perfective), lack of negative indefinites, and disjunctive negative marking (often referred to as double negation ). The articles presented here show that areal factors have played a significant role in the development of negation strategies in the languages of West Africa and beyond. On the other hand genetic factors seem to be less prominent."
