The rich morphological systems and discourse-based syntactic structures of a range of modern Bantu languages have attracted the attention of many linguists. The present contribution takes articles in a volume on the reconstruction of Proto-Bantu grammar edited by Bostoen et al. (2022. On Reconstructing Proto-Bantu Grammar, Niger-Congo Comparative Studies 4. Berlin: Language Science Press. 808 pp. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7560553) as a basis, in order to address the origin of these grammatical properties. More specifically, historical as well as synchronic features of Bantu languages are compared with Tima, a related language spoken in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan, and classified as a member of the Kordofanian family within Niger-Congo by Greenberg. Contrary to a popular view, it is claimed here that subject inversion and corresponding (extended) ergative alignment marking with transitive verbs is not only a property of Tima as a Niger-Congo language, but also of several Niger-Congo languages classified as Bantu. Tima consequently may perform a role similar to that of Tocharian in the history of Indo-European studies. The present contribution also raises methodological issues related to lexicon-based Bayesian phylogenetics as against Greenberg’s method of multilateral comparisons, and the historical-comparative method. In addition, it addresses the question of the extent to which the spread of typological features coincides with so-called “belts” postulated in the typological literature on African languages.
{"title":"Review article: messages from (not so distant) relatives in the Nuba Mountains: on how (not) to reconstruct Proto-Bantu","authors":"Gerrit J. Dimmendaal","doi":"10.1515/jall-2023-2012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2023-2012","url":null,"abstract":"The rich morphological systems and discourse-based syntactic structures of a range of modern Bantu languages have attracted the attention of many linguists. The present contribution takes articles in a volume on the reconstruction of Proto-Bantu grammar edited by Bostoen et al. (2022. On Reconstructing Proto-Bantu Grammar, Niger-Congo Comparative Studies 4. Berlin: Language Science Press. 808 pp. <jats:ext-link xmlns:xlink=\"http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink\" ext-link-type=\"doi\" xlink:href=\"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7560553\">https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7560553</jats:ext-link>) as a basis, in order to address the origin of these grammatical properties. More specifically, historical as well as synchronic features of Bantu languages are compared with Tima, a related language spoken in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan, and classified as a member of the Kordofanian family within Niger-Congo by Greenberg. Contrary to a popular view, it is claimed here that subject inversion and corresponding (extended) ergative alignment marking with transitive verbs is not only a property of Tima as a Niger-Congo language, but also of several Niger-Congo languages classified as Bantu. Tima consequently may perform a role similar to that of Tocharian in the history of Indo-European studies. The present contribution also raises methodological issues related to lexicon-based Bayesian phylogenetics as against Greenberg’s method of multilateral comparisons, and the historical-comparative method. In addition, it addresses the question of the extent to which the spread of typological features coincides with so-called “belts” postulated in the typological literature on African languages.","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138527500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In Wolof (Niger-Congo), focus is expressed morphosyntactically via specific focus constructions. This article deals with two of them, namely the subject-focus and the complement-focus constructions. I propose to analyse them as copulaless cleft constructions of the form focus | topic, that is, constructions in which the focus and the topic are juxtaposed. In such clefts, the topic of the sentence is expressed by means of a noun phrase which is headed by the definite article la when the focus corresponds to the syntactic object, and by the morpheme a when the focus corresponds to the syntactic subject of the sentence.
{"title":"The Wolof argument-focus constructions as copulaless clefts","authors":"Corentin Bourdeau","doi":"10.1515/jall-2023-2011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2023-2011","url":null,"abstract":"In Wolof (Niger-Congo), focus is expressed morphosyntactically via specific focus constructions. This article deals with two of them, namely the <jats:italic>subject-focus</jats:italic> and the <jats:italic>complement-focus</jats:italic> constructions. I propose to analyse them as copulaless cleft constructions of the form <jats:sc>focus | topic</jats:sc>, that is, constructions in which the focus and the topic are juxtaposed. In such clefts, the topic of the sentence is expressed by means of a noun phrase which is headed by the definite article la when the focus corresponds to the syntactic object, and by the morpheme a when the focus corresponds to the syntactic subject of the sentence.","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138527489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sebastian Dom, Leora Bar-el, Ponsiano Sawaka Kanijo, Malin Petzell
This paper explores the formal correspondences between the members of verb pairs participating in the noncausal/causal alternation in Kagulu, a Bantu language from Tanzania. Our investigation shows that Kagulu has a predominance of equipollent verb pairs, with the anticausative and causative correspondences following close behind. We argue that, diachronically, the causative correspondence was much more prominent than it is in present-day Kagulu. However, due to morphophonological changes triggered by the historical causative suffix *-i, a significant number of verb pairs that are diachronically causative can be synchronically reanalyzed as equipollent. This study highlights the complexity of diachronic morphology in synchronic analyses of comparative-typological phenomena such as the noncausal/causal alternation, and contributes to the growing body of research on noncausal/causal verb pairs in African languages.
{"title":"The noncausal/causal alternation in Kagulu, an East Ruvu Bantu language of Tanzania","authors":"Sebastian Dom, Leora Bar-el, Ponsiano Sawaka Kanijo, Malin Petzell","doi":"10.1515/jall-2023-2008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2023-2008","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the formal correspondences between the members of verb pairs participating in the noncausal/causal alternation in Kagulu, a Bantu language from Tanzania. Our investigation shows that Kagulu has a predominance of equipollent verb pairs, with the anticausative and causative correspondences following close behind. We argue that, diachronically, the causative correspondence was much more prominent than it is in present-day Kagulu. However, due to morphophonological changes triggered by the historical causative suffix *-i, a significant number of verb pairs that are diachronically causative can be synchronically reanalyzed as equipollent. This study highlights the complexity of diachronic morphology in synchronic analyses of comparative-typological phenomena such as the noncausal/causal alternation, and contributes to the growing body of research on noncausal/causal verb pairs in African languages.","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138527503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines preverbal clitic clusters in the Tanzanian Rift Valley, an area of high linguistic diversity with representatives of the Bantu, Cushitic, and Nilotic families, as well as Sandawe (possibly a distant member of the Khoi-Kwadi family), and the language isolate Hadza. An earlier work (Kießling, Roland, Maarten Mous & Derek Nurse. 2008. The Tanzanian Rift Valley area. In Bernd Heine & Derek Nurse (eds.), A linguistic geography of Africa, 186–227. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) identified preverbal clitic clusters as a widespread feature across many languages of the Rift Valley, and posited the preverbal clitic cluster as a feature characteristic of a ‘Tanzanian Rift Valley Area’. The current paper provides further detail on preverbal clitic clusters across the languages of the region and examines possible routes of development for these structures. From this analysis, the picture that emerges is complex: contact scenarios cannot be restricted to ones in which West Rift Cushitic or its predecessor languages are the only models for the development of a preverbal clitic cluster and, in the case of Sandawe (and perhaps the Datooga varieties), it appears as if the development of a preverbal clitic cluster cannot be linked to contact at all. In terms of what this means for the ‘areality’ of the Tanzanian Rift Valley, this paper forgoes discussions about geographical delineation or arguments for or against a ‘Tanzanian Rift Valley Area’ in favour of highlighting the individual historical events (c.f. Campbell, Lyle. 2017. Why is it so hard to define a linguistic area? In Raymond Hickey (ed.), The Cambridge handbook of areal linguistics, 19–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) that may have given rise to preverbal clitic clusters in the languages of our sample, as well as encouraging continued investigation into the nature of these histories, both from a linguistic and interdisciplinary perspective.
{"title":"Preverbal clitic clusters in the Tanzanian Rift Valley revisited","authors":"Andrew Harvey, Hannah Gibson, Richard Griscom","doi":"10.1515/jall-2023-2010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2023-2010","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines preverbal clitic clusters in the Tanzanian Rift Valley, an area of high linguistic diversity with representatives of the Bantu, Cushitic, and Nilotic families, as well as Sandawe (possibly a distant member of the Khoi-Kwadi family), and the language isolate Hadza. An earlier work (Kießling, Roland, Maarten Mous & Derek Nurse. 2008. The Tanzanian Rift Valley area. In Bernd Heine & Derek Nurse (eds.), <jats:italic>A linguistic geography of Africa</jats:italic>, 186–227. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) identified preverbal clitic clusters as a widespread feature across many languages of the Rift Valley, and posited the preverbal clitic cluster as a feature characteristic of a ‘Tanzanian Rift Valley Area’. The current paper provides further detail on preverbal clitic clusters across the languages of the region and examines possible routes of development for these structures. From this analysis, the picture that emerges is complex: contact scenarios cannot be restricted to ones in which West Rift Cushitic or its predecessor languages are the only models for the development of a preverbal clitic cluster and, in the case of Sandawe (and perhaps the Datooga varieties), it appears as if the development of a preverbal clitic cluster cannot be linked to contact at all. In terms of what this means for the ‘areality’ of the Tanzanian Rift Valley, this paper forgoes discussions about geographical delineation or arguments for or against a ‘Tanzanian Rift Valley Area’ in favour of highlighting the individual historical events (c.f. Campbell, Lyle. 2017. Why is it so hard to define a linguistic area? In Raymond Hickey (ed.), <jats:italic>The Cambridge handbook of areal linguistics</jats:italic>, 19–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) that may have given rise to preverbal clitic clusters in the languages of our sample, as well as encouraging continued investigation into the nature of these histories, both from a linguistic and interdisciplinary perspective.","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138527548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: JALL welcomes new Editors","authors":"F. Ameka","doi":"10.1515/jall-2023-2013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2023-2013","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139325943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Serge Sagna: Cross-Categorial Classification. Nouns and Verbs in Eegimaa","authors":"Olivier Bondéelle","doi":"10.1515/jall-2023-2009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2023-2009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139330594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract South Ethio-Semitic (SES) is a genealogical branch of Ethio-Semitic (ES), a subgroup of Semitic found almost entirely in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The paper considers two features characteristic of several South Ethio-Semitic languages. Firstly, the Prefix Conjugation displays a common 1sg/1pl prefix in various SES languages. Secondly, an innovative 1pl suffix is often employed in the Prefix Conjugation. In forms with 1sg/1pl syncretism, this suffix takes over the functional load of the plural marker. Both features are innovative in SES, and their absence from a number of languages in each of the main subbranches suggests areal diffusion rather than a shared innovation going back to the Proto-SES level. In former studies, it has been suggested that the innovative 1pl suffix was borrowed from Cushitic and that its introduction has triggered the 1sg/1pl syncretism. This hypothesis is critically reassessed in the present paper, which considers in detail various patterns of 1sg/1pl syncretism and various patterns of its interaction with the 1pl suffix, and offers a tentative reconstruction of their emergence and spread in the languages in question.
{"title":"The first person prefixes in South Ethio-Semitic","authors":"M. Bulakh","doi":"10.1515/jall-2023-2003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2023-2003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract South Ethio-Semitic (SES) is a genealogical branch of Ethio-Semitic (ES), a subgroup of Semitic found almost entirely in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The paper considers two features characteristic of several South Ethio-Semitic languages. Firstly, the Prefix Conjugation displays a common 1sg/1pl prefix in various SES languages. Secondly, an innovative 1pl suffix is often employed in the Prefix Conjugation. In forms with 1sg/1pl syncretism, this suffix takes over the functional load of the plural marker. Both features are innovative in SES, and their absence from a number of languages in each of the main subbranches suggests areal diffusion rather than a shared innovation going back to the Proto-SES level. In former studies, it has been suggested that the innovative 1pl suffix was borrowed from Cushitic and that its introduction has triggered the 1sg/1pl syncretism. This hypothesis is critically reassessed in the present paper, which considers in detail various patterns of 1sg/1pl syncretism and various patterns of its interaction with the 1pl suffix, and offers a tentative reconstruction of their emergence and spread in the languages in question.","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48395155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper presents an overview, based on field data, of the adpositional system in Akebu, a Kwa (Ghana-Togo Mountain) language of West Africa. Like other Kwa languages, Akebu has both linear types of adpositions. Prepositions are not numerous and are fully grammaticalized. Two prepositions are used very widely, one of them expressing a comitative meaning and a number of related ones, the other having a generalized locative meaning, as well as other ones. In contrast, postpositions are more numerous, but most of them are weakly grammaticalized relator nouns that express the meanings of locational orientations and keep nominal morphology and independent uses. Still, grammaticalized postpositions are also present, the most common of them being a postposition that expresses apudessive, i.e. near, next to, orientation.
{"title":"Adpositions and adpositional relator nouns in Akebu","authors":"A. Shluinsky","doi":"10.1515/jall-2023-2006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2023-2006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper presents an overview, based on field data, of the adpositional system in Akebu, a Kwa (Ghana-Togo Mountain) language of West Africa. Like other Kwa languages, Akebu has both linear types of adpositions. Prepositions are not numerous and are fully grammaticalized. Two prepositions are used very widely, one of them expressing a comitative meaning and a number of related ones, the other having a generalized locative meaning, as well as other ones. In contrast, postpositions are more numerous, but most of them are weakly grammaticalized relator nouns that express the meanings of locational orientations and keep nominal morphology and independent uses. Still, grammaticalized postpositions are also present, the most common of them being a postposition that expresses apudessive, i.e. near, next to, orientation.","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42431213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Newman, Paul: A history of the Hausa language: reconstruction and pathways to the present","authors":"B. Caron","doi":"10.1515/jall-2023-2002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2023-2002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46263165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-01DOI: 10.1515/jall-2023-frontmatter1
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/jall-2023-frontmatter1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jall-2023-frontmatter1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43215,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Languages and Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135381853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：