Webinar series
UPCOMING WEBINARS
9 September 2022 (10am SA time)
The loss of the infinitive in isiXhosa: Variation or language change?
Professor Mantoa Motinyane (University of the Western Cape)
Noun classes in Bantu languages are some of the most studied areas. Certain classes have drawn more attention than others, for example the loss or gradual loss of class 11 in isiXhosa, the merging of some plural classes (classes 10 and 6) and the ambiguous class 15. This ambiguity associated with class 15, as a nominal or clausal construction, continue to generate discussions amongst researchers. While there has been a lot of research on the noun classes in isiXhosa, the nominal infinitive has not received enough attention in the literature. With the exception of a few studies, the infinitive is treated in the same way as other nouns and yet very few nouns (if any) are underived nouns in that class. Given the reported merging of classes, the disappearing noun classes and the disappearance of semantic coherence, it is not surprising that the infinitive is also being eroded. The aim of this paper is therefore not to continue the debate with regards to classification of the infinitive (the nominal and verbal properties), but rather to shed some light on the evident loss of the infinitival marker uku- in isiXhosa and provide possible reasons for this loss. The paper analyses the observed variation of infinitive in adult speech and uses data from child acquisition studies to support a proposal for language change in the process. The data for this paper come from written assignments from final year students, Facebook and Twitter posts, as well as What’s app messages. We hope that by analysing both spoken and written data we can begin to understand the reasons for the decline in the use of the infinitive
PAST WEBINARS
Linguistic and sociocultural aspects of plant names in Chiyao (26 August 2022, 10am SA time)
Dr Julius Taji (University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania)
Chiyao (Bantu, P21) has diverse plants vocabulary and makes extensive use of such vocabulary to refer to other entities such as places and people through metaphorical extension. Despite this richness in plant vocabulary, and its widespread use to refer to other objects, the linguistic and sociocultural aspects of the plant vocabulary in Chiyao have not been well described. Consequently, the conditions determining plant naming and metaphorical extension of plant names have remained unclear, and the morphological patterns exhibited by such nouns are yet to be determined. This study aims to investigate the factors determining the choice and metaphorical extension of Chiyao plant names, and establish their morphological patterns. The study specifically analyses the morphological structure of nouns referring to plants, investigate the factors determining name assignment to plants, and identify the conditions determining the use of plants names to refer to other entities. The findings show that majority of plant names are found in classes 3/4 which is the default class for plants in many Bantu languages. Apart from the default class 3/4, a significant number of plant names can also be found in classes 7/8 and 9/10, and a fairly small number can be encountered in classes 5 and 14. It is further established that four main processes are employed in the formation of Chiyao plant names, namely derivation, compounding, borrowing, and reduplication. As for name assignment and metaphorical extension of plant names, it is revealed that the naming of plants is closely intertwined with indigenous knowledge system and the relationship between human beings and nature. In this regard, some plants are named after their impact on human body while others are named after the purpose they serve to other creatures. Similarly, the metaphorical extension of plant names to refer to other entities reflects a high degree of interaction between indigenous knowledge, culture and economy. It is thus shown that some plant names are assigned to people due to the economic activities they are engaged in while others assume plant names due association of physical features. It is therefore concluded that plant naming is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but a complex phenomenon that encompasses linguistic, socioeconomic, cultural, scientific, and environmental aspects
The passive extension in Cinyungwe: What are we still missing?
Dr Crisófia Langa da Câmara (22 July 2022, 10am SA time)
Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique
Passive verbs in Cinyungwe are formed through the addition of two passive morphemes: -iw- and -idw- (Courtois 1899; Martins 1991; Langa da Câmara 2018). The two passive morphemes can be attached to both intransitive and transitive verbs. However, when attached to certain verbs, the morpheme -idw- derives verbs with a benefactive as well as passive meaning. In some cases, the derived verb can only be used in very specific contexts. See (1) below.
1a) Siriza a-kumbiz-a livu mwandzace.
Siriza 1.PERF-lend-FV 5.livu 1-friend.her
‘Siriza lent the book to her friend.’
b) Livu la-kumbiz-i(d)w-a ?(mwandzace Siriza) na Siriza.
5.livu 5.PERF-lend-PASS-FV 1-friend.her Siriza by Siriza
‘The book was lent ?(to Siriza’s friend) by Siriza.’
The sentence in (1b) is the passive counterpart of the active sentence in (1a). The passive verb is derived by the addition of either -iw- or -idw-.
However, in contrast to (1) there are some cases in which a passive verb can only be derived through the addition of the passive morpheme -idw-. In these cases, the derived verb has a benefactive as well as passive interpretation, as shown in (2) below.
2a) kwa-dok-a. (Ngunga and Langa da Câmara 2019: 204)
expl.PERF-nightfall-FV
‘Night fell.’
b) ku-dok-e*(d)w-a
expl-nightfall-Pass-FV
Approximately: ‘to surprise someone with nightfall’
(2b) is the passive counterpart of the active verb in (2a). As shown in (2b), the passive verb can only be derived by the addition of the passive morpheme -idw-, not -iw-. Moreover, the derived verb in (2b) has both a passive and benefactive meaning, which suggests that -idw- is a complex morpheme as Ngunga and Camara (2019) proposed.
(3) below illustrate that a benefactive argument can be added to the argument structure of the derived verb.
3.)Kopo ya-sv-edw-a mayi.
5.cup 5.PERF-broke-FV 1.mother
‘The cup was broken for the mother.’
Context: We needed broken cups for a handicraft activity, but there were not enough cups. Someone wanted to take the one that was broken for the mother, and the speaker is advising him to leave it because that cup is only for the mother.
The example in (3) raise several important questions. What determines if the long passive morpheme must be used in an intransitive verb? How can the presence or absence of a benefactive meaning in verbs with -idw- be explained? What are the passive syntactic position(s) that account for this variation? I will explore various passive constructions in Cinyungwe as a first step to answering these questions. The data suggest that the strong tradition of distinguishing verbal extensions as valence reducing and valence increasing (Guthrie 1967) does not explain the occurrence of the passive extension in intransitive verbs and its benefactive interpretation.
Generating and linking grammatical tones in Bantu: 3 proposals contrasted
Prof. Lee Bickmore (Albany, USA)
Handout here
Bantu tone languages generally exhibit both lexical and grammatical tones. These grammatical tones (often referred to as a “Melodic Tones” in Bantu) are often one of several morphological exponents expressing some constellation of inflectional features. For instance, in Cilungu, a Zambian Bantu language, some tense/aspect/mood/polarity (TAMP) combinations trigger a grammatical High tone on the second mora of the stem, often in combination with various segmental affixes. Other TAMPs trigger a High tone on the stem-final vowel, while yet others trigger a High tone on the second and all subsequent TBUs of the stem. And some don’t trigger a grammatical High at all. While the existence of these melodic tones in Bantu has been well known and widely documented, what is much less clear is exactly when and where in the grammar they are generated and how they ultimately dock onto the appropriate verbal TBUs. In this paper, I consider the advantages and disadvantages of three different approaches to account for melodic tone realization. The first is the “All in the Phonology” approach where the Melodic Tones are introduced and inserted entirely in the phonology. Next, I consider the “Annotated Tones” approach where multiple types of floating High tones are introduced in the morphology and then linked in the phonology. Finally, we consider the “Single Tone” approach where one uniform floating High is generated in the morphology and then linked in the phonology. The two central questions which emerge as these approaches are contrasted are familiar ones: how much phonology if any does the morphology need to have access to in order to generate the MTs (and possibly specify the docking pattern), and how much morphological information must the phonology have access to in order to properly associate them. Preliminary conclusions to these questions and suggested lines of further study will be presented.t block.
What Bantu languages can teach us about verbal periphrasis (22 April 2022, 4pm SA time)
Prof. Asia Pietraszko (Rochester, USA)
Traditional approaches to verbal periphrasis (compound tenses) treat auxiliary verbs (be/have) as lexical items base-generated in syntax (as a special kind of V or a functional head). An alternative view that has received much attention in recent years is that auxiliary verbs are not base-generated but rather inserted in a previously built structure (i.a. Bach 1967; Embick 2000; Arregi 2000; Cowper 2010; Bjorkman 2011; Arregi and Klecha 2015). I argue in this talk that the latter approach is more adequate for Bantu languages, such as Swahili and Zimbabwean Ndebele, in which auxiliary verbs have a last-resort distribution (the overflow pattern, Bjorkman 2011). Nonetheless, the insertion approach is itself problematic as it makes incorrect predictions about Swahili relative clauses with auxiliaries. What Swahili teaches us about compound tenses, then, is that auxiliaries are, in fact, not inserted — even when they have a last-resort distribution. The proposed Cyclic Selection account (Pietraszko 2017, 2020) achieves the desired result: auxiliaries are base-generated in a last-resort fashion, making correct predictions about Swahili relative clauses.
25th February 2022, 10am SA time
The accuracy of multilingual learners' responses to L2 and L3 questions: A bottom-up analysis to the construction of meaning
Dr Nonhlanhla Ntuli, Department of Linguistics, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa
Question answering is a process that involves question specific retrieval operations over complex mental representations (Robertson et al., 2014). It depends on various cognitive levels, such as extracting, interpreting and analysing the information (Jurafsky & Martin, 2014; Norman, 1972; Ntuli & Kunene Nicolas, in press; Singer, 1991). Therefore, questions are an excellent tool to test learners' knowledge and enable them to develop and extend their thinking (Bay & Hartman, 2015; Cakir & Cengiz, 2016; Chin & Osborne, 2008). Thus, learners’ ability to answer questions has a substantial influence on their language, literacy and academic achievement throughout their schooling (Sanders & Erickson, 2018). Accordingly, the ability to answer questions about a text is the most critical possible demonstration of whether a text was understood or not (Beck & McKeown, 1981; Lehnert, 1977).
This study investigates how a sample population of multilingual learners aged between 10 and 15 (Grade 5 and 9) process knowledge and comprehension-related questions in their L2 (IsiZulu /Northern Sotho) and L3 (English) language subjects. The study is grounded within the psychological theory of human question answering (Graesser & Franklin, 1990; Pollitt & Ahmed, 1999; Robertson, 1994: Robertson, Ullman & Mehta, 2014; Singer, 1986). A qualitative method was used to analyse learners' responses, using a bottom-up approach to detect linguistic breakdowns or inaccuracies at each linguistic level in the learners' responses.
Results showed a high frequency of accurately processed comprehension and knowledge-focused questions by both age groups in both L2 and L3. However, not all accurately processed questions resulted in correct responses. Therefore, our findings revealed that several question answering and question comprehension skills were lacking in learners who gave incorrect answers, regardless of whether they processed the question accurately or not. At each linguistic level, the quality of learners' responses varied in terms of relevancy and conciseness, correctness, completeness, coherence and justification, demonstrating a superficial understanding of the text by the learners in their English and Zulu/Northern Sotho language subjects. These findings emphasise the need for the teaching of questioning-answering techniques that enhance students' thinking to better scaffold learners' ability to comprehend and answer questions.
26 November 2021 10am SA time
Multilingualism and modal expressions in South Africa
Dr Thera Marie Crane, University of Helsinki
In this talk, I will describe the motivations, goals, and proposed strategies of the research project Accommodating linguistic diversity in conversation: Modal expressions and multilingualism in South Africa. The project, which focuses on Bantu languages of South Africa came out of the parallel observations that (1) many South African speakers are proficient in numerous South African languages, and (2) these languages, even those that are closely related, have obvious and subtle differences at all linguistic levels. These conditions (which, of course, are old news to any South African speaker) create a fantastic environment for investigating how multilingual communication “works” when it is pervasive and largely naturalistic: multilingual discourse is the norm rather than the exception, and languages are often acquired outside of formal education settings.
The project aims to investigate how speakers deal with cross-linguistic differences by looking at modal expressions (such as English can, may, should, etc.), which show important distinctions across South African Bantu languages, are critical to polite communication, and which might present acquisition challenges for second-language learners.
The project is still in its early phases, and I am eager to receive feedback from experts based in Southern Africa!
20 August 2021
Dr Atikonda Mtenje-Mkochi (Malawi University of Science and Technology) 'Aspects of the phonology of Cinyiha and the linguistic relationship with its neighbouring languages'
17 September 2021
Professor Langa Khumalo (SADiLAR) 'Using corpora in online isiZulu language teaching'
9 September 2022 (10am SA time)
The loss of the infinitive in isiXhosa: Variation or language change?
Professor Mantoa Motinyane (University of the Western Cape)
Noun classes in Bantu languages are some of the most studied areas. Certain classes have drawn more attention than others, for example the loss or gradual loss of class 11 in isiXhosa, the merging of some plural classes (classes 10 and 6) and the ambiguous class 15. This ambiguity associated with class 15, as a nominal or clausal construction, continue to generate discussions amongst researchers. While there has been a lot of research on the noun classes in isiXhosa, the nominal infinitive has not received enough attention in the literature. With the exception of a few studies, the infinitive is treated in the same way as other nouns and yet very few nouns (if any) are underived nouns in that class. Given the reported merging of classes, the disappearing noun classes and the disappearance of semantic coherence, it is not surprising that the infinitive is also being eroded. The aim of this paper is therefore not to continue the debate with regards to classification of the infinitive (the nominal and verbal properties), but rather to shed some light on the evident loss of the infinitival marker uku- in isiXhosa and provide possible reasons for this loss. The paper analyses the observed variation of infinitive in adult speech and uses data from child acquisition studies to support a proposal for language change in the process. The data for this paper come from written assignments from final year students, Facebook and Twitter posts, as well as What’s app messages. We hope that by analysing both spoken and written data we can begin to understand the reasons for the decline in the use of the infinitive
PAST WEBINARS
Linguistic and sociocultural aspects of plant names in Chiyao (26 August 2022, 10am SA time)
Dr Julius Taji (University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania)
Chiyao (Bantu, P21) has diverse plants vocabulary and makes extensive use of such vocabulary to refer to other entities such as places and people through metaphorical extension. Despite this richness in plant vocabulary, and its widespread use to refer to other objects, the linguistic and sociocultural aspects of the plant vocabulary in Chiyao have not been well described. Consequently, the conditions determining plant naming and metaphorical extension of plant names have remained unclear, and the morphological patterns exhibited by such nouns are yet to be determined. This study aims to investigate the factors determining the choice and metaphorical extension of Chiyao plant names, and establish their morphological patterns. The study specifically analyses the morphological structure of nouns referring to plants, investigate the factors determining name assignment to plants, and identify the conditions determining the use of plants names to refer to other entities. The findings show that majority of plant names are found in classes 3/4 which is the default class for plants in many Bantu languages. Apart from the default class 3/4, a significant number of plant names can also be found in classes 7/8 and 9/10, and a fairly small number can be encountered in classes 5 and 14. It is further established that four main processes are employed in the formation of Chiyao plant names, namely derivation, compounding, borrowing, and reduplication. As for name assignment and metaphorical extension of plant names, it is revealed that the naming of plants is closely intertwined with indigenous knowledge system and the relationship between human beings and nature. In this regard, some plants are named after their impact on human body while others are named after the purpose they serve to other creatures. Similarly, the metaphorical extension of plant names to refer to other entities reflects a high degree of interaction between indigenous knowledge, culture and economy. It is thus shown that some plant names are assigned to people due to the economic activities they are engaged in while others assume plant names due association of physical features. It is therefore concluded that plant naming is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but a complex phenomenon that encompasses linguistic, socioeconomic, cultural, scientific, and environmental aspects
The passive extension in Cinyungwe: What are we still missing?
Dr Crisófia Langa da Câmara (22 July 2022, 10am SA time)
Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique
Passive verbs in Cinyungwe are formed through the addition of two passive morphemes: -iw- and -idw- (Courtois 1899; Martins 1991; Langa da Câmara 2018). The two passive morphemes can be attached to both intransitive and transitive verbs. However, when attached to certain verbs, the morpheme -idw- derives verbs with a benefactive as well as passive meaning. In some cases, the derived verb can only be used in very specific contexts. See (1) below.
1a) Siriza a-kumbiz-a livu mwandzace.
Siriza 1.PERF-lend-FV 5.livu 1-friend.her
‘Siriza lent the book to her friend.’
b) Livu la-kumbiz-i(d)w-a ?(mwandzace Siriza) na Siriza.
5.livu 5.PERF-lend-PASS-FV 1-friend.her Siriza by Siriza
‘The book was lent ?(to Siriza’s friend) by Siriza.’
The sentence in (1b) is the passive counterpart of the active sentence in (1a). The passive verb is derived by the addition of either -iw- or -idw-.
However, in contrast to (1) there are some cases in which a passive verb can only be derived through the addition of the passive morpheme -idw-. In these cases, the derived verb has a benefactive as well as passive interpretation, as shown in (2) below.
2a) kwa-dok-a. (Ngunga and Langa da Câmara 2019: 204)
expl.PERF-nightfall-FV
‘Night fell.’
b) ku-dok-e*(d)w-a
expl-nightfall-Pass-FV
Approximately: ‘to surprise someone with nightfall’
(2b) is the passive counterpart of the active verb in (2a). As shown in (2b), the passive verb can only be derived by the addition of the passive morpheme -idw-, not -iw-. Moreover, the derived verb in (2b) has both a passive and benefactive meaning, which suggests that -idw- is a complex morpheme as Ngunga and Camara (2019) proposed.
(3) below illustrate that a benefactive argument can be added to the argument structure of the derived verb.
3.)Kopo ya-sv-edw-a mayi.
5.cup 5.PERF-broke-FV 1.mother
‘The cup was broken for the mother.’
Context: We needed broken cups for a handicraft activity, but there were not enough cups. Someone wanted to take the one that was broken for the mother, and the speaker is advising him to leave it because that cup is only for the mother.
The example in (3) raise several important questions. What determines if the long passive morpheme must be used in an intransitive verb? How can the presence or absence of a benefactive meaning in verbs with -idw- be explained? What are the passive syntactic position(s) that account for this variation? I will explore various passive constructions in Cinyungwe as a first step to answering these questions. The data suggest that the strong tradition of distinguishing verbal extensions as valence reducing and valence increasing (Guthrie 1967) does not explain the occurrence of the passive extension in intransitive verbs and its benefactive interpretation.
Generating and linking grammatical tones in Bantu: 3 proposals contrasted
Prof. Lee Bickmore (Albany, USA)
Handout here
Bantu tone languages generally exhibit both lexical and grammatical tones. These grammatical tones (often referred to as a “Melodic Tones” in Bantu) are often one of several morphological exponents expressing some constellation of inflectional features. For instance, in Cilungu, a Zambian Bantu language, some tense/aspect/mood/polarity (TAMP) combinations trigger a grammatical High tone on the second mora of the stem, often in combination with various segmental affixes. Other TAMPs trigger a High tone on the stem-final vowel, while yet others trigger a High tone on the second and all subsequent TBUs of the stem. And some don’t trigger a grammatical High at all. While the existence of these melodic tones in Bantu has been well known and widely documented, what is much less clear is exactly when and where in the grammar they are generated and how they ultimately dock onto the appropriate verbal TBUs. In this paper, I consider the advantages and disadvantages of three different approaches to account for melodic tone realization. The first is the “All in the Phonology” approach where the Melodic Tones are introduced and inserted entirely in the phonology. Next, I consider the “Annotated Tones” approach where multiple types of floating High tones are introduced in the morphology and then linked in the phonology. Finally, we consider the “Single Tone” approach where one uniform floating High is generated in the morphology and then linked in the phonology. The two central questions which emerge as these approaches are contrasted are familiar ones: how much phonology if any does the morphology need to have access to in order to generate the MTs (and possibly specify the docking pattern), and how much morphological information must the phonology have access to in order to properly associate them. Preliminary conclusions to these questions and suggested lines of further study will be presented.t block.
What Bantu languages can teach us about verbal periphrasis (22 April 2022, 4pm SA time)
Prof. Asia Pietraszko (Rochester, USA)
Traditional approaches to verbal periphrasis (compound tenses) treat auxiliary verbs (be/have) as lexical items base-generated in syntax (as a special kind of V or a functional head). An alternative view that has received much attention in recent years is that auxiliary verbs are not base-generated but rather inserted in a previously built structure (i.a. Bach 1967; Embick 2000; Arregi 2000; Cowper 2010; Bjorkman 2011; Arregi and Klecha 2015). I argue in this talk that the latter approach is more adequate for Bantu languages, such as Swahili and Zimbabwean Ndebele, in which auxiliary verbs have a last-resort distribution (the overflow pattern, Bjorkman 2011). Nonetheless, the insertion approach is itself problematic as it makes incorrect predictions about Swahili relative clauses with auxiliaries. What Swahili teaches us about compound tenses, then, is that auxiliaries are, in fact, not inserted — even when they have a last-resort distribution. The proposed Cyclic Selection account (Pietraszko 2017, 2020) achieves the desired result: auxiliaries are base-generated in a last-resort fashion, making correct predictions about Swahili relative clauses.
25th February 2022, 10am SA time
The accuracy of multilingual learners' responses to L2 and L3 questions: A bottom-up analysis to the construction of meaning
Dr Nonhlanhla Ntuli, Department of Linguistics, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa
Question answering is a process that involves question specific retrieval operations over complex mental representations (Robertson et al., 2014). It depends on various cognitive levels, such as extracting, interpreting and analysing the information (Jurafsky & Martin, 2014; Norman, 1972; Ntuli & Kunene Nicolas, in press; Singer, 1991). Therefore, questions are an excellent tool to test learners' knowledge and enable them to develop and extend their thinking (Bay & Hartman, 2015; Cakir & Cengiz, 2016; Chin & Osborne, 2008). Thus, learners’ ability to answer questions has a substantial influence on their language, literacy and academic achievement throughout their schooling (Sanders & Erickson, 2018). Accordingly, the ability to answer questions about a text is the most critical possible demonstration of whether a text was understood or not (Beck & McKeown, 1981; Lehnert, 1977).
This study investigates how a sample population of multilingual learners aged between 10 and 15 (Grade 5 and 9) process knowledge and comprehension-related questions in their L2 (IsiZulu /Northern Sotho) and L3 (English) language subjects. The study is grounded within the psychological theory of human question answering (Graesser & Franklin, 1990; Pollitt & Ahmed, 1999; Robertson, 1994: Robertson, Ullman & Mehta, 2014; Singer, 1986). A qualitative method was used to analyse learners' responses, using a bottom-up approach to detect linguistic breakdowns or inaccuracies at each linguistic level in the learners' responses.
Results showed a high frequency of accurately processed comprehension and knowledge-focused questions by both age groups in both L2 and L3. However, not all accurately processed questions resulted in correct responses. Therefore, our findings revealed that several question answering and question comprehension skills were lacking in learners who gave incorrect answers, regardless of whether they processed the question accurately or not. At each linguistic level, the quality of learners' responses varied in terms of relevancy and conciseness, correctness, completeness, coherence and justification, demonstrating a superficial understanding of the text by the learners in their English and Zulu/Northern Sotho language subjects. These findings emphasise the need for the teaching of questioning-answering techniques that enhance students' thinking to better scaffold learners' ability to comprehend and answer questions.
26 November 2021 10am SA time
Multilingualism and modal expressions in South Africa
Dr Thera Marie Crane, University of Helsinki
In this talk, I will describe the motivations, goals, and proposed strategies of the research project Accommodating linguistic diversity in conversation: Modal expressions and multilingualism in South Africa. The project, which focuses on Bantu languages of South Africa came out of the parallel observations that (1) many South African speakers are proficient in numerous South African languages, and (2) these languages, even those that are closely related, have obvious and subtle differences at all linguistic levels. These conditions (which, of course, are old news to any South African speaker) create a fantastic environment for investigating how multilingual communication “works” when it is pervasive and largely naturalistic: multilingual discourse is the norm rather than the exception, and languages are often acquired outside of formal education settings.
The project aims to investigate how speakers deal with cross-linguistic differences by looking at modal expressions (such as English can, may, should, etc.), which show important distinctions across South African Bantu languages, are critical to polite communication, and which might present acquisition challenges for second-language learners.
The project is still in its early phases, and I am eager to receive feedback from experts based in Southern Africa!
20 August 2021
Dr Atikonda Mtenje-Mkochi (Malawi University of Science and Technology) 'Aspects of the phonology of Cinyiha and the linguistic relationship with its neighbouring languages'
17 September 2021
Professor Langa Khumalo (SADiLAR) 'Using corpora in online isiZulu language teaching'