Browsing by Author "Phiri, Admire"

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    Nominal marking in Northern Tshwa (Kalahari Khoe)
    (Stellenbosch University, Department of Linguistics, 2017) Fehn, Anne-Maria; Phiri, Admire
    Languages of the Khoe family have a complex pronominal system that distinguishes three categories each for person, gender, and number. However, while languages of the Khoekhoe branch and the western subgroup of Kalahari Khoe obligatorily or optionally mark nouns and nominal classifiers for gender and number, the nominal marking system in eastern Kalahari Khoe appears to be undergoing serious reduction. This article discusses data on personal pronouns and nominal gender-number marking in four little-known Northern Tshwa varieties, including data from Tjwao, a severely endangered language spoken by fewer than ten individuals in western Zimbabwe. We analyse personal pronoun use, case distinctions and nominal marking, focussing on characterising features and commonalities shared across the cluster. Our findings show a high degree of uniformity within Northern Tshwa, and at the same time suggest a more complex nominal marking system than was previously assumed for varieties of the Eastern Kalahari Khoe subgroup.
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    The verbal and nominal morpho-syntax of Tjwao : a grammaticalisation approach
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-12) Phiri, Admire; Andrason, Alexander; Fehn, Anne-Maria; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The present study examines nominal and verbal morphosyntax in Tjwao – a moribund and highly under-researched Khoe-Kwadi language spoken by seven individuals in Tsholotsho District and some parts of Plumtree District in western Zimbabwe, near the Botswana border. The study employed the qualitative research approach characterised by the collection of main evidence by means of interviews, elicitation, focus group discussions and participant observation. Additional evidence was drawn from the small Tjwao corpus previously collected by Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages (USA) in collaboration with the African Languages Research Institute (University of Zimbabwe). The collected synchronic evidence on Tjwao phonetics and phonology, nominal morphosyntax and the verbal system is described following the Basic Linguistic Theory approach. Drawing on Grammaticalisation Theory, the author describes the development of different functional categories and show that grammatical morphemes in Tjwao have historically developed from lexical sources. To render further support to findings made in Tjwao, the study draws on additional evidence from other languages of the Kalahari Khoe branch, that is, the closely related Tshwa dialects, Cirecire, Gǁabak’e, Hiechware and Kua, as well as languages from other clusters like Danisi (Shua), Ts’ixa, Khwe, ǁAni, Kua-Gǁana, Gǀui and Naro. In addition, this work considers data from unrelated language families worldwide. The findings of the study suggest that Tjwao conforms to the grammaticalisation tendencies exhibited by both related Kalahari Khoe languages and also observed on a cross-linguistic scale.