Topics in African Linguistics: Papers from the XXI Annual Conference on African Linguistics, University of Georgia, April 1990

318 Pages·1993·25.23 MB·English

by  Salikoko S. Mufwene

TOPICS IN AFRICAN LINGUISTICS
AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND
HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
General Editor
E.F. KONRAD KOERNER
(University of Ottawa)
Series IV - CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY
Advisory Editorial Board
Henning Andersen (Los Angeles); Raimo Anttila (Los Angeles)
Thomas V. Gamkrelidze (Tbilisi); John E. Joseph (Hong Kong)
Hans-Heinrich Lieb (Berlin); Ernst Pulgram (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.); Danny Steinberg (Tokyo)
Volume 100
Salikoko S. Mufwene and Lioba Moshi (eds)
Topics in African Linguistics
TOPICS IN AFRICAN
LINGUISTICS
Edited by
SALIKOKO S. MUFWENE
University of Chicago
LIOBA MOSHI
University of Georgia
with the assistance of
BEN G. BLOUNT and DEBORAH SCHMIDT
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
1993
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Topics in African Linguistics / edited by Salikoko S. Mufwene, Lioba Moshi, with the
assistance of Ben G. Blount and Deborah Schmidt.
p. cm. -- (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science.
Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763; v. 100)
Selection of papers presented at the 21st Conference on African Linguistics, held
Apr. 12-14, 1990, University of Georgia.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
1. African linguistics-Congresses. I. Mufwene, Salikoko S. II. Moshi, Lioba J. III.
Conference on African Linguistics (21st : 1990 : University of Georgia) IV. Series.
PL8002.T67 1993
496-dc20 93-5761
ISBN 90 272 3610 0 (Eur.)/l-55619-553-2 (US) (alk. paper) CIP
© Copyright 1993 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O. Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America • 821 Bethlehem Pike • Philadelphia, PA 19118 • USA
CONTENTS
Editors' Foreword vii
Part One: Morphosyntax
Conceptual issues in the comparative study of the Bantu
verb stem
Larry M. Hyman 3
Ewe verbs in derivation and in periphrastic constructions
Andrew S. Allen 35
Les procédés répétitifs en kikongo: le redoublement et la
réduplication
Mwatha Musanji Ngalasso 45
Clitic climbing in Bantu
Edmond Biloa 67
The Yoruba serial verb construction: A complex or simple
sentence?
& Adenike Lawal 79
La négation en gbaya 'bodoe
Paulette Roulon-Doko 103
Part Two: Semantics
Names and honorific pronouns in Gborbo Krahn
Janet Bing 119
Luo names: Reference and meaning
Ben G. Blount 131
vi CONTENTS
Time-stability: The case of adjectives in KiVunjo-Chaga
Lioba Moshi 141
On the typological character of property concepts in Emai
Ronald P. Schaefer and Oisaghaede F. Egbokhare 159
Part Three: Phonology
Verb structure and tone in Chiyao
Al Mtenje 179
On the reduced nasal phoneme of Manding
José Tourville 191
Part Four: Language Contact
Language variation and change in pervasively multilingual
societies: Bantu languages
Eyamba G. Bokamba 207
Building the frame in codeswitching: Evidence from Africa
Carol Myers-Scotton 253
Phonological similarities between Sango and its base language:
Is Sango a pidgin/creole or a koiné?
Helma Pasch 279
Can language planning work? Theory versus practice in
Africa
Edmun B. Richmond 293
Author Index 301
Language Index 305
EDITORS' FOREWORD
This book contains a selection of the papers presented at the
Twenty-First Annual Conference on African Linguistics, held at the
University of Georgia 12-14 April 1990, organized by Salikoko
Mufwene (Chair), Lioba Moshi (Associate Chair), Ben Blount and
Mbulelo Mzamane. Covering a variety of African languages from dif­
ferent families and geographical areas, they represent the state of the
art in the subfields of African linguistics into which the book is organ­
ized: 1) morphosyntax, 2) semantics, 3) phonology, and 4) language
contact. The last part covers topics such as code-switching and
mixing, pidginization/creolization, and language planning. This re­
flects more or less recent efforts in linguistics to bridge areas that are
topically related, though scholars may have collaborated little with
each other in the past. The overall structure was otherwise intended
to give the book structure and unity out of the diverse topics usually
covered by general meetings such as those of the Annual Conference
on African Linguistics.
The papers in Part One: Morphosyntax focus particularly on the
verb and verb phrase in a variety of Niger-Congo languages, discuss­
ing especially aspects of the verb morphology. Larry Hyman offers
comparative data and a morphological analysis of the Bantu verb stem
while Andrew Allen looks at the morphological structure of the Ewe
verb both in derivational and in periphrastic constructions. Mwatha
Musanji Ngalasso diverges from the above trend only in going beyond
the verb in his thorough discussion of reduplication strategies in
Kikongo-Kituba. The next three papers bring the reader back to the
verb: Edmond Bilao discusses clitic climbing in Bantu languages, Ade-
nike Lawal looks at serial verb construction in complex and simple
Yoruba sentences, while Paulette Roulon-Doko focuses on the inter­
action of negation and time reference and mood in Gbáyá 'Bödöè.
Some readers will find this paper particularly informative about the
role of floating tones in determining the tonal contour of items in ut­
terances.
viii EDITORS' FOREWORD
The papers in Part Two: Semantics start with a discussion of
some foundational questions regarding the proper/common noun dis­
tinction in two geographically very distant African languages: Gborbo
Krahn in the west, by Janet Bing, and Luo in the east, by Ben G.
Blount. Both languages follow very similar principles, as far apart as
they are territorially from each other. On the other hand, despite dif­
ferences in the titles, the essays on Kivunjo-Chaga by Lioba Moshi
and on Emai by Ronald Schaefer and Oisaghaede Egbokhare address
the question of the semantic basis for assigning property concepts to
different lexical categories. Moshi focuses on the usefulness of the
concept 'time stability' to identifying a category of adjectives, while
Schaefer and Egbokhare discuss the typological character of property
concepts.
With only two contributions, Part Three: Phonology is the small­
est of the volume. A couple of the papers we had wished to include
were withdrawn due to delays in the publication of these proceedings.
Those published here, by Al Mtenje and José Tourville focus on the
prosodic features of Chiyao and Manding, respectively, using some
of the most current analytical frameworks.
The apparent heterogeneity of Part Four reflects undoubtedly the
topical diversity that its title Language Contact covers. Eyamba
Bokamba's and Carol Myers-Scotton's papers are nonetheless related
in more ways than in simply dealing with contact phenomena. Their
interests are similar regarding variation and the mostly formal con­
straints associated with them, even though the essays have different
foci: Bokamba's on new morphological creations and Myers-Cotton's
on code-switching. Helma Pasch compares segmental features of
Sango and Yakoma in the Central African Republic to determine
whether the former is a creole. Lastly, Edmun Richmond discusses the
choice of national official language in sub-Saharan Africa. Except for
Pasch, all of the papers in Part Four cover several languages and
geographical areas.
This volume would not have materialized without the contribution
of many individuals, to whom we wish to address our hearty thanks.
We would like to start with John J. Kozak, former Dean of the Col­
lege of Arts and Sciences for supporting Mufwene's proposal to host
the Twenty-First Annual Conference on African Linguistics at the
EDITORS' FOREWORD ix
University of Georgia and awarding us the initial funds for its organ­
ization. The Conference would not have been as successful as it was
without the kind assistance of Joe L. Key, Vice President for Re­
search in additional funds, which allowed us in part to sponsor our
invited speakers. We are also grateful to Michael Olien, then Acting
Head of the Department of Anthropology and Linguistics, and to
Egbert Krispyn, then Head of the Department of Comparative Litera­
ture, for their administrative support; to Darl Snyder, then Associate
Vice-President for International Development, for sponsoring the
opening reception; and to the many students who helped with the
registration and information desks. It is difficult to measure our in­
debtedness to those we worked most closely with, especially Mbulelo
Mzamane, for helping organize the meeting together with a parases-
sion on Language and Literature, and Ben G. Blount for also helping
plan the Conference and participating in the review and selection of
papers for these proceedings. Deborah Schmidt joined the University
of Georgia the year following the Conference and helped with the
review and selection of papers on phonology. Part of the "dirty work"
of converting and/or reformatting the computer disks sent to us was
done by following dedicated graduate assistants: Alice Bettini, Xilong
Chen, and Jessica Cooper. During these days of budget cuts it would
be very ungrateful to omit mentioning the Departments of Linguistics
at the University of Chicago and of Comparative Literature at the
University of Georgia for supporting the costs of copies, fax, and
telephone while the manuscript was being readied for publication.
Last but not least, we wish to thank all the contributors for their pa­
tience. For reasons in part out of our control we simply could not
have these proceedings published before this year.
Chicago, IL. and Athens, GA, Salikoko S. Mufwene
May 1993 Lioba Moshi