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"Zulu language Syntax."
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The coming apart of case and focus in Bantu
The paper presents an argument for structural case in a Bantu language, Ndebele. Bantu languages notoriously lack typical signs of case licensing, which has led to the proposal that they lack case altogether. A recent claim to the contrary, put forth in Halpert (2012, 2015), has been challenged by Carstens and Mletshe (2016), who argue that the patterns Halpert describes fall under the umbrella of focus licensing, thus undermining the need for an independent case licensing mechanism. Ndebele data invalidate this challenge, revealing a purely syntactic nature of the phenomenon in question.
Journal Article
‘Only’ in Nguni
This article investigates the syntax of the phrase-final focus particles kuphela and qha ‘only’ in Zulu and Xhosa (Nguni; Bantu). We show that kuphela’s and qha’s associations with a focused constituent respect the complex topography of information structure in Nguni and, like English only, a surface c-command requirement. However, unlike English only, the Zulu and Xhosa particles typically follow the focus associate they c-command, a fact that poses a serious challenge for Kayne’s (1994) antisymmetry theory. We demonstrate that the Nguni facts are incompatible with recent Linear Correspondence Axiom–inspired approaches to phrase-final particles in other languages and, after weighing the merits of several approaches, we conclude that kuphela is an adjunct and that syntax is only weakly antisymmetric: adjuncts are not subject to the LCA.
Journal Article
ENGLISH FIRST ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE WRITING ERRORS OF ISIZULU-SPEAKING LEARNERS IN FET WRITING CLASSES IN KWAZULU-NATAL
Error analysis presupposes a distinction between two languages. This distinction was primarily concerned with how the two languages facilitated or hindered learning of the target language. In its original premise, the juxtaposed languages were considered facilitative if they were similar but restrictive if they were different. This gave rise to the notion of transference where it was viewed either negatively when it hindered acquisition of certain structures or positively if it facilitated acquisition. This approach developed into a new focus of studying errors and analysing them. At first such an analysis focused on mother tongue interference but later developed into interlanguage where errors were viewed as a natural phenomenon that demonstrates the progress of learning. This paper is therefore grounded on error analysis where errors in writing of high school learners are analysed in order to interrogate where second language learners are in internalisation of English structures. The analysis covers grammatical aspects such as morphology, syntax and semantics. The findings indicate that learners’ errors range from word and phrase level to sentence level. At word level errors of morphological constructions and spelling were committed and at phrase level, errors were caused by the complexity of the noun and verb phrases. At sentence level, there were errors in sentence construction. The study has implications for the teaching of writing.
Journal Article
Class prefixes as specifiers in Southern Bantu
We argue that a set of facts about the plural nominal class prefixes in Southern Bantu languages shows that some plural prefixes spell out a phrasal constituent, a Specifier bottoming out in a classifier-like noun. This leads us to adopt a theory of lexicalization that leads to the conclusion that all nominal class prefixes in Southern Bantu lexicalize Specifiers of this sort, and we argue that the relation between primary and secondary prefixes supports this conclusion. We also discuss the consequences of our conclusion for the pairing of prefixes and nouns and for the analysis of agreement.
Journal Article
Playwriting as an emergent pedagogical tool for primary school student teachers
BackgroundThis research explored how classroom plays could serve as pedagogical tools to introduce children to Sesotho and isiZulu vocabulary of artificial intelligence (AI). The article captures how student teachers learned to write plays that they could produce when they become professional teachers.ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to explore how student teachers engaged in a playwriting process, creating drama texts for early grades primary school learners about AI.MethodThe qualitative study employed, a participatory action research design. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the student teachers, coupled with a dual analysis of their drama texts. An inductive thematic analysis approach was applied for the data from interviews with the students. A deductive approach was implemented to analyse the drama texts according to criteria for playwriting with a pedagogical purpose.ResultsThe findings revealed that playwriting as a tool for pedagogy can be useful in developing student teachers’ vocabulary of AI in Sesotho or isiZulu and to develop their playwriting skills.ConclusionThe findings contribute to the corpus of pedagogies for the teaching of vocabulary in African languages, which includes writing the texts and aiming to use these for reading experience and for dramatic activity in early grades classrooms.ContributionThe contribution of this study is how playwriting can serve as a pedagogical tool for the teaching of reading and vocabulary in the primary school.
Journal Article
A computational approach to Zulu verb morphology within the context of lexical semantics
The central research question that is addressed in this article is: How can ZulMorph, a finite state morphological analyser for Zulu, be employed to add value to Zulu lexical semantics with specific reference to Zulu verbs? The verb is the most complex word category in Zulu. Due to the agglutinative nature of Zulu morphology, limited information can be computationally extracted from running Zulu text without the support of sufficiently reliable computational mor-phological analysis by means of which the essential meanings of, amongst others, verbs can be exposed. In this article we describe a corpus-based approach to adding the English meaning to Zulu extended verb roots, thereby enhancing ZulMorph as a lexical knowledge base. 'n Rekenaarmatige benadering tot Zoeloe werkwoordmorfologie binne die konteks van leksikale semantiek. Die sentrale navorsingsvraag wat in hierdie artikel onder die loep kom, is: Hoe kan ZulMorph, 'n eindige toestand morfologiese ont-leder vir Zoeloe, gebruik word om waarde toe te voeg tot Zoeloe leksikale semantiek, met spesi-fieke verwysing na Zoeloe werkwoorde? Die werkwoord is die mees komplekse woordkategorie in Zoeloe. As gevolg van die agglutinerende aard van Zoeloe morfologie kan net beperkte inligting sonder die ondersteuning van voldoende betroubare rekenaarmatige morfologiese analise uit lopende Zoeloe teks onttrek word. Die morfologiese inligting stel essensiële betekenisse van, onder andere, werkwoorde, bloot. In hierdie artikel beskryf ons 'n korpusgebaseerde benadering om die Engelse betekenis aan uitgebreide werkwoordwortels van Zoeloe toe te ken en sodoende ZulMorph as leksikale kennisbasis uit te brei.
Journal Article
Negative concord and nominal licensing in Xhosa and Zulu
Xhosa and Zulu nominals have restricted distributions when lacking an outer class prefix known as the augment. We argue that in negative contexts augmentless ([−A]) nominals bear negative concord features, uNeg, which must Agree with a negative licenser iNeg (Zeijlstra 2004). This accounts for the fact that some of them can be used as negative sentence fragment answers, and at the same time cannot appear in sentences without c-commanding negation. It also explains a clausemate requirement [S ...Neg...[−A]...] consistently reported by speakers of both languages in our study for all but subjunctive and (occasionally) neg-raising environments. We demonstrate that further distributional constraints attributed by Halpert (2012, 2015) to special Case-licensing needs of Zulu [−A] nominals are shared by [+A] DPs modified by kuphela–'only', and [+/−A] wh-phrases are subject to near-identical restrictions. This is a state of affairs that Halpert's approach would not predict and cannot explain. We build on Sabel and Zeller (2006), and Zeller (2008) in attributing the pattern to incompatibility between [+focus] features characteristic of negative concord items, 'only'-modified DPs, and wh-phrases, and [−focus] features of certain Zulu and Xhosa clausal positions. Thus all aspects of [−A] nominal distribution reduce to independently motivated features of the class of expressions to which they belong.
Journal Article
Review article: Second language acquisition of Bantu languages: A (mostly) untapped research opportunity
This review article presents a summary of research on the second language acquisition of Bantu languages, including Swahili, Zulu, Xhosa and Lingala. Although second language (L2) research on these languages is currently very limited, work in morphosyntax and phonology suggests promising directions for future study, particularly on noun class, tense and aspect.
Journal Article
A critique of 'A re-evaluation of tense in isiZulu'/'n Herevalurering van grammatiese tyd in isiZulu
This article is a response to Groenewald's 2014 article, 'A re-evaluation of tense in isiZulu'. Sub-themes identified in Groenewald's article and explored in this exposé in the light of an array of recently published research on the topic of tense are: the suitability of the distinction between absolute and relative tense and the use of the term 'absolute tense'; the appropriateness of defining tense in terms of deixis; the remoteness distinctions in terms of past and future tenses generally distinguished in the Bantu languages with particular reference to isiZulu; the semantic significance of the use of the so-called short and long forms of the present and past tenses of isiZulu and the naming of the individual tenses.
Journal Article