Case in modern standard Arabic
- Ghammaz, Hamzah Saleh Theyab
- Authors: Ghammaz, Hamzah Saleh Theyab
- Date: 2024-04-04
- Subjects: Arabic language Syntax , Arabic language Case , Minimalist theory (Linguistics) , Grammar, Comparative and general Verb phrase , Predicate , Tritransitive verb , Grammar, Comparative and general Clitics
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/435593 , vital:73171 , DOI 10.21504/10962/435593
- Description: This thesis provides a novel account of case checking in Modern Standard Arabic (henceforth MSA). It argues against the concept that nominative case in topic and comment structures is default. Default or inherent case is not related to case filter, nor is it assigned by any syntactic method. Some linguists claim that the default case in Arabic language is employed only when no case assigner is available. I argue, in light of the minimalist program (henceforth MP), that default (inherent) case is always a problem for syntactic theory and that the nominative case which the topic and comment sentences bear is valued by a functional head. The topic and comment constructions contain a predicational head (Pred)- a functional head, that is equivalent to vP which occurs in verbal constructions. The head of PredP is accountable for nominative case value on the topic and comment structures. This thesis also provides a novel paradigm regarding the clitics that appear at the end of verbs in MSA. This paradigm proves that these clitics are not agreement, tense, nor mood markers but rather Verbal Case markers and it provides a minimalist program account to explain case checking on verbs in MSA. Regarding sentence initial DP, and contra to the proposal that in SVO sentence initial DP is a subject, I have scrutinised the nature of this DP and provided enough evidence that it is a topic. Additionally, I have investigated the relationship between agreement asymmetry and the position of the subject in MSA from the minimalist feature inheritance account viewpoint. Mainly, I reviewed null pro hypothesis which proved to be redundant to account for the derivation of VSO or SVO word orders. I have also proved what were considered agreement markers are not agreement markers but resumptive pronouns. Finally, I proved that there is not agreement asymmetry in MSA. Agreement pattern in MSA results from the agree operation and it is achieved under Probe-Goal alignment; regardless of whether the Goal is raised up to Spec-TP or remains in situ (Spec-VP), the agreement is not supposed to change. This conclusion is in harmony with the principles of MP Agree Theory. , Thesis (PhD) -- Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 2024
- Full Text:
- Authors: Ghammaz, Hamzah Saleh Theyab
- Date: 2024-04-04
- Subjects: Arabic language Syntax , Arabic language Case , Minimalist theory (Linguistics) , Grammar, Comparative and general Verb phrase , Predicate , Tritransitive verb , Grammar, Comparative and general Clitics
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/435593 , vital:73171 , DOI 10.21504/10962/435593
- Description: This thesis provides a novel account of case checking in Modern Standard Arabic (henceforth MSA). It argues against the concept that nominative case in topic and comment structures is default. Default or inherent case is not related to case filter, nor is it assigned by any syntactic method. Some linguists claim that the default case in Arabic language is employed only when no case assigner is available. I argue, in light of the minimalist program (henceforth MP), that default (inherent) case is always a problem for syntactic theory and that the nominative case which the topic and comment sentences bear is valued by a functional head. The topic and comment constructions contain a predicational head (Pred)- a functional head, that is equivalent to vP which occurs in verbal constructions. The head of PredP is accountable for nominative case value on the topic and comment structures. This thesis also provides a novel paradigm regarding the clitics that appear at the end of verbs in MSA. This paradigm proves that these clitics are not agreement, tense, nor mood markers but rather Verbal Case markers and it provides a minimalist program account to explain case checking on verbs in MSA. Regarding sentence initial DP, and contra to the proposal that in SVO sentence initial DP is a subject, I have scrutinised the nature of this DP and provided enough evidence that it is a topic. Additionally, I have investigated the relationship between agreement asymmetry and the position of the subject in MSA from the minimalist feature inheritance account viewpoint. Mainly, I reviewed null pro hypothesis which proved to be redundant to account for the derivation of VSO or SVO word orders. I have also proved what were considered agreement markers are not agreement markers but resumptive pronouns. Finally, I proved that there is not agreement asymmetry in MSA. Agreement pattern in MSA results from the agree operation and it is achieved under Probe-Goal alignment; regardless of whether the Goal is raised up to Spec-TP or remains in situ (Spec-VP), the agreement is not supposed to change. This conclusion is in harmony with the principles of MP Agree Theory. , Thesis (PhD) -- Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 2024
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Click consonants in contact: a comparative sociohistorical analysis with special reference to Nama-Afrikaans contact
- Authors: Christie, Camilla Rose
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Click consonant , Language contact , Sociohistorical linguistics , Sociolinguistics , Nama language , Khoekhoe , African languages , Linguistic borrowing
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/432370 , vital:72865 , DOI 10.21504/10962/432370
- Description: Despite their ubiquity across southern Africa, click consonants are among the world’s most poorly understood speech sounds. Details of their phonological behaviour during language contact remain unclear, in large part because of the under-documentation of contact events of marginalised languages in rural contexts. Working within a sociohistorical linguistic framework with reference to material socioeconomic theories of language contact, this thesis compares and contrasts the diachronic phonological outcomes of various click loan events. The primary event under investigation is the donation of loanwords from an endangered click language, Nama, via substrate interference with the lexicon of a socially dominant clickless language, Afrikaans, in the Namaqualand region of the Northern Cape. The phonological adaptations employed to integrate donated lexical material into a host grammar ought ordinarily to be fairly regular, but the cross-linguistic rarity of click consonants complicates this process. The twenty click consonants expected of Nama undergo phonemic neutralisation when realised in Namaqualand Afrikaans, such that contrast embedded in click ‘type’ and click ‘accompaniment’ is collapsed. Speakers of Namaqualand Afrikaans employ any click type when uttering any click word, and may even use different click types in different tokens of the same lexical item. This unpredictability neutralises contrast. Nonetheless, there is some evidence of a diachronic trend from the unpredictable use of multiple click types and accompaniments toward the stable use of only the linguopulmonic dental click. When these novel data are set against the phonological outcomes of other contact events between a click language and a clickless languages across southern Africa, the normal outcome of click loan under is shown to be the collapse of ‘type’ contrasts. An important outlier is the large ‘type’-contrasting click inventory still shared by isiXhosa and isiZulu long after the extinction of donor click languages in the Khoekhoe branch, suggesting that this contact event must historically have entailed sustained community-wide bilingualism. These comparative observations are used to develop a cross-linguistic typology of click loan events that aims to improve our understanding of the precolonial linguistic landscape of southern Africa. The improved documentation of click consonants in rural language varieties is urgently recommended. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 2023
- Full Text:
- Authors: Christie, Camilla Rose
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Click consonant , Language contact , Sociohistorical linguistics , Sociolinguistics , Nama language , Khoekhoe , African languages , Linguistic borrowing
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/432370 , vital:72865 , DOI 10.21504/10962/432370
- Description: Despite their ubiquity across southern Africa, click consonants are among the world’s most poorly understood speech sounds. Details of their phonological behaviour during language contact remain unclear, in large part because of the under-documentation of contact events of marginalised languages in rural contexts. Working within a sociohistorical linguistic framework with reference to material socioeconomic theories of language contact, this thesis compares and contrasts the diachronic phonological outcomes of various click loan events. The primary event under investigation is the donation of loanwords from an endangered click language, Nama, via substrate interference with the lexicon of a socially dominant clickless language, Afrikaans, in the Namaqualand region of the Northern Cape. The phonological adaptations employed to integrate donated lexical material into a host grammar ought ordinarily to be fairly regular, but the cross-linguistic rarity of click consonants complicates this process. The twenty click consonants expected of Nama undergo phonemic neutralisation when realised in Namaqualand Afrikaans, such that contrast embedded in click ‘type’ and click ‘accompaniment’ is collapsed. Speakers of Namaqualand Afrikaans employ any click type when uttering any click word, and may even use different click types in different tokens of the same lexical item. This unpredictability neutralises contrast. Nonetheless, there is some evidence of a diachronic trend from the unpredictable use of multiple click types and accompaniments toward the stable use of only the linguopulmonic dental click. When these novel data are set against the phonological outcomes of other contact events between a click language and a clickless languages across southern Africa, the normal outcome of click loan under is shown to be the collapse of ‘type’ contrasts. An important outlier is the large ‘type’-contrasting click inventory still shared by isiXhosa and isiZulu long after the extinction of donor click languages in the Khoekhoe branch, suggesting that this contact event must historically have entailed sustained community-wide bilingualism. These comparative observations are used to develop a cross-linguistic typology of click loan events that aims to improve our understanding of the precolonial linguistic landscape of southern Africa. The improved documentation of click consonants in rural language varieties is urgently recommended. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 2023
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Phonological awareness skills of emergent bilingual Rumanyo-English learners
- Authors: Karupu, Erwina Mushinga
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Phonological awareness , Grammar, Comparative and general Syllable , Phonemic awareness , Silent reading Ability testing , Diriku language , Emergent literacies
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425100 , vital:72210
- Description: This thesis is an account of a cross-sectional study which focused on investigating Phonological Awareness (PA) in emergent Rumanyo/English bilingual learners. PA and its contribution to reading fluency were investigated among 47 third grade learners with an average age of 9. 19, at a Namibian School, for which Rumanyo is the language of instruction and English, the first additional language. This cross-sectional study examines two levels of PA: Syllable awareness and phoneme awareness. Measures included three subtasks: identification, segmenting and deletion. Reading fluency was measured through oral reading fluency and silent reading. The findings suggest that learners’ levels of PA are still developing with learners performing better on syllable awareness measures than on phoneme awareness. Reading fluency results evince low levels of proficiency in Rumanyo and in English, an average level of proficiency was recorded. To determine the relationship between PA and reading fluency, a Correlation Matrix was run and followed later with a linear regression. The findings demonstrate that syllable awareness predicted reading fluency in Rumanyo, whilst phoneme awareness did not show any association and as such, the model fit did not show any relationship either. With regards to English, neither syllables nor phonemes were a predictor of reading fluency. The study further examined to what extent the phonology of Rumanyo transferred to English. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 2023
- Full Text:
- Authors: Karupu, Erwina Mushinga
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Phonological awareness , Grammar, Comparative and general Syllable , Phonemic awareness , Silent reading Ability testing , Diriku language , Emergent literacies
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425100 , vital:72210
- Description: This thesis is an account of a cross-sectional study which focused on investigating Phonological Awareness (PA) in emergent Rumanyo/English bilingual learners. PA and its contribution to reading fluency were investigated among 47 third grade learners with an average age of 9. 19, at a Namibian School, for which Rumanyo is the language of instruction and English, the first additional language. This cross-sectional study examines two levels of PA: Syllable awareness and phoneme awareness. Measures included three subtasks: identification, segmenting and deletion. Reading fluency was measured through oral reading fluency and silent reading. The findings suggest that learners’ levels of PA are still developing with learners performing better on syllable awareness measures than on phoneme awareness. Reading fluency results evince low levels of proficiency in Rumanyo and in English, an average level of proficiency was recorded. To determine the relationship between PA and reading fluency, a Correlation Matrix was run and followed later with a linear regression. The findings demonstrate that syllable awareness predicted reading fluency in Rumanyo, whilst phoneme awareness did not show any association and as such, the model fit did not show any relationship either. With regards to English, neither syllables nor phonemes were a predictor of reading fluency. The study further examined to what extent the phonology of Rumanyo transferred to English. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 2023
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Tense and aspect in Xhosa
- Authors: Savić, Stefan
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: Xhosa language , Xhosa language Grammar , Xhosa language Semantics , Xhosa language Tense , Xhosa language Aspect , Xhosa language Syntax , Xhosa language Morphology , Xhosa language Grammar, Comparative , Information structure
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/192897 , vital:45277 , 10.21504/10962/192897
- Description: This dissertation investigates the semantics of each tense and aspect in Xhosa. Since tense and aspect perform important pragmatic functions, the analysis takes into account the correlation between the verb and the wider discourse in which it is embedded. Tense reflects the temporal relation between the time of the utterance (speech time) and an interval the speaker makes the assertion about (reference time). The Remote Past and the Remote Future tenses differ from their Recent/Immediate counterparts in that they denote events which occurred in a significantly different situation than the speech time and/or events in the surrounding discourse. Aspect does not only indicate the relation between the time occupied by the real world event and the reference time chosen by the speaker. The Perfective aspect represents an event as a unique change-of-state that pertains to a single point on the timeline which at the same time functions as the reference time. By contrast, for the Imperfective aspect temporally links the event to a contextually provided reference time, e.g. the utterance time, a time adverbial, a period of time previously introduced in the preceding discourse, or the interlocutors’ shared experience. At the pragmatic level, the Perfective aspect tends to introduce an event’s resulting state into the discourse, whereas the Imperfective aspect tends to rule it out. Like the Imperfective aspect, the Anterior and the Prospective aspects assert an event’s occurrence from a contextually defined reference time. They refer to the consequent and the preparatory states of an event, respectively. On the pragmatic level, the Anterior aspect may also indicate that the truth-conditionality of the event’s resulting state is contradicted in the immediate discourse. This study shows that tense and aspect temporally represent different means of temporally assigning an event to a particular portion of the timeline. I further argue that aspect indicates whether the reference time is provided in the context (Imperfective, Anterior, Prospective) or whether it is introduced by the verb itself (Perfective). Furthermore, this study shows that aspect exhibits a pragmatic function by laying focus on different parts of the event that are relevant in the upcoming discourse. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Languages Studies, 2021
- Full Text:
- Authors: Savić, Stefan
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: Xhosa language , Xhosa language Grammar , Xhosa language Semantics , Xhosa language Tense , Xhosa language Aspect , Xhosa language Syntax , Xhosa language Morphology , Xhosa language Grammar, Comparative , Information structure
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/192897 , vital:45277 , 10.21504/10962/192897
- Description: This dissertation investigates the semantics of each tense and aspect in Xhosa. Since tense and aspect perform important pragmatic functions, the analysis takes into account the correlation between the verb and the wider discourse in which it is embedded. Tense reflects the temporal relation between the time of the utterance (speech time) and an interval the speaker makes the assertion about (reference time). The Remote Past and the Remote Future tenses differ from their Recent/Immediate counterparts in that they denote events which occurred in a significantly different situation than the speech time and/or events in the surrounding discourse. Aspect does not only indicate the relation between the time occupied by the real world event and the reference time chosen by the speaker. The Perfective aspect represents an event as a unique change-of-state that pertains to a single point on the timeline which at the same time functions as the reference time. By contrast, for the Imperfective aspect temporally links the event to a contextually provided reference time, e.g. the utterance time, a time adverbial, a period of time previously introduced in the preceding discourse, or the interlocutors’ shared experience. At the pragmatic level, the Perfective aspect tends to introduce an event’s resulting state into the discourse, whereas the Imperfective aspect tends to rule it out. Like the Imperfective aspect, the Anterior and the Prospective aspects assert an event’s occurrence from a contextually defined reference time. They refer to the consequent and the preparatory states of an event, respectively. On the pragmatic level, the Anterior aspect may also indicate that the truth-conditionality of the event’s resulting state is contradicted in the immediate discourse. This study shows that tense and aspect temporally represent different means of temporally assigning an event to a particular portion of the timeline. I further argue that aspect indicates whether the reference time is provided in the context (Imperfective, Anterior, Prospective) or whether it is introduced by the verb itself (Perfective). Furthermore, this study shows that aspect exhibits a pragmatic function by laying focus on different parts of the event that are relevant in the upcoming discourse. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Languages Studies, 2021
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