TAALKUNDE EX.docx

# African language classification and families African language classification and families is a complex field that explores how the diverse languages of Africa are grouped based on genetic relatedness and linguistic features. ## 1. African language classification and families ### 1.1 Methods of language classification #### 1.1.1 Genetic classification Genetic classification, also known as the comparative method, aims to reconstruct the history of languages and establish genealogical relationships. It involves comparing features across languages to identify shared innovations inherited from a common ancestor. This method is crucial for understanding the "family tree" of languages. * **Mass comparison (Top-down):** This approach involves comparing a large number of languages simultaneously to identify potential groupings. * **Bottom-up application of the comparative method:** This involves studying smaller groups of closely related languages first and then gradually expanding the comparisons to establish broader relationships. This method is more rigorous but also more challenging. **Key principles of genetic classification:** * **Focus on basic vocabulary:** Linguists often use lists of basic words (e.g., pronouns, body parts, common verbs) as they are less likely to be borrowed than specialized vocabulary. Examples include the Leipzig-Jakarta list and the Swadesh list. * **Distinguishing genetic relatedness from chance resemblance and loanwords:** Similarities can arise by chance or through borrowing, which does not indicate genetic inheritance. #### 1.1.2 Typological classification Typological classification groups languages based on shared structural or functional characteristics, regardless of their historical origins. This can include features like word order, grammatical gender systems, or the presence of specific phonological phenomena. ### 1.2 Major African language families The classification of African languages is often based on proposals that group them into large "phyla" or families. While some groupings are widely accepted, others remain debated. #### 1.2.1 Afro-Asiatic Formerly known as Hamito-Semitic, this phylum includes languages spoken across North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Middle East. * **Major groups:** Berber, Cushitic (e.g., Burunge), Omotic, Egyptian, Chadic, and Semitic (e.g., Hebrew). * **Recognizable features:** * **Root and pattern system:** Basic meaning is conveyed by consonants, while vowels and other modifications add grammatical information. * **Grammatical gender:** Nouns are often assigned masculine or feminine gender. * **Gender polarity and stability:** The gender of a word for a concept like "blood" might be stable across related languages, even if the specific word forms differ. * **Directionals:** Verbs can express direction of movement relative to the speaker. * **Writing systems:** Some branches of Afro-Asiatic have developed ancient writing systems, such as Ge'ez. * **Proto-Afro-Asiatic:** Reconstructed to have existed between 10,000 and 15,000 BCE, with speakers being among the earliest to develop writing. #### 1.2.2 Nilo-Saharan This is a proposed phylum of languages spoken in parts of North and East Africa, as well as central Africa. It is a diverse group, and its unity is debated. * **Recognizable features:** * **Complex case marking systems:** Nouns can have intricate systems for marking grammatical roles, including ergative marking. * **Gender systems:** Nouns can be categorized into masculine, feminine, and neuter genders, distinct from noun class systems. * **Verb-final syntax (SOV):** The typical word order is Subject-Object-Verb. * **Complex directional systems:** Verbs can express detailed spatial relationships. * **Complex verbal morphology:** Verbs can have elaborate forms, often involving tone. * **Multiple plural and singular marking:** Nouns can have various ways of indicating number. * **Nilotic languages:** A subgroup within Nilo-Saharan, comprising about 50 languages, considered to have a clear internal unity. #### 1.2.3 Niger-Congo This is considered the largest phylum in the world by the number of languages and is spoken across a vast area of Sub-Saharan Africa. Its internal classification is complex and subject to revision. * **Core Niger-Congo:** Linguists generally agree on a core group of languages that are uncontroversially part of the phylum. The precise genealogical unity of subgroups within this core is still being established. * **Subgroups and debated affiliations:** * **Mande:** Some linguists consider it clearly Niger-Congo, while others classify it as an isolate. * **Ubangian (Ubangui):** Affiliation with Niger-Congo is not strongly supported by evidence. * **West-Atlantic:** Considered an areal grouping of early, independent descendants of Niger-Congo. * **Volta-Congo:** Proposed as a major genetic subgroup within Niger-Congo, encompassing Benue-Congo and Kwa languages. Evidence suggests Adamawa languages also belong to this core. * **Bantu languages:** A prominent subgroup within the Benue-Congo branch of Niger-Congo. * **Wide Bantu:** Includes Bantu and Bantoid languages (showing similarities to Bantu). * **Narrow Bantu:** Refers to languages classified as Bantu by linguists like Guthrie, divided into geographically based zones. Guthrie's zones are primarily for reference and do not necessarily reflect historical or genetic relationships. * **Bantu Expansion:** A major linguistic, cultural, and demographic event in Africa, characterized by its vastness, rapidity, and predominantly longitudinal spread. Two main expansion models exist: "east-out-of-the-west" and "east-next-to-the-west." * **Forest Bantu vs. Savanna Bantu:** A broad, non-genetic division of Narrow Bantu languages based on ecological habitats. #### 1.2.4 Khoisan The term "Khoisan" has historically been used to group languages that possess click consonants and are not classified into other major families. However, current research suggests it is not a unified phylum. * **Current classification:** * **Hadza:** Considered an isolate. * **Khoe-Kwadi (Central Khoisan):** Likely includes Sandawe. * **Kx’a (Northern Khoisan):** * **Tuu (Southern Khoisan):** * **Debate on genetic relatedness:** There is insufficient evidence for a genealogical relationship among these groups, meaning "Khoisan" is not a phylum in the same sense as the others. * **Characteristics of Khoisan speakers:** Historically associated with hunter-gatherer and pastoralist groups. * Kx’a and Tuu: Spoken by indigenous peoples of Southern Africa, often hunter-gatherers. * Khoe-Kwadi: Likely migrated from East Africa around 2000 years ago, spoken by hunter-gatherers and pastoralists. ### 1.3 Isolates Isolates are languages that do not fit into any known language family or are the sole surviving member of a family. The classification of a language as an isolate can be due to: * No living related languages have been identified. * Related languages may be extinct but not yet identified. * Related languages may exist but have not been sufficiently analyzed. ### 1.4 Linguistic features across phyla Despite the distinct classifications, some linguistic features are recurrent across these major African language families: * **Tone:** Prominent in Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, and Khoisan languages. * **Verbal derivational suffixes:** Widespread in Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Congo, some Nilo-Saharan, and Khoisan languages. * **Gender:** Found in some Nilo-Saharan, Khoisan, and Afro-Asiatic languages. * **Noun class systems:** A type of gender system, perhaps unique to Niger-Congo languages. --- # Phonetics and phonology This section explores phonetics, the physical production of speech sounds, and phonology, the mental organization of those sounds within a language. ## 2. Phonetics and phonology ### 2.1 Phonetics: the study of speech sounds Phonetics is concerned with the physical realization of language sounds. It can be further divided into: * **Articulatory phonetics:** How speech sounds are produced. * **Auditory phonetics:** How speech sounds are perceived. * **Acoustic phonetics:** The study of the physical properties of speech sounds. Physical phonetics describes how sound waves are generated, transmitted, and received. The parameters for identifying speech sounds are based on the airflow stream and how it is shaped by the vocal tract. These parameters include: * **Voicing:** The vibration of the vocal folds. * **Manner of articulation:** The degree of impedance or obstruction to the airstream. * **Place of articulation:** The specific articulators (active and passive) involved in shaping the airstream. Key phonetic characteristics include: * **Stops (Plosives):** Complete impedance of the airstream, followed by release. They can be voiced or voiceless. The timing between the release and the onset of voicing is known as voice-onset time. * **Fricatives:** A high degree of, but not complete, impedance of the airstream, creating turbulence. They can be voiced or voiceless. * **Nasals:** A subcategory of stops where the velum is lowered, allowing air to resonate in the nasal cavity while oral closure prevents airflow through the mouth. Nasals are typically voiced. Vowel descriptions utilize terms like "backness" (position of the tongue body from front to back) and "height" (how close the tongue is to the roof of the mouth). Vowels are characterized by resonances called formants, which predict backness and height. Lip-rounding is another potential feature of vowels. > **Tip:** Ejectives are a type of speech sound made on a glottalic egressive airstream, which can affect any segment, but are often seen with stops. ### 2.2 Phonology: the study of sound systems Phonology examines the mental organization of sounds within a specific language, focusing on how sounds are structured to enable communication. Key principles include: * **Assimilation:** Sounds tend to influence neighboring sounds. * **Symmetry:** Sound systems often exhibit symmetry in their inventories and in how sounds are affected by their environment. * **Ease of production/perception:** Languages tend to favor sounds that are easily distinguishable and producible. #### 2.2.1 Phonological features Phonological features are often represented using binary contrasts (+/-). Common features include: **MANNER of articulation:** * **Sonorant/Obstruent:** * `[+sonorant]` sounds (liquids, nasals, semivowels, vowels) have minimal obstruction to airflow and can be voiced easily. * `[-sonorant]` sounds (plosives, affricates, fricatives) have significant obstruction and are often referred to as **Obstruents**. * **Continuant (cont.):** * `[+continuant]` sounds (fricatives, liquids, semivowels, vowels) do not have a complete closure in the oral cavity that stops airflow. * `[-continuant]` sounds (plosives, affricates, nasals) involve a complete closure. * **Round:** * `[+round]` sounds are produced with rounded lips (e.g., round vowels, labialized sounds). * `[-round]` sounds are produced without lip-rounding. **PLACE OF ARTICULATION (primarily for consonants):** * **Anterior:** * `[+anterior]` sounds are made in the forward part of the mouth (labials, dentals, alveolars). * `[-anterior]` sounds are made farther back (alveopalatals, palatals, etc.). * **Coronal:** * `[+coronal]` sounds are made with the tip or blade of the tongue (dentals, alveolars, alveopalatals). * `[-coronal]` sounds are made without these parts of the tongue. * **Back (for consonants and vowels):** * `[+back]` sounds are made with the back of the tongue (velars, and sounds farther back; central and back vowels). * `[-back]` sounds are made with the front or central part of the tongue. **Tongue position (for vowels and some consonants):** * **High/Low:** * `[+high]` sounds involve raising the body of the tongue (high vowels, palatal/velar consonants). * `[+low]` sounds involve lowering the body of the tongue (open vowels, pharyngeal consonants). * Mid vowels are `[-high]` and `[-low]`. **STATE OF THE GLOTTIS:** * **Voice:** * `[+voice]` sounds are made with vibrating vocal folds. * `[-voice]` sounds are made without vocal fold vibration. #### 2.2.2 Phonemes, allophones, and free variants The relationship between phonetically similar speech sounds in a language can be one of three types: 1. **Contrastive:** Sounds occur in the same environment and change the meaning of a word. These are **phonemes**, the distinct phonological units of a language. * **Minimal pairs** (words differing by a single sound with different meanings) are key evidence for phonemes. 2. **Complementary Distribution:** Sounds occur in mutually exclusive environments. These are **allophones**, different phonetic realizations of the same phoneme. Phonetically plausible explanations often account for this distribution (e.g., assimilation, weakening). 3. **Free Variants:** Sounds occur in the same environment but do not change meaning. These are **free variants**, indicating pronunciation variability. #### 2.2.3 Syllables and phonotactics * **Syllable:** A structural unit within which segmental phonemes are organized. * **Open syllables:** Contain only an onset and nucleus, or just a nucleus (e.g., CV, V). * **Closed syllables:** Contain a coda (e.g., CVC, VC). * **Phonotactics:** The rules governing the permissible distribution of phonemes in a language, including allowed syllable structures and consonant/vowel clusters. Violating phonotactic rules results in words that sound unnatural to native speakers. ### 2.3 Phonological processes Phonological processes describe systematic changes in speech sounds, often driven by articulatory ease, acoustics, or cognition. #### 2.3.1 Assimilation processes Assimilation is a process where a sound becomes more like a neighboring sound. **Consonants affecting consonants:** * **Nasal assimilation (assimilation by place of articulation):** A nasal consonant adopts the place of articulation of a following consonant. * **Voicing assimilation:** Adjacent consonants tend to share the same voicing feature. * **Occlusion assimilation (fortition):** Non-obstruents may become obstruents when adjacent to nasals, adopting their complete oral occlusion. * **Fortition:** Non-obstruents become obstruents, or fricatives become affricates when preceded by a nasal. **Consonants affecting vowels:** * **Devoicing:** Unstressed vowels surrounded by voiceless consonants can become devoiced. * **Nasalization:** Vowels adjacent to nasal consonants become nasalized. **Vowels affecting consonants:** * **Labialization:** Consonants (often velars) become labialized before round vowels. * **Palatalization:** Consonants become palatalized next to front vowels (most commonly `[i]`). * **Affrication:** High vowels can cause alveolar or velar consonants to become affricates. **Intervocalic processes:** * **Weakening/Lenition:** Consonants between vowels may become less obstructed (e.g., stop to fricative, fricative to glide). * **Voicing assimilation:** Consonants between voiced vowels commonly become voiced. **Vowels affecting vowels:** * **Vowel harmony:** Vowels within a word tend to share features like height, fronting, backing, rounding, or tongue root position. * **ATR harmony:** A common type in Africa, based on the feature Advanced-Tongue Root. Vowels in a word are typically all `[+ATR]` or all `[-ATR]`, with `/a/` being a neutral vowel that can occur with either set and blocks the spread of `[+ATR]`. #### 2.3.2 Tone Tone is a suprasegmental phonological phenomenon where pitch patterns distinguish word meaning or grammatical form. * **Phonetic tone** is described acoustically by frequency (Hertz) and articulatorily by vocal fold vibration rate. Pitches are relative. * **Intonation** (prosody) uses pitch at the sentence level for grammatical, pragmatic, or discourse meanings. * **Tone** uses pitch to distinguish lexical or grammatical morphemes. * Tone is hosted on a **Tone Bearing Unit (TBU)**, typically a vowel or sonorant coda. * **Level tones** (e.g., high, low) and **contour tones** (e.g., falling, rising) are contrastive pitch patterns. * Tone exhibits extreme **mobility** (spreading, shifting) and **stability** (operating independently of segmental changes). * **Floating tones** are tones not associated with a TBU. * **Downdrift** refers to a pattern where successive high tones decrease in pitch. * **Tone shift** involves a tone moving to a different syllable. * **Tone spread** is the copying of a tone to surrounding TBUs. * **Tone dissimilation** (e.g., Meeussen's rule: `HH` becomes `HL`) prevents sequences of identical tones. > **Tip:** African languages have been pivotal in developing tonal theory, with concepts like downstep and downdrift originating from their study. ### 2.4 Morphology Morphology studies the shapes of meaningful units and how they combine to form words. * **Morpheme:** The minimal meaningful unit in linguistics. * **Bound morphemes:** Must attach to other morphemes (e.g., affixes, some roots). * **Free morphemes:** Can stand alone (e.g., most roots). * **Affix:** A prefix, suffix, infix, or circumfix. * **Root:** The basic meaning-bearing morpheme of a word. * **Stem:** A root or root plus derivational/inflectional morphemes. * **Clitic:** A bound morpheme that attaches to a host, often at the phrase level. #### 2.4.1 Derivation vs. Inflection * **Derivational categories:** * Often change word class. * Significantly alter meaning. * Are less productive and often idiosyncratic. * **Inflectional categories:** * Seldom change word class. * Are highly productive and predictable. #### 2.4.2 Major morphological processes These are ways to express conceptual categories: 1. **Prefixation:** Affix added before the root. 2. **Suffixation:** Affix added after the root. 3. **Circumfixation:** Prefix and suffix added simultaneously. 4. **Infixation:** Affix inserted within the root (rare). 5. **Stem modification:** Internal change to the stem (e.g., suppletion, vowel alternation). 6. **Autosegmental variation:** Marking conceptual categories with suprasegmental features (stress, tone). 7. **Reduplication:** Repetition of part or all of a root to express intensity, plurality, etc. 8. **Non-concatenative morphology:** Inserting patterns into a root (common in Semitic languages). 9. **Subtractive morphology:** Segments are omitted from a word. 10. **Compounding:** Combining roots to form new stems. #### 2.4.3 Morphophonology Morphophonology studies the interaction between morphology and phonology, explaining how morphemes change shape (allomorphs) when combined. #### 2.4.4 Word classes Word classes (e.g., nouns, verbs) are identified by their morphosyntactic properties (morphology and syntactic distribution), not solely by meaning. * **Nouns:** Typically heads of noun phrases, function as subjects, objects, etc. Morphology can express number, gender, case, etc. * **Verbs:** Typically heads of verb phrases, evoke "scenes" with participants assigned semantic roles (Agent, Patient, Theme, etc.). > **Tip:** Defining "word" can be complex and language-specific; it's often considered the smallest unit that can occur between pauses. ### 2.5 Morphosyntax Morphosyntax examines how morphology and syntax interact, particularly in constructions that affect the relationship between semantic roles and grammatical relations. #### 2.5.1 Valence Valence refers to the number of arguments a verb syntactically takes. * **Syntactic valence:** The number of core syntactic arguments a verb takes. * **Semantic valence:** The number of semantic participants a verb evokes. * **Valence-increasing constructions** (e.g., causatives, applicatives) add participants. * **Valence-decreasing constructions** (e.g., reflexives, reciprocals, passives) reduce participants or their grammatical roles. #### 2.5.2 Grammatical relations (GRs) GRs describe the structural relationships between verbs and core arguments (S, A, P). These are reflected in constituent order, case marking, and participant marking on the verb. * **Alignment types** describe how GRs are grouped and marked across languages (e.g., nominative-accusative, ergative-absolutive). --- # Morphology and word classes This section delves into morphology, the study of word structure and formation, and explores word classes, focusing on the fundamental roles of nouns and verbs in language. ## 3. Morphology and word classes Morphology is the linguistic study of how meaningful units, called morphemes, combine to form words, and how these words are structured. This contrasts with syntax, which focuses on how words combine to form sentences. ### 3.1 Morphemes A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language. #### 3.1.1 Types of morphemes * **Free morphemes:** Can stand alone and express their meaning independently. For example, "cat" is a free morpheme. * **Bound morphemes:** Must be attached to another morpheme to be used meaningfully. These include: * **Affixes:** Prefixes (at the beginning of a root), suffixes (at the end of a root), infixes (inserted within a root), and circumfixes (enclosing a root). * **Roots:** The core meaning-bearing part of a word that cannot be broken down further. Roots can be free or bound. * **Clitics:** Bound morphemes that attach to a host word but can attach to different types of hosts, unlike typical affixes. > **Tip:** The distinction between free and bound morphemes is crucial for understanding word formation. #### 3.1.2 Stem A stem is the root or the root plus any derivational or inflectional morphemes. For instance, in "strangle-a" (to strangle) and "strangle-an-a" (to strangle each other), "nyong-" is the root, and "nyong-a" is a stem. #### 3.1.3 Allomorphs Allomorphs are different shapes of the same morpheme. These variations can be due to phonological environments (morphophonemics), the type of stem they attach to, or other conditioning factors. Morphophonemic rules govern these predictable variations. > **Example:** The plural morpheme in English has different allomorphs: "-s" in "cats," "-es" in "churches," and "-en" in "children." ### 3.2 Word Classes Word classes, also known as parts of speech, categorize words based on their morphosyntactic properties (how they behave grammatically and structurally). They are the building blocks of clause structure. #### 3.2.1 Nouns Nouns are typically the head of a Noun Phrase (NP) and function as subjects, objects, or obliques/adjuncts. Their syntactic relation to the verb can be indicated by word order or morphology. ##### 3.2.1.1 Morphological features of nouns Nouns can carry morphological information related to: * **Number:** Singular, plural, dual, paucal, trial, collective. * **Gender:** Systems of noun classification, often involving agreement within the noun phrase. * **Diminutive/Augmentative:** Indicating smallness or largeness. * **Case:** Grammatical roles such as nominative (subject), accusative (object), genitive (possession). ##### 3.2.1.2 Noun phrases Noun phrases can include: * The head noun itself. * More than one noun (e.g., possessive constructions). * Modifiers such as determiners, adjectives, demonstratives, and numerals. ##### 3.2.1.3 Gender and noun class systems Gender systems, particularly noun class systems, are prevalent in many languages, especially in Niger-Congo languages. Nouns are grouped into subsets, often loosely based on semantic features, and control agreement mechanisms with other elements in the sentence. Agreement can occur within the noun phrase (on dependents) and in argument indexation on the verb (e.g., in the third person). > **Tip:** Noun class systems are a significant feature of many African languages, influencing agreement across various parts of the sentence. ##### 3.2.1.4 Morphosyntactic properties of nouns in Swahili In Swahili, nouns are defined by: * Taking a noun class prefix. * Triggering agreement on all constituents within their noun phrase. * Modifiers typically appearing after the head noun. #### 3.2.2 Verbs Verbs are usually the head of Verb Phrases (VP) and can be a verb alone, a verb with a modifier, or a verb with an object NP. ##### 3.2.2.1 Verbs and semantic roles Verbs evoke idealized "scenes" with participants assigned specific semantic roles. Key semantic roles include: * **Agent:** The instigator of an action. * **Patient:** An entity undergoing a visible change of state. * **Theme:** A participant that moves or is the locus of an action/property without a state change. * **Instrument:** Something used to carry out an action. * **Experiencer:** An entity receiving a sensory impression or experiencing an event without volition or state change. ##### 3.2.2.2 Transitivity * **Semantic transitivity:** The number of semantic participants a verb evokes. * **Syntactic transitivity:** The number of core syntactic arguments a verb takes. Verbs can be classified by their syntactic transitivity: * **Intransitive (monovalent):** Requires only one syntactic argument (Subject). * **Transitive (bivalent):** Requires two syntactic arguments (Subject and Object). * **Ditransitive (trivalent):** Requires three syntactic arguments (Subject and two Objects). > **Tip:** The transitivity of a verb at the semantic level may not always align with its syntactic transitivity. ##### 3.2.2.3 Valence and argument structure Valence refers to constructions that affect the relationship between grammatical relations and semantic roles. The argument structure of a verb describes the specific mapping of semantic roles to grammatical relations in a clause. Valence can be increased or decreased through various constructions. * **Valence decreasing constructions:** * **Reflexives:** Agent and Patient are the same entity (e.g., "She saw herself"). * **Reciprocals:** Two participants act upon each other (e.g., "They saw each other"). * **Middles:** Participants are often perceived as being affected by an action without direct volition. * **Passives:** The Agent is omitted or demoted, the Patient becomes the Subject, and the verb becomes grammatically intransitive. * **Valence increasing constructions:** * **Causatives:** Add an external Agent (causer) to the event. * **Applicatives:** Add an Object to a construction, which can represent various semantic roles like Recipient, Instrument, or Benefactee. ### 3.3 Derivation vs. Inflection Morphological processes can be categorized as derivational or inflectional. * **Derivational categories:** * Often change the word class of a root. * Significantly affect the meaning of a root. * Are generally less productive and may be idiosyncratic. * **Inflectional categories:** * Seldom change the word class. * Encode grammatical information (e.g., tense, number, case). ### 3.4 Major Morphological Processes Languages employ various processes to express conceptual categories. The "Big 10" include: 1. **Prefixation:** Adding a bound morpheme before the root. 2. **Suffixation:** Adding a bound morpheme after the root. 3. **Circumfixation:** Adding a prefix and a suffix simultaneously to express a single function. 4. **Infixation:** Inserting an affix within the root (relatively rare). 5. **Stem modification:** Changes to the root's shape without adding affixes, including suppletion (irregular changes, e.g., "go/went"). 6. **Autosegmental variation:** Marking conceptual categories with suprasegmental features like stress, tone, or nasalization. 7. **Reduplication:** Repeating part or all of a root to express concepts like intensity or plurality. 8. **Non-concatenative morphology:** Inserting vowel patterns or other segments into a consonant-only root (common in Semitic languages). 9. **Subtractive morphology:** Omitting segments from a word to express a category (found in Nilo-Saharan languages). 10. **Compounding:** Combining roots to form new stems. > **Tip:** Understanding these processes helps in analyzing the structure of words and how meaning is conveyed. ### 3.5 Representing Morphological Processes Morphological processes can be represented using: * **Prose:** Descriptive explanations. * **Position-class diagrams:** Useful for languages with extensive prefixation and suffixation, outlining affix positions. * **Process rules:** Describing changes to word shapes, often in the form of conceptual category (CC) to structural description (SD) transforming into structural change (SC). --- # Morphosyntax, voice, and valence Morphosyntax, voice, and valence constructions examine how semantic roles and grammatical relations align within clauses, focusing on argument structure, passives, causatives, and alignment types. ## 4. Morphosyntax, voice, and valence Every language features constructions that modify the alignment between semantic roles (the underlying meaning of participants in an event) and grammatical relations (the syntactic roles of participants in a clause). These phenomena are often discussed under the umbrella terms of voice and valence. Valence, in particular, serves as a valuable tool for investigating constructions that alter the relationship between grammatical relations and semantic roles. ### 4.1 Valence theory Valence theory explores how verbs evoke "scenes" in the minds of language users, with participants playing specific semantic roles. The concept can be understood through a metaphor of a play, where verbs activate scenes, and their argument structures determine which participants are central or peripheral. #### 4.1.1 Semantic and syntactic valence * **Semantic valence:** This refers to a verb's semantic transitivity, or the number of semantic participants a verb "evokes" in a given language. * **Syntactic valence:** This refers to a verb's syntactic transitivity, or the number of core syntactic arguments a verb takes. > **Tip:** The transitivity of a verb and the transitivity of a clause may not always be the same. #### 4.1.2 Argument structure The specific mapping of semantic roles and grammatical relations in a clause is known as the argument structure of a particular verb. #### 4.1.3 Valence-increasing and decreasing constructions Valence theory categorizes constructions based on whether they increase or decrease a verb's syntactic valence. ##### 4.1.3.1 Valence decreasing constructions These constructions either "combine" controlling and affected participants into a single participant or downplay a controlling participant. * **Reflexives:** In reflexive constructions, the agent (A) and patient (P) are the same entity (A=P). For example, "She saw herself." True reflexive constructions inherently reduce the semantic valence of a transitive clause because one entity fulfills multiple roles. Whether they also reduce syntactic valence is language-specific, manifesting through lexical, analytical (separate word), or morphological means. > **Example:** "She washed herself." (Reflexive) * **Reciprocals:** These constructions describe situations where two participants act equally upon each other, with both fulfilling agent and patient roles. For example, "They saw each other." Reciprocals are conceptually similar to reflexives in that they indicate coreference between agent and patient and are often expressed using similar morphology. Their valence-decreasing status is also language-specific, appearing morphologically or analytically. > **Example:** "The students greeted each other." (Reciprocal) * **Middles:** (Not detailed in the provided text, but typically involve an agentive-like subject that is affected by the action, e.g., "This fabric washes well.") * **Passives:** A prototypical passive construction is characterized morphosyntactically and by its discourse function. * **Morphosyntactic properties:** * The agent (A) is either omitted or demoted to an oblique role. * The other core argument (P) becomes the subject (S). * The verb becomes grammatically intransitive. * Many African languages utilize dedicated verbal morphology for passive meanings. Passives can be formed from transitive verbs, and in some languages, even intransitive verbs. Some languages convey passivity through word order changes without verb morphology. > **Example:** "The book was written by a famous author." (Passive) * **Subject omission:** (Mentioned in relation to passives, implies the removal of a participant from the clause). ##### 4.1.3.2 Valence increasing constructions These constructions add a controlling participant or upgrade a peripheral participant. * **Causatives:** Causative constructions introduce a "causer," an agent external to the core situation. > **Example:** "She made him laugh." (Here, 'she' is the causer.) * **Applicatives:** Applicative constructions add an object to a construction, which can represent various semantic roles such as recipient, instrument, beneficiary, or location. In some languages, applicative morphology is the primary means of introducing these participants. > **Example:** "She cooked him a meal." (The applicative adds 'him' as a beneficiary.) * **Dative shift:** (Not detailed, but generally involves changing the grammatical relation of an indirect object, often moving it from a prepositional phrase to a direct object position, increasing valence.) ### 4.2 Grammatical relations (GRs) Grammatical relations define the structural relationships between verbs/predicates and the core arguments of the predicate. They are the morphosyntactic properties that link a core argument to the entire clause. Obliques or adjuncts are considered non-core elements. * **Core argument:** A nominal that has a grammatical relation to a verb and is syntactically required by a verb root/stem in a main clause. This is distinct from a semantic argument or participant. GRs are primarily reflected in three structural properties: 1. **Constituent order:** The "default" position of S (single argument of an intransitive verb), A (agent-like argument of a transitive verb), and P (patient/object-like argument of a transitive verb) relative to the verb. Common orders in Africa include AVP, PVA, and APV. Constituent order can also be manipulated for pragmatic purposes. 2. **Case marking on NPs:** Morphological means to distinguish the relation an NP holds to its verb. This includes inflections on nouns, pronouns, or other NP elements, as well as clitics, adpositions, and tone patterns. Case marking typically occurs on nominals, not verbs or adverbs. 3. **Participant marking on verb:** Also known as verb agreement, cross-reference, argument indexation, or verbal person marking. This indicates which GRs are marked on the verb. Variation exists across languages regarding: * **Conceptual categories:** marking person, number, gender (including noun classes), or honorific status. * **Segmental form:** the marking can be a free morpheme, clitic, or affix. * **Syntactic co-occurrence:** the marking may be required to co-occur with the NP, optional, or in complementary distribution. ### 4.3 Alignment types Alignment refers to the grouping of grammatical relations based on their structural properties. Languages can exhibit different alignment systems across various areas of their morphosyntax, not being monolithically one type. The typically morphologically "marked" category in each system is often indicated. * **Subject:** In any given language, a subject is defined as the coding that reflects a conjunction of S and A. > **Tip:** Word classes are identified by their morphosyntactic properties (morphology and syntactic distribution), not solely by meaning. Nouns typically head Noun Phrases (NPs) and function as subjects, objects, or obliques. Verbs typically head Verb Phrases (VPs). * **Noun classes (e.g., in Niger-Congo languages):** These are nominal classification systems where nouns are organized into subsets, often loosely based on semantic features. Nouns control agreement mechanisms, and dependents within an NP and argument indexes on the verb often agree with the head noun's class. Swahili nouns, for instance, require a noun class prefix and trigger agreement on other constituents within the NP. * **Verbs and semantic roles:** Verbs evoke "scenes" with participants assigned semantic roles like Agent, Patient, Theme, Instrument, or Experiencer. * **Agent:** The instigator of an action. * **Patient:** An entity undergoing a physical change. * **Theme:** A participant that moves or has a property without a change of state. * **Instrument:** Something used to perform an action. * **Experiencer:** An entity receiving a sensory impression or experiencing an event. > **Example:** In "She tore the cloth with her teeth," 'She' is the Agent, 'cloth' is the Patient, and 'teeth' is the Instrument. * **Syntactic transitivity:** Refers to the number of core syntactic arguments a verb takes. * **Intransitive (monovalent):** Requires one argument (Subject). * **Transitive (bivalent):** Requires two arguments (Subject and Object). * **Diatransitive (trivalent):** Requires three arguments (Subject and two Objects). --- ## Common mistakes to avoid - Review all topics thoroughly before exams - Pay attention to formulas and key definitions - Practice with examples provided in each section - Don't memorize without understanding the underlying concepts

| Term | Definition | |------|------------| | Autochtoon | Indigenous or native to a particular place. In linguistics, it refers to languages originating from the continent where they are spoken. | | Migrant | Relating to a person who moves from one place to another. In a linguistic context, it can refer to languages brought into a region by migrating populations. | | Taal | Language; a system of communication used by a particular country or community. | | Dialect | A particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group, often differing from other forms in pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary. | | Lumpers | In classification, individuals or approaches that tend to group similar items together, potentially overlooking subtle differences. | | Splitters | In classification, individuals or approaches that tend to differentiate and separate items based on even minor distinctions. | | Exonym | The external name for a place, group of people, or language, usually given by outsiders. | | Endonym | The internal name for a place, group of people, or language, used by the people themselves. | | Autonym | Another term for endonym; the name used by the people of a place, group, or speakers of a language for themselves. | | Endogeen | Originating from within; referring to languages that have their roots and development within a specific geographical area, like Africa. | | Exogeen | Originating from outside; referring to languages that were introduced into a region from elsewhere, such as Arabic in parts of Africa. | | Genetic classification | A method of classifying languages based on their historical descent from a common ancestor, forming language families. | | Typological classification | A method of classifying languages based on shared structural or formal features, regardless of their historical relationship. | | Loanwords | Words adopted from one language into another with little or no modification. | | Basiswoordenschat | Basic vocabulary, typically including personal pronouns, body parts, and common verbs, considered less likely to be borrowed and thus useful for genetic classification. | | Swadesh list | A list of basic vocabulary items compiled by the linguist Morris Swadesh, intended to be universal across languages and used for lexicostatistical dating and language comparison. | | Comparative method | A linguistic method used to reconstruct unattested proto-languages by comparing related languages and inferring their common ancestral features. | | Mass comparison | A method of language classification that involves comparing a large number of languages across a wide geographical area, often leading to tentative or broad groupings. | | Phylum | A proposed high-level grouping of languages that is not yet conclusively proven to be a genetically related family, often based on shared features or geographical proximity. | | Family | A group of languages that are demonstrably related through descent from a common ancestor. | | Isolate | A language that has no known genealogical relationship with any other language. | | Phonetics | The study of the physical properties of speech sounds, including their production, transmission, and perception. | | Phonology | The study of the sound systems of languages, focusing on how sounds are organized and used to distinguish meaning. | | Articulatory phonetics | The study of how speech sounds are produced by the vocal organs. | | Auditory phonetics | The study of how speech sounds are perceived by the ear. | | Acoustic phonetics | The study of the physical properties of speech sounds as sound waves. | | IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) | A standardized system of phonetic notation used to represent the sounds of spoken language. | | Voicing | The vibration of the vocal folds during the production of a speech sound. | | Manner of articulation | How the airstream is obstructed or modified in the vocal tract during the production of a consonant. | | Place of articulation | Where in the vocal tract the obstruction or modification of the airstream occurs for a consonant. | | Stops (Plosives) | Consonants produced with a complete closure of the vocal tract, followed by a sudden release of air. | | Fricatives | Consonants produced with a nearly complete closure of the vocal tract, creating audible friction. | | Nasals | Consonants produced with the velum lowered, allowing air to escape through the nasal cavity. | | Vowels | Speech sounds produced with an open vocal tract, characterized by specific resonances called formants. | | Formants | Resonant frequencies in the vocal tract that characterize different vowel sounds. | | Ejectives | Consonants produced with a glottalic egressive airstream, where air is pushed out by a closed glottis. | | Assimilation | A phonological process where a sound becomes similar to an adjacent sound. | | Symmetry | In phonology, the tendency for sound systems to exhibit balanced or patterned distributions of sounds. | | Sonorant | Speech sounds produced with an open vocal tract and relatively free airflow, allowing for voicing; includes vowels, nasals, and liquids. | | Obstruent | Speech sounds produced with a significant obstruction of the vocal tract, such as plosives, fricatives, and affricates. | | Continuant | Speech sounds produced without a complete closure in the oral cavity, allowing air to flow continuously. | | Round | Refers to vowels or sounds produced with rounded lips. | | Anterior | Refers to sounds produced in the front part of the mouth. | | Coronal | Refers to sounds produced with the tip or blade of the tongue. | | Back | Refers to sounds produced with the back part of the tongue. | | High-Low | Features describing the vertical position of the tongue in the mouth. | | State of the glottis | Refers to the vibration or non-vibration of the vocal folds. | | Phonemes | Distinctive sound units in a language that can change the meaning of a word. | | Phones | The actual physical realization of speech sounds. | | Contrastive distribution | When two or more similar phones occur in the same phonetic environment and can distinguish meaning, they are contrastive and represent different phonemes. | | Complementary distribution | When two or more similar phones consistently occur in different, mutually exclusive phonetic environments, they are allophones of the same phoneme. | | Free variants | Speech sounds that can be substituted for each other in the same environment without changing the meaning of a word. | | Minimal pairs | Pairs of words that differ in only one sound and have different meanings, used to identify phonemes. | | Allophones | Different phonetic realizations of the same phoneme. | | Nasal assimilation | A nasal consonant takes on the place of articulation of an adjacent consonant. | | Voicing assimilation | A consonant takes on the voicing of an adjacent consonant. | | Weakening (Lenition) | A consonant becomes less obstructed, often changing from a stop to a fricative, or a fricative to a glide. | | Syllable | A unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word. | | Phonotactics | The rules governing the permissible sequence and combination of phonemes in a language. | | Coda | The consonant sound(s) at the end of a syllable, following the nucleus. | | Onset | The consonant sound(s) at the beginning of a syllable, preceding the nucleus. | | Nucleus | The core of a syllable, typically a vowel. | | Phonological processes | Natural systemic phonological changes that occur in speech. | | Occlusion assimilation (Fortition) | A sound becomes more obstructed, for instance, a non-obstruent becoming an obstruent. | | Devicing | The process where a sound loses its voicing. | | Nasalization | A vowel or consonant acquires nasal quality, often due to the influence of a nasal consonant. | | Labialization | A consonant becomes pronounced with rounded lips, often preceding a round vowel. | | Palatalization | A consonant becomes pronounced with the tongue raised towards the palate, often preceding a front vowel. | | Affrication | A stop or fricative consonant is produced with a simultaneous release of a fricative, creating an affricate. | | Intervocalic | Occurring between vowels. | | Vowel harmony | A process where vowels within a word assimilate to certain features of each other, such as height, backness, or tongue root position. | | ATR harmony (Advanced-Tongue Root) | A type of vowel harmony where vowels are grouped based on whether the tongue root is advanced (expanding the pharyngeal cavity) or retracted. | | Suprasegmental phonology | The study of phonological phenomena that extend over more than one segment, such as tone, stress, and intonation. | | Pitch | The perceived highness or lowness of a sound, determined by the frequency of vocal fold vibration. | | Tone | The use of pitch to distinguish meaning at the word or morpheme level. | | Intonation | The use of pitch to convey grammatical, pragmatic, or discourse information at the sentence level. | | Tone Bearing Unit (TBU) | The segment (typically a vowel or sonorant coda) that carries a tone. | | Level tones | Tones that are produced at a relatively constant pitch (e.g., high, mid, low). | | Contour tones | Tones that involve a change in pitch within a single syllable (e.g., falling, rising). | | Downstep | A drop in pitch between successive high tones, where the second high tone is lower than the first. | | Downdrift | The gradual lowering of pitch across a sequence of high tones in a sentence. | | Tone shift | A tone moving from its original Tone Bearing Unit to another. | | Tone spread | A tone extending its influence to adjacent Tone Bearing Units. | | Tone dissimilation | A process that makes adjacent tones more distinct, often changing a high tone to a low tone when preceded by another high tone. | | Morphology | The study of the structure and formation of words. | | Form-Function | The composite nature of linguistic units, where a specific form is associated with a particular meaning or function. | | Creativity | The ability of humans to produce and understand an infinite number of novel utterances. | | Recursion | The ability of grammatical rules to apply to their own output, allowing for the embedding of structures within similar structures. | | Grammar | The system of rules that govern the structure of language. | | Syntax | The rules governing the combination of words into phrases and sentences. | | Semantics | The study of meaning in language. | | Pragmatics | The study of how context affects the interpretation of language. | | Information Structure | The organization of information within an utterance, indicating what is new, old, or emphasized. | | Discourse | Connected speech or writing, longer than a single sentence. | | Morphophonology | The interaction between morphology and phonology, where morphological changes affect pronunciation. | | Lexicon | The mental dictionary of a speaker, containing all known words and morphemes. | | Lexical expression | Using distinct, memorized words to convey meaning (e.g., go/went). | | Morphological processes | Predictable variations in word forms to convey grammatical or derivational meaning. | | Syntactic (analytic) patterns | Using word order and combinations to convey meaning (e.g., will call). | | Morpheme | The smallest meaningful unit of language. | | Bound morpheme | A morpheme that cannot stand alone and must be attached to another morpheme. | | Free morpheme | A morpheme that can stand alone as a word. | | Affix | A bound morpheme that is attached to a root or stem (prefix, suffix, infix, circumfix). | | Root | The core morpheme of a word, carrying its basic meaning and not divisible into smaller morphemes. | | Stem | A root or root plus derivational morphemes, to which inflectional morphemes are attached. | | Clitic | A bound morpheme that attaches to a host word or phrase but behaves syntactically like a separate word. | | Glossing | A method of representing linguistic data where morphemes are marked with dashes and each morpheme is assigned a translation. | | Conceptual categories | Meanings or grammatical functions that speakers pay special attention to and encode in language, such as plural or past tense. | | Derivation | A morphological process that changes the word class or core meaning of a word. | | Inflection | A morphological process that modifies a word to express grammatical categories such as tense, number, or gender. | | Prefixation | Adding a morpheme before a root or stem. | | Suffixation | Adding a morpheme after a root or stem. | | Circumfixation | Adding a prefix and a suffix simultaneously to a root or stem. | | Infixation | Inserting a morpheme within a root or stem. | | Stem modification | Changing the internal shape of a stem without adding affixes, often involving suppletion. | | Suppletion | A morphological process where different stems are used to express related meanings or grammatical forms (e.g., go/went). | | Autosegmental variation | Marking a conceptual category through suprasegmental features like stress or tone, rather than segmental changes. | | Reduplication | Repeating part or all of a word to express grammatical or lexical meaning (e.g., intensity, plurality). | | Non-concatenative morphology | Morphological processes that involve inserting patterns into a consonantal root, rather than simply adding affixes. | | Subtractive morphology | A process where segments are omitted from a word to express a particular meaning. | | Compounding | Combining two or more roots to form a new word. | | Position-class diagrams | A method for representing morphological structure by ordering affixes in specific positions relative to a root. | | Process rules | A method for describing morphological changes as transformations applied to a base form. | | Allomorphs | Different shapes of the same morpheme, conditioned by the phonetic or morphological environment. | | Morphophonemics (Morphophonology) | The study of the interaction between morphological and phonological processes in determining allomorphy. | | Word Classes | Categories of words based on their morphosyntactic properties and syntactic distribution (e.g., nouns, verbs). | | Noun Phrase (NP) | A phrase headed by a noun, often including determiners, adjectives, and other modifiers. | | Grammatical Relations (GRs) | The syntactic roles that nominals play in a clause, such as subject, object, or oblique. | | Determiners | Words that specify the reference of a noun (e.g., the, a, this, my). | | Adjectives | Words that describe a property or quality of a noun. | | Demonstratives | Words used to point out or identify nouns (e.g., this, that, these, those). | | Numerals | Words that indicate quantity or order (e.g., one, two, first). | | Gender system | A noun classification system where nouns are divided into classes, often affecting agreement. | | Noun class system | A system of nominal classification found in many languages, where nouns are grouped into classes based on semantic or formal features, often triggering agreement. | | Verb Phrase (VP) | A phrase headed by a verb, which may include objects, complements, and adjuncts. | | Constituency | The grouping of words into larger syntactic units that behave as a single element. | | Semantic roles | The underlying meanings or functions that participants have in relation to a verb's action or state (e.g., Agent, Patient, Theme). | | Agent | The typically animate perceived instigator of an action. | | Patient | An entity that undergoes a visible, physical change in state. | | Theme | A participant that moves or is the locus of an action or property without implying a change of state. | | Instrument | Something used to carry out an action. | | Experiencer | An entity that receives a sensory impression or is the locus of an event not involving volition or change of state. | | Semantic transitivity | The number of semantic participants a verb evokes. | | Syntactic transitivity | The number of core syntactic arguments a verb takes. | | Intransitive (Monovalent) verb | A verb that syntactically requires only one argument (Subject). | | Transitive (Bivalent) verb | A verb that syntactically takes two arguments (Subject and Object). | | Ditransitive (Trivalent) verb | A verb that syntactically takes three arguments (Subject and two Objects). | | Valence | A concept used to explore constructions that affect the relationship between grammatical relations and semantic roles, particularly with verbs. | | Argument structure | The specific mapping of semantic roles and grammatical relations for a particular verb. | | Reflexives | A construction where the agent and patient are the same entity (e.g., She saw herself). | | Reciprocals | A construction where participants equally act upon each other (e.g., They saw each other). | | Middles | Constructions where an action appears to happen to a subject without an explicit agent. | | Passives | A construction where the grammatical subject is the patient or recipient of the action, and the agent is either omitted or demoted. | | Causatives | Constructions that add an external agent (causer) to a situation. | | Applicatives | Constructions that add an object to a clause, which can have various semantic roles (Recipient, Instrument, Benefactee, etc.). | | Obliques/adjuncts | Non-core grammatical elements that provide additional information about time, place, manner, etc. | | Core argument | A nominal that has a grammatical relation to a verb and is syntactically required. | | Constituent order | The default or common positioning of S, A, and P arguments relative to the verb. | | Case marking | Morphological marking on NPs that indicates their grammatical relation to the verb. | | Participant marking on verb | Agreement markers on the verb that cross-reference the grammatical relations of the arguments. | | Alignment | The grouping of grammatical relations (e.g., S, A, P) based on their structural properties, determining how they are marked morphologically. | | Nominative-accusative alignment | An alignment system where the subject of a transitive verb (A) and the subject of an intransitive verb (S) are treated similarly (nominative), while the object of a transitive verb (P) is marked differently (accusative). | | Ergative-absolutive alignment | An alignment system where the object of a transitive verb (P) and the subject of an intransitive verb (S) are treated similarly (absolutive), while the subject of a transitive verb (A) is marked differently (ergative). |