Browsing by Author "Wakarindi, Peter Maina"

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    Clause Complexity in Gĩkũyũ: A Functional Account
    (Kenyatta University, 2018) Wakarindi, Peter Maina
    This work is a response to a call by various scholars on the native speakers of African languages to undertake researches aimed at preserving, developing and popularising the African languages. The main aim of the study was to understand the complexity of Gĩkũyũ clauses. Specifically, within the frame of Functional Grammar Theory, the study focused on the functional-semantic relations in Gĩkũyũ clause complexes, the different relation markers in the clauses and the analysis of the clause complexes in the three metafunctions identified by the theory. Therefore, the specific objectives of the study were: to establish the functional-semantic relations in Gĩkũyũ clause complexes; to categorize the relation markers in the Gĩkũyũ clause complexes; and, to analyze the Gĩkũyũ clause complexes metafunctionally. Guided by these objectives, the study adopted a descriptive research design to enable a detailed description of its data and the emerging patterns from data analysis. The data, Gĩkũyũ clause complexes, was sampled purposively from both written and spoken sources. The written sources were selected fictional and non-fictional Gĩkũyũ texts while the spoken sources were two talk shows: one from a Gĩkũyũ television station and the other from a Gĩkũyũ radio station. Introspection was also employed to fill gaps in the data collected from the written and the spoken sources. A total of a hundred and seventy eight (178) Gĩkũyũ clause complexes were sampled. The data revealed that Gĩkũyũ clause complexes manifest functional-semantic relations in the two broad logico-semantic relations of expansion and projection, the categories identified by Halliday and Matthiessen. The relations observed under expansion were elaboration, extension and enhancement while both locution and idea were observed under projection. The relations were found to be realised both paratactically and hypotactically, each means employing different relation markers. Metafunctional analyses of the data revealed that Gĩkũyũ clause complexes simultaneously serve the three basic functions of language when in use: textual, interpersonal and experiential. This is because it proved possible to analyse the complexes in the thematic, mood and transitivity structures, which respectively carry the three functions. The analyses further revealed some unique characteristics of the Gĩkũyũ clause that Functional Grammar does not account for. These features, which include redundancy of constituents in the metafunctional structures, are mainly due to the agglutinative nature of Gĩkũyũ. The findings have implifications in the field of linguistics, more specifically to studies on African languages, as it bridges a linguistic gap on clause complexity in Gĩkũyũ. The findings would also go a long way in increasing proficiency in Gĩkũyũ, hence significanct to the users of the language. The study recommends, among other things, that the users of Gĩkũyũ familiarise themselves with the findings to improve their proficiency in the language and that institutions teaching African languages and the developers of Gĩkũyũ curriculum adopt the findings. Further, it calls for more related studies, such as phonological study on the Gĩkũyũ clause complexes and studies on complexes at the levels below and above the clause.
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    A Functional Grammer Approach to the Analysis of Gikuyu Emphatic Clauses
    (2013-04-23) Wakarindi, Peter Maina; Mwangi, Phyllis W; Wangia, Joyce Imali
    There is need to preserve and popularize African languages and scholars like Momanyi (2007) call for research, documentation and preservation of the languages by the native speakers. This work is a response to this need. It is a work divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction which provides a background to the study and the statement of the problem. The section also shows the need to study the emphatic structures of Gikuyu, being an area that has been neglected in the past. Also noted is the need to analyze the Gikuyu emphatic clauses functionally, another relatively neglected area since many of the past scholars have used a formal approach. The study has established the categories of Gikuyu emphatic structures, described the order of the linguistic elements in them, identified the kind of prominence they achieve and established how they can be analyzed functionally. The chapter also highlights the significance of the study, justifying it in terms of its applied, practical and theoretical significance. It closes with the scope and limitations of the study. The second chapter provides a review of literature relevant to the study. The literature includes studies on Gikuyu and other Bantu languages. Some studies that have applied Functional Grammar theories have also been reviewed. The sectionthen provides a description of the theory to be applied, Functional Grammar Theory by Halliday (1985).The methodology used is described in the third chapter. It starts with the research design, which is qualitative, followed by the sampling size and procedure. Purposive sampling has been applied. Data collection procedure follows. The chapter ends with data analysis and presentation method. The data is analyzed thematically. Chapter four presents and analyses the data. It is divided into two sections. Section one presents the syntactic emphatic categories that have been identified in Gikuyu. They are classified into three broad categories: the reordering class, the postponement class and the dislocation class. Categories under each class are discussed in details, giving the order of elements in the categories and the kinds of prominence assigned to the highlighted elements in them. The second part applies Halliday's Functional Grammar Theory (1985) to analyse the clauses in terms of clause as exchange. The last chapter, chapter five, summarizes the findings of the study. It further draws the conclusion, gives recommendations and finally suggests some areas related to the study for further research.
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    Reordering For Prominence and Consequent Reconfiguration of the Mood Structure in Gikuyu Clauses
    (Journal of Languages, Linguistics and Literary Studies, 2025-03) Wakarindi, Peter Maina
    Certain communication situations may need emphasis on specific sentence elements. Speakers utilise their linguistic competence to choose from various emphatic structures for the need, structures resulting from reconstruction of the basic sentence. This reconstruction could be through reordering of clause elements through processes like: passivisation, cleft and pseudo-cleft structuring, topicalisation, and inversion of clause elements. This paper aimed at establishing the realization of these processes in Gĩkũyũ and their effects on the syntactic analysis of the mood structure in the clause as exchange analysis within Functional Grammar theory. The data for the paper was Gĩkũyũ clauses portraying the reordering processes. The paper adopted a descriptive research design, purposively sampling the clauses and their sources. The clauses were grouped under the various reordering processes and subjected to clause as exchange analysis, which was compared to that of their kernel sentences for the effect of the reordering on the mood structure. The reordering processes were found in Gĩkũyũ and the processes discovered to affect the mood structure of the kernel clauses, either in the reconfiguration of the structure or reconstitution of its elements. Some instances of passivisation were discovered to drop some mood elements like Complement, while the subject-complement inversion led to a Mood Residue inversion. The paper concludes that Gikuyu has resources enabling its users to strategically place specific elements for prominence as required by a given communication context. The findings significantly revealed the flexibility of Gikuyu clauses and the applicability of Systemic Functional Linguistics in analyzing Gikuyu emphatic clauses.