Ukiukaji wa Kanuni Bia za Greenberg Katika Miundo ya Tungo zenye Vihusishi Katika Lugha ya Kiswahili
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Date
2024
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Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
This research investigated the violation of some of Greenberg’s linguistic universals in structures with Kiswahili adpositions. The research is derived from the field of linguistic typology. This field aimed at researching and analyzing the common properties and structural diversity for grammatical phenomena across the world`s languages. We followed Greenberg’s (1963) proposed set of 45 linguistic universals based primarily on a set of 30 languages considering the measure of orderliness of grammatical constituents in different language families. Kiswahili language was among the languages considered in his sample. Even so, it seems that some non-implicational universals proposed by Greenberg do not exist in the definitional characteristics of this language because Kiswahili got both prepositions and postpositions. This study focused on achieving the following objectives: It described the specific positions in which adpositions appear in sentences, to scrutinize different prepositional and postpositional structures and how they affected the structure of sentences and analysed the linguistics environments that trigger the violation of some of Greenberg’s universals in structures with Kiswahili adpositions. This research was guided by X-bar theory of Chomsky (1970). This is a substantive theory that analyses phrase structure properties of natural languages. Greenberg`s universals of language were also used too. Research data was Kiswahili prepositions which were collected by purposeful sampling method by reviewing literature from grammar books, journal articles and the other internet materials. Data analysis and presentation was based on the objectives through descriptive content analysis. This research revealed that when prepositional incorporation occurs to governing verbs, it affects the structure of the sentence by removing the preposition and causing displacement of the direct object. We were also able to determine that Kiswahili is a language of adpositions. However, when prepositions are placed between two nouns, especially when a-conjuctions are analyzed in X-bar theory, Kiswahili seems to be a prepositional language. Some of Greenberg’s universals were violated in Kiswahili structural sentences due to to Kiswahili language having both prepositions and postpositions. Although it was also revealed that some of Greenberg’s universals bring some validity and compliance in the Kiswahili language. The study has contributed to the copus on word order, typology of languages and Kiswahili syntax. It has benefited grammarians and linguistics researchers interested in structural analysis, especially Bantu linguistics.
Description
Tasnifu hii Imetolewa ili Kutosheleza baadhi ya Mahitaji ya Shahada ya Uzamili Katika Chuo Kikuu cha Kenyatta, Machi 2024.
Supervisor
Peter Githinji