The existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness

Bare nouns in languages without articles can be semantically ambiguous between definite and indefinite interpretations. It is here assumed that speakers of such languages can still signal to the hearer when they refer to unique and identifiable referents. This paper contributes to the long-standing...

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Autor principal:	Eva-Marie Bloom Ström
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN FR
Publicado:	LibraryPress@UF 2020
Materias:	(in)definiteness, existential, Bantu, bare nouns, activation states Philology. Linguistics P1-1091
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/6f6aac977a434757bc71ccdfe3f981d3
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:6f6aac977a434757bc71ccdfe3f981d32021-11-19T03:51:49ZThe existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness10.32473/sal.v49i2.1171360039-35332154-428Xhttps://doaj.org/article/6f6aac977a434757bc71ccdfe3f981d32020-09-01T00:00:00Zhttps://journals.flvc.org/sal/article/view/117136https://doaj.org/toc/0039-3533https://doaj.org/toc/2154-428X Bare nouns in languages without articles can be semantically ambiguous between definite and indefinite interpretations. It is here assumed that speakers of such languages can still signal to the hearer when they refer to unique and identifiable referents. This paper contributes to the long-standing cross-linguistic question of how bare nouns are interpreted and what means languages without articles have to disambiguate between definite and indefinite readings. This question is largely unexplored for Bantu languages. The answer is sought in the use of different word orders and morphosyntactic constructions, with a focus on the existential in this paper. In many languages of the world, there is a restriction on definites as pivots in existential constructions, serving as a motivation for exploring these constructions in Xhosa. Xhosa makes use of a non-verbal copula in prototypical existentials as well as predicate locatives, to express the existence or presence of a referent. The paper argues that the existential is used for inactive referents and the predicate locative for (semi-) active referents. The inactive referents of the existential are mainly indefinite referential or non-referential. The active referents of the predicate locative are referential indefinite or definite. There is no absolute definiteness effect in the existential. A further motivation for this study is the occurrence of this copula in a short and a long form, giving rise to four different structures. The paper reveals an unexpected analogy between the use of the short and long form and the use of the so called conjoint and disjoint forms in Xhosa tense-aspect paradigms. Eva-Marie Bloom StrömLibraryPress@UFarticle(in)definiteness, existential, Bantu, bare nouns, activation statesPhilology. LinguisticsP1-1091ENFRStudies in African Linguistics, Vol 49, Iss 2 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN FR
topic	(in)definiteness, existential, Bantu, bare nouns, activation states Philology. Linguistics P1-1091
spellingShingle	(in)definiteness, existential, Bantu, bare nouns, activation states Philology. Linguistics P1-1091 Eva-Marie Bloom Ström The existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness
description	Bare nouns in languages without articles can be semantically ambiguous between definite and indefinite interpretations. It is here assumed that speakers of such languages can still signal to the hearer when they refer to unique and identifiable referents. This paper contributes to the long-standing cross-linguistic question of how bare nouns are interpreted and what means languages without articles have to disambiguate between definite and indefinite readings. This question is largely unexplored for Bantu languages. The answer is sought in the use of different word orders and morphosyntactic constructions, with a focus on the existential in this paper. In many languages of the world, there is a restriction on definites as pivots in existential constructions, serving as a motivation for exploring these constructions in Xhosa. Xhosa makes use of a non-verbal copula in prototypical existentials as well as predicate locatives, to express the existence or presence of a referent. The paper argues that the existential is used for inactive referents and the predicate locative for (semi-) active referents. The inactive referents of the existential are mainly indefinite referential or non-referential. The active referents of the predicate locative are referential indefinite or definite. There is no absolute definiteness effect in the existential. A further motivation for this study is the occurrence of this copula in a short and a long form, giving rise to four different structures. The paper reveals an unexpected analogy between the use of the short and long form and the use of the so called conjoint and disjoint forms in Xhosa tense-aspect paradigms.
format	article
author	Eva-Marie Bloom Ström
author_facet	Eva-Marie Bloom Ström
author_sort	Eva-Marie Bloom Ström
title	The existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness
title_short	The existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness
title_full	The existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness
title_fullStr	The existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness
title_full_unstemmed	The existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness
title_sort	existential in xhosa in relation to indefiniteness
publisher	LibraryPress@UF
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/6f6aac977a434757bc71ccdfe3f981d3
work_keys_str_mv	AT evamariebloomstrom theexistentialinxhosainrelationtoindefiniteness AT evamariebloomstrom existentialinxhosainrelationtoindefiniteness
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The existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness

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