Actionality and aspect in Southern Ndebele and Xhosa, two Nguni languages of South Africa

This paper presents some key findings of studies of actionality and the verbal grammar–lexicon interface in two Nguni Bantu languages of South Africa, Xhosa and Southern Ndebele. We describe interactions between grammatical tense marking (and other sentential bounding elements) and lexical verb typ...

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Autores principales:	Thera Marie Crane, Bastian Persohn
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN FR
Publicado:	LibraryPress@UF 2021
Materias:	actionality in Bantu verbal lexical semantics grammar-lexicon interface Nguni languages Southern Ndebele Xhosa Philology. Linguistics P1-1091
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/7ea9a6ac184848139722e9f262d96ec9
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id	oai:doaj.org-article:7ea9a6ac184848139722e9f262d96ec9
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:7ea9a6ac184848139722e9f262d96ec92021-11-19T03:51:39ZActionality and aspect in Southern Ndebele and Xhosa, two Nguni languages of South Africa10.32473/sal.v50i2.1236800039-35332154-428Xhttps://doaj.org/article/7ea9a6ac184848139722e9f262d96ec92021-09-01T00:00:00Zhttps://journals.flvc.org/sal/article/view/123680https://doaj.org/toc/0039-3533https://doaj.org/toc/2154-428X This paper presents some key findings of studies of actionality and the verbal grammar–lexicon interface in two Nguni Bantu languages of South Africa, Xhosa and Southern Ndebele. We describe interactions between grammatical tense marking (and other sentential bounding elements) and lexical verb types, arguing for the salience of inchoative verbs, which lexically encode a resultant state, and, in particular, a sub-class of inchoative verbs, biphasal verbs, which encode both a resultant state and the “coming-to-be” phase leading up to that state. We further discuss other important features of actional classes in Xhosa and Southern Ndebele, including topics such as the role of participant structure and the relative importance of cross-linguistically prominent distinctions such as that between Vendlerian activities and accomplishments. Although differences between Xhosa and Southern Ndebele are evident both in the behaviour of individual tense-aspect forms and in the interpretive possibilities of specific verbs, the general patterns are quite similar. This similarity suggests that the patterns are likely to extend to other Nguni languages, as well, and that cross-linguistic comparison of particular lexical items across these languages are both feasible and likely to bear fruit. Note: Changes were made to the title of this article after publication, on 9/23/2021. Thera Marie CraneBastian PersohnLibraryPress@UFarticleactionality in Bantuverbal lexical semanticsgrammar-lexicon interfaceNguni languagesSouthern NdebeleXhosaPhilology. LinguisticsP1-1091ENFRStudies in African Linguistics, Vol 50, Iss 2 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN FR
topic	actionality in Bantu verbal lexical semantics grammar-lexicon interface Nguni languages Southern Ndebele Xhosa Philology. Linguistics P1-1091
spellingShingle	actionality in Bantu verbal lexical semantics grammar-lexicon interface Nguni languages Southern Ndebele Xhosa Philology. Linguistics P1-1091 Thera Marie Crane Bastian Persohn Actionality and aspect in Southern Ndebele and Xhosa, two Nguni languages of South Africa
description	This paper presents some key findings of studies of actionality and the verbal grammar–lexicon interface in two Nguni Bantu languages of South Africa, Xhosa and Southern Ndebele. We describe interactions between grammatical tense marking (and other sentential bounding elements) and lexical verb types, arguing for the salience of inchoative verbs, which lexically encode a resultant state, and, in particular, a sub-class of inchoative verbs, biphasal verbs, which encode both a resultant state and the “coming-to-be” phase leading up to that state. We further discuss other important features of actional classes in Xhosa and Southern Ndebele, including topics such as the role of participant structure and the relative importance of cross-linguistically prominent distinctions such as that between Vendlerian activities and accomplishments. Although differences between Xhosa and Southern Ndebele are evident both in the behaviour of individual tense-aspect forms and in the interpretive possibilities of specific verbs, the general patterns are quite similar. This similarity suggests that the patterns are likely to extend to other Nguni languages, as well, and that cross-linguistic comparison of particular lexical items across these languages are both feasible and likely to bear fruit. Note: Changes were made to the title of this article after publication, on 9/23/2021.
format	article
author	Thera Marie Crane Bastian Persohn
author_facet	Thera Marie Crane Bastian Persohn
author_sort	Thera Marie Crane
title	Actionality and aspect in Southern Ndebele and Xhosa, two Nguni languages of South Africa
title_short	Actionality and aspect in Southern Ndebele and Xhosa, two Nguni languages of South Africa
title_full	Actionality and aspect in Southern Ndebele and Xhosa, two Nguni languages of South Africa
title_fullStr	Actionality and aspect in Southern Ndebele and Xhosa, two Nguni languages of South Africa
title_full_unstemmed	Actionality and aspect in Southern Ndebele and Xhosa, two Nguni languages of South Africa
title_sort	actionality and aspect in southern ndebele and xhosa, two nguni languages of south africa
publisher	LibraryPress@UF
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/7ea9a6ac184848139722e9f262d96ec9
work_keys_str_mv	AT theramariecrane actionalityandaspectinsouthernndebeleandxhosatwongunilanguagesofsouthafrica AT bastianpersohn actionalityandaspectinsouthernndebeleandxhosatwongunilanguagesofsouthafrica
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Actionality and aspect in Southern Ndebele and Xhosa, two Nguni languages of South Africa

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