Qhalaxari verb tone classes

Dickens, Patrick

doi:10.1080/00020188408707618

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Shekgalagadi exhibits extensive regional variation (Kalasi 2003; Lukusa and Monaka 2008; Monaka 2013). Most earlier work on Shekgalagadi focused on the Shengologa and Sheshaga varieties spoken mainly in southwestern Botswana (Dickens 1978(Dickens , 1984b(Dickens , 1986a(Dickens , 1986b(Dickens , 1987Hyman and Monaka 2011;Lukusa and Monaka 2008;Monaka 2005;Neumann 1999; Solé et al 2010). The present paper discusses the hitherto unstudied Shetjhauba variety, spoken in northwestern Botswana.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A grammar sketch of the Shetjhauba variety of Shekgalagadi

Gunnink

2022

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Shekgalagadi is an endangered Bantu language of the Sotho cluster spoken in Botswana. While it is known that the language shows extensive regional variation, very little documentation exists of smaller, more remote varieties. This paper provides a first ever description of the northern-most Shekgalagadi variety known as Shetjhauba, spoken along the Okavango panhandle close to the Namibian border. Using original field data, I provide a grammatical sketch of Shetjhauba. First, the segmental phonology of Shetjhauba is described, providing an overview of its phonemic consonants and vowels, as well as a major morphophonological process that occurs in several morphological environments, referred to as “strengthening”. A striking difference between the phonology of Shetjhauba and that of previously described Shekgalagadi varieties is its extensive use of click phonemes. Secondly, the nominal and verbal morphology of Shetjhauba are discussed, giving insights into noun classes, nominal derivation, and various pronouns and agreeing modifiers. Shetjhauba also has an extensive verbal morphology, with various verbal derivational suffixes, and inflectional affixes marking tense, aspect, mood, negation, as well as subject and object.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A grammar sketch of the Shetjhauba variety of Shekgalagadi

Gunnink

2022

sal

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“…Although sometimes lumped with Setswana, it is a separate language (Janson 1995), spoken by an estimated 272,000 speakers in Botswana (RETENG 2006) as well as a smaller number of speakers in Namibia. Previous research on the language has been relatively limited but includes Krüger & du Plessis (1968), Dickens (1984Dickens ( , 1986a, Neumann (1999) and Monaka (2005ab). On-going reseach includes a grammar (Lukusa & Monaka, in preparation), a lexicon (Lukusa & Monaka, in preparation), and a detailed description of the tone system (Crane , 2009).…”

Section: Shekgalagari Basic Tonologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Tonal and Non-Tonal Intonation in Shekgalagari

Hyman

Monaka

2010

Prosodic Categories: Production, Perception and Comprehension

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The study of intonation in a (fully) tone language presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is to see how a language which exploits F0 mainly for the purpose of lexical and grammatical contrasts succeeds in encoding the functions often expressed by means of intonation in non-tonal languages. As is well-known, word-level distinctions can be quite rich in tone systems, which contrast up to five pitch levels and a dozen or more tonal contours or clusters, e.g. Wobe (Kru; Liberia) (Bearth & Link 1980, Singler 1984. Word-level tones, in turn, can be subject to considerable manipulation by the postlexical phonology, where juxtaposition, syntactic conditioning, or phonological phrasing can modify the word-level inputs and introduce additional pitch features, e.g. the phonological phrase-final H% boundary tone of Kinande (Bantu; Democratic Republic of the Congo) (Hyman 1990). Particularly when tone systems are complex in these ways, the question is how there can be much room left for intonation to modify or add pitch specifications without obscuring the word-level tonal contrasts. The goal of this paper is to examine how Shekgalagari (Bantu; Botswana, Namibia), a language which exploits F0 mainly for the purpose of lexical and grammatical contrasts, succeeds in encoding the functions often expressed by means of intonational phonology in non-tonal languages. Whereas other languages with lexical tone adopt different strategies for incorporating intonational pitch features, we demonstrate that most of the intonational marking is non-tonal in Shekgalagari, thereby raising the question of what is a possible intonational system.

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“…As such, most work on Kgalagadi is based mostly or totally on the Ngologa variety (Lukusa & Monaka 2008;Monaka 2005;Neumann 1999), or on the geographically close Shaga variety (Dickens 1987;Dickens 1978;Dickens 1984a;Dickens 1986;Monaka 2005).…”

Section: The Tjhauba Variety Of Kgalagadimentioning

confidence: 99%

Contact influence in the Tjhauba variety of Kgalagadi

Gunnink

2023

Afrika und Übersee

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Tjhauba, spoken in northwestern Botswana, is a regional variety of the Bantu language Kgalagadi. Tjhauba exhibits a number of striking linguistic differences with respect to other, previously described Kgalagadi varieties, some the result of language-internal changes, but mostly due to contact with different surrounding Khoisan and Bantu languages. Making use of newly collected field data, this paper shows that Tjhauba has an extensive inventory of click phonemes, contrasting different click accompaniments and, in the speech of elderly speakers, also different click types. Tracing the sources of Tjhauba click words shows that these originate in different Khoisan languages, but also in the Bantu click language Yeyi. Semantically, click words, but also loanwords that do not contain clicks, cluster in the domain of flora and fauna, particularly species found in or close to water. These linguistic findings also shed light on the history of Tjhauba speakers. The adoption of a large number of click phonemes suggests intensive language contact, as still evidenced by ongoing Tjhauba/Khwe bilingualism. A number of the likely source languages for Tjhauba click words are no longer spoken in the area, suggesting contact situations that are no longer ongoing. Furthermore, clicks occur in loanwords, but unlike in neighbouring Bantu click languages, there is no evidence that clicks were also extended to inherited Tjhauba words. This suggests that the sound symbolic or identity marking functions of clicks as posited for other Bantu click languages do not play a role in Tjhauba.

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Qhalaxari verb tone classes

Cited by 4 publications

References 2 publications

A grammar sketch of the Shetjhauba variety of Shekgalagadi

A grammar sketch of the Shetjhauba variety of Shekgalagadi

Tonal and Non-Tonal Intonation in Shekgalagari

Contact influence in the Tjhauba variety of Kgalagadi

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