A logical analysis of selected texts in Nyanja

Abstract

This study, A Logical Analysis of Selected Texts in Nyanja, appHes logic to Nyanja as an African language. This is because most studies have concentrated on Western languages and only a few Asian languages. There is hardly any evidence of such studies on African languages, let alone Zambian languages.The investigation was corpus-based and it dealt with five text types or genres; conversation, novel, oral narrative, play, and proverb. Data were collected from printed texts, notes and recordings that were done during the investigation. A desk study was employed in two phases. Phase one involved the extraction of data for analysis from the collected texts according to text types while phase two involved the analysis of all the collected data.Both formal and informal logic were applied to the study during data analysis. A total of 545 syllogisms were crafted and categorised according to syllogism-type. Thereafter,logic patterns were observed within various text types and later in the entire data. The findings were then discussed according to specific genres and according to all genres as a collective corpus. From the discussion, conclusions and recommendations were made.One of the major conclusions of the study was that, in actual practice, human beings use a much abbreviated system of logic. There was no syllogism that was found presented or used in its entirety from the premises to the conclusion. In fact, it was revealed that 80% of free communication or conversation was in form of conclusions which are actually an end product in the syllogism process. One of the marked conclusions was that life in general is one big syllogism. The most common syllogism type was Modus Ponendo Ponens (MPP). The next popular syllogism was the Hypothetical followed by Modus Tollendo Tollens (MTT). It was revealed that MTT is associated with critical or advanced thinking, MPP is associated with ordinary human thinking and the Hypothetical syllogism is associated with human experience. Based on the use of syllogisms a theory called Character Assembling was developed. The theory is designed for use in literary criticism. It is a product of the relationship between logic and literary criticism.The study makes recommendations on the following areas: Logic and other Academic Disciplines, the Character Assembling Theory, Logic and Various Variables, Logic and Grammar, Modal Logic, and the entire Investigation. The entire work has been organised into six chapters. Chapter One introduces the investigation. Chapter Two gives an overview of logic as an academic discipline. The next chapter presents all the data that was collected. Chapter Four contains the findings of the study after the analysis of the data presented in Chapter Three. Chapter Five is the discussion of the findings and Chapter Six is used to draw conclusions and recommendations.