The phonology and morphology of Icibemba loanwords from english.
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Date
2019
Authors
Kangwa, Njenje Kennedy
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Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
This PhD thesis involved conducting a phonological and morphological analysis of loanwords from English into Icibemba, a major language spoken in the Northern, Copperbelt and Luapula provinces of Zambia as well as parts of Muchinga and Central provinces. The main aim of this research was to analyse the phonological and morphological changes that take place to those English words that are incorporated into Icibemba as a result of borrowing. This study was guided by four research objectives: To transcribe, gloss and allocate the loanwords into Icibemba nominal classes by assembling a representative corpus; to describe and compare the segmental phonology and syllable structure of English and Icibemba; to analyze the various phonological processes involved in the adaptation of English loanwords into Icibemba and; to analyze the various morphological processes involved in the adaptation of English loanwords into Icibemba. Data for this research was collected mostly from Kashoki’s books. These books put together with Kangwa’s (2007) study supplied this research
with a robust list of loanwords in the Icibemba grammar. The other portion of data was generated by the researcher, a native and competent speaker who has been exposed to the standard variety of Icibemba, spoken in Kasama, Northern Province of Zambia. In analyzing the findings of this study, for phonology, the research used CV Phonology and Lexical Phonology and Morphology (LPM) was used in analysing morphology. The study essentially used a qualitative method supplemented by quantitative data. It was discovered that in phonology, the repair strategies that apply to these foreign words, among others, included vowel epenthesis, deletion and substitution. Among these strategies, vowel epenthesis was discovered to be one that was usually applied. The high vowels (i and u) played a major role in insertion. Most of the Icibemba loanwords from English were nouns. Adapted words from English are assigned tone when they are incorporated into Icibemba. There are no diphthongs in Icibemba. The English diphthongs coming into the language through loanwords all show a pattern of
adaptation similar to the one exhibited by the monophthongs. Like Icibemba nouns, borrowed English nouns were affected by the Bantu class system. Adapted Nouns from English acquire augments and prefixes when they are taken over to Icibemba. The class prefix was assigned to adapted nouns in Icibemba on the basis of the initial syllable resemblance to a class prefix, the semantic content of the adapted word and on the basis of the zero prefix in some classes. Another point worth mentioning was that there were no regularities in the patterns of loanword allocation into Icibemba noun classes except that most loans were allocated to class 1a/2a regardless of their meanings. The study also revealed that verb extensions, reduplication, gliding, vowel fusion and resyllabification (a phenomenon that typically characterise Bantu languages) were applied to Icibemba loanwords from English. It was also concluded that usually when a loanword from English contains the environment for a phonological or morphological rule in Icibemba, that rule would apply to the loanword. It is hoped that
this study will stimulate further research in the Icibemba loanwords from English in areas of semantics and syntax so as to deepen a phonological and morphological understanding of adaptation. The research has only concentrated on the adaptation of loanwords from English. Icibemba has also borrowed lexical items from other African languages like Kiswahili and Nyanja. It is recommended that further research on how Icibemba adapts words from other languages should be carried ou
Description
Thesis of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistic Science