Sylvester OSU - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Sylvester OSU

Études de linguistique appliquée, Jul 4, 2022

Corela, Jun 26, 2009

Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 19 avril 2019. Corela-cognition, représentation, lang... more Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 19 avril 2019. Corela-cognition, représentation, langage est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution-Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale-Partage dans les Mêmes Conditions 4.0 International.

Peter Lang eBooks, 2010

Page 1. Sylvester N. Osu, Gilles Col, Nathalie Garric &amp;amp;amp; Fabienne Toupin (éds)... more Page 1. Sylvester N. Osu, Gilles Col, Nathalie Garric &amp;amp;amp; Fabienne Toupin (éds) Construction d&amp;amp;#x27;identité et processus d&amp;amp;#x27;identification Peter Lang Page 2. Page 3. Construction d&amp;amp;#x27;identité et processus d&amp;amp;#x27;identification Page 4. Page 5. ...

De Gruyter eBooks, May 30, 2013

Nonexplosive stops, including implosives and other stops regularly lacking an explosive release b... more Nonexplosive stops, including implosives and other stops regularly lacking an explosive release burst, occur in roughly 20% of the world's languages, yet their phonological and phonetic properties are still poorly understood. This paper seeks to determine the phonological feature that characterizes this class of sounds. The classical definition of implosives in terms of the ingressive glottalic airstream mechanism raises a number of problems and does not generalize to other types of nonexplosives. It is proposed here instead that the feature underlying the class of nonexplosive stops as a whole is nonobstruence, defined as the absence of posi ti ve oral ai r pressure duri ng occl usi on. Thi s def i ni ti on i s shown to extend to a previously undocumented type of nonexplosive stop found in Ikwere, a Niger-Congo language spoken in Nigeria. In this language, the phonemically contrastive nonexplosive bilabial stops [ ' ], though resembling implosives in certain respects, are produced with no lowering of the larynx, nor in the case of [ ], any implosion at release. A study of the acoustic, articulatory and aerodynamic properties of these sounds shows that they satisfy the definition of nonobstruent stops. It is finally suggested that apparently contradictory aspects of the phonological patterning of nonexplosive stops across languages can be explained if they are viewed as both nonobstruents and nonsonorants. In this view, phonological feature theory requires both articulatory features such as [±obstruent] and acoustic features such as [±sonorant].

Linguistic Analysis, 2002

De Gruyter eBooks, Sep 20, 2021

use the word 'particle' here to refer to those linguistic units in Ikwere that do not belong to t... more use the word 'particle' here to refer to those linguistic units in Ikwere that do not belong to the class of verbs, nouns or qualifying terms. 3 Interested readers may also see Ameka (1990); Dimmendaal (1996) and Singler (1988) for African languages spoken outside Nigeria. Similar particles have also been found and massively described in both Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese (see for instance Law (2002); Shei (2005)) as well as in Japanese (see for instance Saigo 2011).

A fair amount of my work in Ikwere deals with verbs. A typical Ikwere verb consists of a verb ele... more A fair amount of my work in Ikwere deals with verbs. A typical Ikwere verb consists of a verb element that can hardly make any sense and a noun complement. Together, they interact to make sense. The idea is to find out the lexical identity of each of them based on how they function in the language and what their invariant properties are. This article focuses on ɔg w ʊ̰̂. This verb can express the idea that one is hungry or thirsty. It can also express the need to eat a specific kind of food or drink a specific kind of drink. It can further express the urge to urinate or to defecate. Lastly, it can mean that one is tired or that one misses a friend, lover or relative. The aim of this article precisely is to map out the invariant property that underlies the various uses of this verb and the meanings it helps to construct. The article also sets out to underline the specific ways by which ɔg w ʊ̰̂ brings to play the fundamental operation of locating that is inherent in language activity. Étude énonciative des verbes en ikwere : le cas de ɔg w ʊ̰ 81 1.1. Le verbe ikwere En effet, le verbe ikwere présente un intérêt particulier car de toutes les unités de la langue, elle est la seule susceptible de manifester des variations morphologiques 4. Disons que pour la grande majorité des verbes ikwere, en tout cas, on peut distinguer le verbe en tant qu'unité morphologique et le verbe en tant qu'unité sémantique. Le verbe morphologique, dans sa forme non fléchie, est formé d'une voyelle préfixe, par exemple ò et d'une base, par exemple gbú, ce qui donne : ò-gbú. En tant que telle, cette forme ne donne pas accès à un sens particulier et stabilisé. Elle peut, cependant, subir une transformation morphologique et perdre la voyelle préfixe. De la forme ò-gbú on passe alors à la forme gbú. Mais elle peut garder la voyelle préfixe et prendre un pré-préfixe comme dans : n-ò-gbú (ò n-ò-gbú ɔhyá 'il débroussaille en coupant les herbes'), y-ò-gbú (ì y-ò-gbú 'tu coupes ?' : c'est une salutation), z-ò-gbú (ò z-ò-gbú bádʊ̰̀ 'va-t-il tuer quelqu'un ?' : question rhétorique). Elle peut enfin perdre la voyelle préfixe et prendre un suffixe comme dans : gbú-lêm (árɪ́ ósì gbú-lêm 'l'hameçon ou la ligne de Osi a pris un poisson'), gbú-rú (ò gbù-rù bádʊ̰̀ 'il a tué quelqu'un' : c'est pourquoi la police le cherche), gbù-g w ù (ò gbù-g w ù ókḛ ɔńʊ́ 'il coûte trop cher'). Ce sont les affixes verbaux primaires de l'ikwere, c'est-à-dire les affixes qui dans l'état actuel de mes connaissances sur l'ikwere ne sont pas dérivés d'autres unités. Ces affixes (n-, y-, z- ,-g w u,-lem,-ru) ont un mode de fonctionnement qui met en jeu, de manière spécifique à chacun, des phénomènes relevant de différentes catégories grammaticales. De ce fait, j'adopte l'acronyme TAM pour les désigner. Le verbe sémantique, lui, est une combinaison du verbe morphologique avec un complétant (ou complément). Ce complétant est souvent un nom mais il peut être un idéophone 5 ou encore la copie de la base verbale dans une construction rédupliquée. Au verbe sémantique on peut plus facilement associer un sens. Ainsi, le verbe ògbú peut se combiner avec un complétant nominal (ou verbal, dans le cas de la réduplication). En voici quelques exemples dans (1) à (4) :

Journal Des Africanistes, Dec 31, 2006

Cet ouvrage s&#x27; inscrit dans un projet plus vaste, initié par l&#x27;IFRA (In... more Cet ouvrage s&#x27; inscrit dans un projet plus vaste, initié par l&#x27;IFRA (Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique) d&#x27;Ibadan au Nigeria. Ce projet consiste à produire un dictionnaire bilingue pour chacune des trois langues principales du Nigeria: le hausa, le yoruba et l&#x27; ...

Journal Des Africanistes, 2003

Sexual differences are expressed in Ikwere either by lexical terms that embody biological charact... more Sexual differences are expressed in Ikwere either by lexical terms that embody biological characteristics of male and female or by utilizing'male'rùka͂̀ and'female'rìya͂̀ for humans, and'male'óke͂̀ and'female'éwe͂̀re͂̀ for non humans. This article focuses ...

Journal Des Africanistes, Dec 1, 2009

Cet ouvrage présente les Actes d'un colloque organisé en 2005 au Centre International de... more Cet ouvrage présente les Actes d'un colloque organisé en 2005 au Centre International de Cerisy-la-Salle par D. Ducard et C. Normand. Il met l'accent sur l'ouverture du modèle culiolien (appelé TOPE pour Théorie des Opérations Prédicatives et Enonciatives) à d' ...

Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, Jan 12, 2005

... Journal of African Languages and Linguistics. Ed. by Ameka, Felix K. / Amha, Azeb. 2 Issues p... more ... Journal of African Languages and Linguistics. Ed. by Ameka, Felix K. / Amha, Azeb. 2 Issues per year. IMPACT FACTOR 2010: 0.143 ERIH category 2011: INT1. ...

Presses universitaires de Rennes eBooks, 2011

Ikwere verbs in sentences can sometimes contain the nasal bilabial consonant /-m/ in the final po... more Ikwere verbs in sentences can sometimes contain the nasal bilabial consonant /-m/ in the final position. We notice however, that this feature is fairly marginal in the language because the consonant in question mainly occurs where the subject of the sentence is the first person singular. This article claims therefore, that /-m/ marks agreement based on person, meaning that it is evidence of a cross-referencing between the subject noun and the verb. Interestingly, the first person singular does not automatically co-occur with /m/. On the other hand, /-m/ may co-occur with the second and third persons singular as well as the first, second and third persons plural. The aim of this article is to outline the conditions under which this agreement occurs. And while hinging on the absence of noun class agreement or agreement based on gender and number in this language, it is finally suggested that the subject-verb agreement in Ikwere should be regarded as a residual of a more elaborate archaic system which, like the noun class system in some Niger Congo languages (cf. Welmers 1973: 189) including Ikwere, will sooner or later become obsolete.

Journal of Linguistics, Nov 1, 2003