Le langi et la Vallée du Rift Tanzanien (original) (raw)

On the verbal system in Langi a Bantu language of Tanzania (F. 33)

Computer Systems: Science & Engineering, 2005

This paper presents the Langi verbal system and the various ways in which tense, aspect and mood are encoded. Through the description of the structures and uses of the various forms, it attempts to demonstrate how the different conjugations fit together to form a coherent whole, morphologically and semantically, and how in some cases the system has been influenced by surrounding Cushitic languages. RESUME Cet article présente le système verbal du langi et les différents moyens mis en oeuvre pour encoder le temps, l'aspect et le mode. A travers la description des structures et emplois des diverses formes, il tente de démontrer comment les conjugaisons diverses forment un système cohérent, sur les plans morphologiques et sémantiques, et comment, dans certains cas, le système a été influencé par les langues couchitiques environnantes. * I thank the following for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper: Christiane Paulian, Zlatka Guentchéva, Denis Creissels, Dave Odden and an anonymous reviewer at SAL. I am also indebted to Derek Nurse and Maarten Mous for pointing out (as well as providing) various articles of interest for this study. 2 This language is relatively unknown to linguistics: when I began studying it in 1996, the only published work dated from 1916 (by Otto Dempwolff). The data presented here is all first hand, and was gathered during fieldwork I carried out in Tanzania during my doctoral studies, the funding for which was provided by the LACITO-CNRS. Oliver Stegen of SIL has started working on the language recently; so far he has presented a paper on the vowel system at CALL (Leiden) in 2000, and has published a paper on derivation (2002). A monograph on Langi is in press: Dunham (forthcoming).

Tense, Aspect and Mood in Mada, a Central-Chadic Language

Mada is a Central-Chadic language spoken in the Far-North Region of Cameroon. The language exhibits a number of interesting features, reflecting its Chadic roots, in the domain of Tense, Aspect and Mood (TAM). The present research presents a different take on the tone and TAM system of the language than what has been previously documented. There is no grammatical tense marking in Mada, but the language has a complex aspectual system built around the imperfective-perfective distinction.In addition to these primary aspects, Mada also has secondary and tertiary aspects marked by affixation. The modal system of the language is built around the dichotomy of realis-irrealis. Negation as well as speaker and agent-oriented modalities are subgroups of the irrealis. The different aspects and modalities interact with each other and their marking relies on grammatical tone and affixation resulting in a very complex verbal word. The findings of this research have implications for language development and have led to some concrete suggestions regarding the marking of grammatical tone in the orthography. MA thesis - University of Gloucestershire, UK 2016

Tense, Aspect and Mood in Nêlêmwa (New Caledonia): encoding events, processes and states

Aspectuality and Temporality. Descriptive and theoretical issues (Z. Guentcheva ed.), 2016

Nêlêmwa is an Aspect-Mood oriented language; verbs are unmarked for tense, time reference is expressed by chronology and time adverbs. Aspect hinges on three notions: events (in the aorist), states, and processes. One focus is the contrast between the perfect and the aorist. Bare aorist verb forms refer to events or to sequences of events with no reference to their internal phases. The perfect expresses internal relations between processes and clauses (anteriority, backgrounding, causal relations); it refers to transitional processes that have reached or not their final instant, expressing changes of states and resulting states. In future reference frames, the perfect expresses imminent change of states, or imminent completion of a process, and the speaker's certainty about their projected occurrence.

Tense, aspect and mood in Nêlêmwa (New Caledonia)

Studies in Language Companion Series, 2016

Nêlêmwa is an Aspect-Mood oriented language; verbs are unmarked for tense, time reference is expressed by chronology and time adverbs. Aspect hinges on three notions: events (in the aorist), states, and processes. One focus is the contrast between the perfect and the aorist. Bare aorist verb forms refer to events or to sequences of events with no reference to their internal phases. The perfect expresses internal relations between processes and clauses (anteriority, backgrounding, causal relations); it refers to transitional processes that have reached or not their final instant, expressing changes of states and resulting states. In future reference frames, the perfect expresses imminent change of states, or imminent completion of a process, and the speaker's certainty about their projected occurrence.

Documentation and Description of Tense, Aspect and Mood in Gwama

2013

This thesis deals with the documentation and description of TAM (tense, aspect and mood) in Gwama, a Koman (Nilo-Saharan) language of southwestern Ethiopia. It has two parts. In the first part, after an introductory section on phonology and transcription, I survey first the pronouns, then the TAM categories, morphemes and constructions of the language. Since Gwama apparently is an aspect language, "tense" will not play any role in the thesis (thus "TAM" should really be "AM"). The different TAM categories are expressed formally by affixes, reduplication, and distinct series of pronouns. Much is still unclear, and the present description sometimes differs significantly from the two earlier sketch grammars. The second part of the thesis presents an analysis of digitally recorded and annotated texts as primary linguistic data, accompanied by the actual CD. ii Acknowledgments First of all I would like to thank my Almighty God for helping me along my way and in the successful completion of this work. Secondly, I would like to address my deepest gratitude to Professor Orin Gensler, the living Encyclopaedia of linguistics, for his experienced advising and wholehearted support. Dr. Anne-Christie Hellenthal, my former advisor, also deserves my gratitude for her invaluable advice, expertise and support, and for sharing all her work on Gwama with me. I would also like to thank SIL Ethiopia for covering most of my expenses during my field trips and for providing me with materials needed for this work. I would also like to extend my thanks to Andreas Joswig, Andreas Neudorf and Fikadu (SIL, Asosa) for facilitating my field trips. I am delighted to thank the cooperative and friendly young Gwama man, my primary language informant, Sadik' Habte, along with his people for their intelligent assistance and patience. I also thank my other informants

Towards a Reconsideration of the Tense-Aspect-Mood System of Tannaitic Hebrew

in Bar-Asher Siegal, Elitzur A. and Aaron Koller (editors), Studies in Mishnaic Hebrew and Related Fields Proceedings of the Yale Symposium on Mishnaic Hebrew May 2014, Jerusalem: The Academy of Hebrew Language, 2017, pp. 59-91

This paper provides an analysis of the Tense–Aspect–Mood system of Tannaitic Hebrew. Following an outline of the methodology in his choice of the corpus for this study, the author sketches out his analysis with a focus on the theoretical motivations in its favor.