The Internal Syntax of the Chimakonde Determiner Phrase

This book was written as a requirement for the award of a doctoral degree in 2019. The book examines the structure of a noun/determiner phrase in Chimakonde, a Bantu language spoken in the southern part of Tanzania. The motivation for the writing of this book was that the language is under-researched and it is under threat of extinction due to the influence of the widely spoken and national language called Swahili. Additionally, the book was written with a theoretical goal in mind, namely to determine the extent to which the Determiner Hypothesis (Abney, 1987) is an appropriate tool for the analysis of Chimakonde nominal expressions.

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Lexical variations in the six dialects of Chimakonde 38

Table 2.2: Structural differences in the three dialects of Chimakonde 39

Table 2.3: The Chimakonde consonant phonemes 43

Table 2.4: The orthographic symbols for the five consonants 43

Table 2.5: The order verb extensions in the Chimakonde verb complex 48

Table 2.6: Chimakonde noun classes and agreement morphemes 68

Table 2.7: Nominal derivation in Chimakonde through affixes 71

Table 4.1: The proximal demonstrative: full (PROX1) and short (PROX2) forms 179

Table 4.2: The full and short cliticised forms of the proximal demonstrative 181

Table 4.3: The medial demonstrative: full (MEDIAL1) and short (MEDIAL2 185

Table 4.4: The full and short cliticised forms of the medial demonstrative 186

Table 4.5: The distal demonstrative: full forms 188

Table 4.6: The cliticised forms of the distal demonstrative 190

Table 4.7: The demonstrative forms with DEMu 199

Table 5.1: Some deverbal adjectives in Chimakonde 219

Table 5.2: Some genitive denominal adjectives in Chimakonde 220

Table 5.3: Some of the non-derived adjectives in Chimakonde 222

Table 5.4: Some of the non-concording adjectives in Chimakonde 226

Table 5.5: The adjectival roots -kulu, -joko, and -lehu in classes 1 to 10 233

Table 5.6: Reduplication of adjectives in Chimakonde 237

Table 5.7: Discourse-pragmatic interpretations of a DP with RC, AgrO, AbsPRON and PAR 259

Table 5.8: Agreement on cardinal numerals 1-5 264

Table 5.9: Cardinal numerals higher than 10 264

Table 5.10: Adopted Swahili counting system 265

Table 5.11: Agreement patterns in ordinal numerals 267

Table 6.1: The forms of the absolute pronouns in Chimakonde 294

Table 6.2: The forms of the PAR in Chimakonde 303

Table 7.1: The pronominal possessive forms 316

Table7.2: The possessive agreement prefixes 318

Table8.1: Preference order of nominal modifiers in Chimakonde 356