Investigating the connection between the demonstrative and the definite morpheme -<i>a</i>in Runyankore-Rukiga

Asiimwe, Allen

doi:10.1080/02572117.2016.1186898

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…I further consider the initial element of the demonstrative (which is underlyingly a-) as the core morpheme of the demonstrative (19.a) attested in many Bantu languages (cf. Wald 1973;Visser 2002Visser , 2008Asiimwe 2014Asiimwe , 2016. We have already noted that the augment of relative clause markers is not an integral part of the relativizer as it can be dropped ((19.b); also see section 4).…”

Section: Object Clausal Relativesmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…This, however, may not be a conceivable idea for Runyankore-Rukiga. Following Asiimwe (2014Asiimwe ( , 2016, I argue that demonstratives exhibit deictic and anaphoric features, and hence, they are inherently definite. The object clausal relative does not exhibit any of these properties intrinsic to the demonstrative.…”

Section: Object Clausal Relativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This then means that the augment attached to object clausal relatives bears distinct (pragmatic) features from those of the initial morpheme of the demonstrative which semantically bears the core roles of deixis and anaphoricity which are intrinsic in the demonstrative. Since the augment is optional, it may be due to grammaticalization that in the process of evolution, it lost some of the properties exhibited in the core morpheme of the demonstrative (see Asiimwe 2016). Synchronically, the augment offers discourse-pragmatic functions.…”

Section: Object Clausal Relativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The syntax of relative clause constructions in Runyankore-Rukiga: A typological perspective

Asiimwe¹

2019

SPILPLUS

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This paper discusses the morphosyntactic properties of relative clause constructions in the Runyankore-Rukiga language cluster (Bantu, JE13/14, Uganda). Relative clauses in this paper are categorized into nominal and clausal relatives on the basis of their exhibited morphosyntactic properties. The nominal relative clause category comprises elements which have been previously regarded as adjectives (Morris and Kirwan 1972;Taylor 1985) which include some color terms among other lexical items. The second category, namely clausal relatives, is subcategorized into subject and object clausal relatives. The subject clausal relative is realized within the subject nominal prefix by differential tone marking while the object clausal relative is an obligatory agreement-bearing complementizer which stands alone in agreement with the object antecedent. This paper describes the properties and use of the object relative marker as it has previously been regarded as a demonstrative or a pronoun. The paper offers an alternative position to the status of the object relative clause marker, proposing that it is not a pronoun equivalent to the English Wh-relative pronoun, and that it is not a demonstrative per se, but rather an agreement-bearing complementizer that heads a CP. The paper further asserts that the augment is not a relative clause marker as it is stated in Morris andKirwan (1972) andTaylor (1985) but expresses a restrictive relative clause when present. As part of syntax, the paper discusses agreement properties in relative clause constructions and reports that a clausal relative takes the agreement of the head of the relative clause, but this is not always the case since anti-agreement cases are reported. Data for the analysis comes from authentic written materials and elicited constructions.

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Section: Object Clausal Relativesmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Object Clausal Relativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Object Clausal Relativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The syntax of relative clause constructions in Runyankore-Rukiga: A typological perspective

Asiimwe¹

2019

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“…Runyankore is a Bantu language spoken in the south-western part of Uganda (Asiimwe, 2014;Tayebwa, 2014;Turamyomwe, 2011). It has an agglutinating morphology, where words are formed by adding affixes to their bases, and each affix carries meaning such as tense and aspect (Nurse and Philippson, 2003;Turamyomwe, 2011) as shown in the example below.…”

Section: Brief Background On Runyankorementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like all Bantu languages, Runyankore assigns all nouns to a class, and it has 20 noun classes (Excluding class 19) (Asiimwe, 2014). The simple noun comprises a prefix and a stem; for example, omuntu 'person' comprises the class prefix o-mu-(where o is the initial vowel or augment), and the stem -ntu.…”

Section: Runyankore: Ninkimumanyamentioning

confidence: 99%

Generating Varied Training Corpora in Runyankore Using a Combined Semantic and Syntactic, Pattern-Grammar-based Approach

Byamugisha

2020

Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Natural Language Generation

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Machine learning algorithms have been applied to achieve high levels of accuracy in tasks associated with the processing of natural language. However, these algorithms require large amounts of training data in order to perform efficiently. Since most Bantu languages lack the required training corpora because they are computationally under-resourced, we investigated how to generate a large varied training corpus in Runyankore, a Bantu language indigenous to Uganda. We found the use of a combined semantic and syntactic, pattern and grammar-based approach to be applicable to this purpose, and used it to generate one million sentences, both labelled and unlabelled, which can be applied as training data for machine learning algorithms. The generated text was evaluated in two ways: (1) assessing the semantics encoded in word embeddings obtained from the generated text, which showed correct word similarity; and (2) applying the labelled data to tasks such as sentiment analysis, which achieved satisfactory levels of accuracy.

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Determiner spreading in Rukiga

Asiimwe,

Kouneli,

van der Wal

2023

Linguistics

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Determiner spreading, the phenomenon whereby adnominal modifiers carry an ‘additional’ determiner, has been studied extensively for a variety of languages, most notably Greek, Semitic, and Scandinavian languages. Interestingly, the same phenomenon occurs in the Bantu language Rukiga. We show how the Rukiga augment is parallel to the Greek determiner in the context of modification, and how it triggers a restrictive reading when present on a larger class of modifiers than familiar so far: relative clauses, adjectives, possessives, and certain quantifiers. Considering its morphosyntactic and interpretational properties, we propose that the variation in the presence versus absence of the augment on modifiers is due to different underlying structures, applying an analysis of determiner spreading in terms of a reduced relative clause structure.

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Investigating the connection between the demonstrative and the definite morpheme -ain Runyankore-Rukiga

Cited by 3 publications

References 9 publications

The syntax of relative clause constructions in Runyankore-Rukiga: A typological perspective

The syntax of relative clause constructions in Runyankore-Rukiga: A typological perspective

Generating Varied Training Corpora in Runyankore Using a Combined Semantic and Syntactic, Pattern-Grammar-based Approach

Determiner spreading in Rukiga

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