Linguistic Analysis of Word Order

Linguistic Analysis of Word Order in Zulu Language

Linguistics in most cases deals with the scientific studies relating to languages. Most of the undergraduates are not conversant with linguistics because it is hardly taught in high schools. Most of those who discover about linguistics do it in their college levels. This paper, however, focuses on the linguistic analysis of word order in Zulu language. In particular, the paper will narrow down to discuss the issues of verbal morphosyntax in the Zulu language. Issues of the Zulu language will be critically analyzed, including verbal extensions, stem selection together with suffix selections and the problems experienced when trying to account for dependencies of different parts of verbal morphology. Also, there is a discussion on the construction of Zulu sentences, where the applicative argument which is locative, raises to the subject position, and leaves the agents with properties which are object-like. The prosody and the syntax of dislocation of the Zulu language are also discussed in length, to clearly explain the different Zulu order of words.

Introduction

The history of the Zulu language

Zulu language has a large number of noun classes, well established verb agreements, adjectives and other linguistic elements. The tense and aspects used by the Zulu people in communication are quite rich in content and are expressed in the form of simple tenses, aspectual affixes, auxiliary verbs and also compound tenses. Zulu language is the most spoken in South Africa, with over nine million people speaking the language. The language is been classified within the Bantu language and are linked to the southeast Nguni community. The Zulu language is related to the Xhosa and Ndebele languages, which are also part of the Nguni language. The Zulu language was greatly influenced by the early Christian missionaries. It is the European influence that led to the Zulu writing styles which adopted the Latin-based scripts in their writing. The language has also proved to be a detailed language, both when spoken by the natives and also when written.

The literature involves oral poetic compositions for instance the "izibongo" which is a song that was sung during praises. The written language of the 19th and 20th century was divided into two categories, one that involved traditions of the Zulu life and the other dealt with Christianity (Accredited, 2012, pp.3). Up to the mid-1800, the Zulu language still had the Christian scripture contents. The other fundamental text of the Zulu language appeared in the 19th century, which was a translation of the John Bunyan's: "Pilgrim's Progress." The modern literature of the Zulu people has remained to be cultural, and still preserves the oral traditions of the Zulu people. The language has been complicated since 1939, with an introduction of the 'Oral Narratives and the Ancient Traditions' which in the Zulu language would be translated as "Inziganekwane nezindaba ezindala." In 1958, there were the heroic poems for the Chiefs, "izibongo zamakhosi" (Accredited, 2012, pp.5).

The characteristics of the language are vast, ranging from borrowing of words from the English and Afrikaans languages. The Zulu language is spoken using the clicking sounds, which most linguistics believed were borrowed from their neighboring Khoisan communities. Also, most of the Zulu words end with vowels. Currently, most of the Zulus are located in the Zululand and KwaZulu provinces, located in South Africa (Accredited, 2012, pp.6).

Effects of Mirror Principle and Morphology

When discussing morphology and the mirror principle effects, there are always opposing opinions on where exactly the morphology is located in the structure of the language faculty. When using the lexicalist opinion, then morphology would be regarded as a linguistic component that is discrete and on par with both syntax and phonology (Damonte, 2007, p.338). Otherwise, morphology could also be an element in the syntax, which does not assume any morphological component at all (Chandler, 2005, p.4). However, for the purpose of this paper, the latter opinion will be used.

In most cases, morphemes are just heads that are manipulated and even merged in the same manner as phrases. The order of morphemes is, therefore, a composition of the syntactic structure (Internal) of words hence could be used in the diagnosis of any syntactic structure (Chandler, 2005, p.5). Baker's principle, "The Mirror Principle" explains that, those morphemes that appear closest to any verb roots are usually lower in structure, compared to those appearing further from the peripheries (Chandler, 2005, p.6). Typically, Baker's principle focuses acutely on grammatical function concepts, which explain that the function is hardly primitive and that this grammatical functions are changing phenomena which are accounted for using the hypothesis that, the affixation of X0 level on the original positions in the structures could lead to sensible changes in the case relations in a certain clause (Baker, 1988, p.216). Therefore, the principle's effects are reflective on the compositions of morphemes in most syntax structures. The ordering system of suffixes will, therefore, differ completely with the fashions used in case of suffixes. An illustration is provided below for better understanding.

In Zulu: w3 -- a2 -- cul1

2S -- PST- sing -- FV "you sang"

In the above case, the morphemes, including the subject and tense morphemes, are all prefixes. Due to the assumptions made that there is no right adjunction; meaning the adjunction of a lower head moving to the right side of the higher head, then the mirror principle which will have the effect of a tense morpheme being close to the verb root compared to the morpheme of subject agreement, is due to the fact that the verb root retains its lower position compared to the tense morpheme. Precisely, the verb root and the tense morpheme do not adjourn in any manner (Chandler, 2005, p.5).

Clause structures in the Zulu language

Due to the nature of this paper, some complications will be withheld. Therefore, the structures of clauses are divided into three distinctive sections. There is the lowest section referred to as the thematic domain. In this section, the verb is inclusive of the syntactic structure. Arguments are also introduced in the section, together with valence changing morphemes for instance the passive and causative. Thematic domain is commonly referred to as the V Domain. Just at the top of the V domain is the inflectional domain, also known as I Domain. In this section, the tense, subject agreement, negation and aspect are merged. At the far top of a Clause lays the complementizer domain, commonly referred to as the C. Domain. This is the most complicated section, with projections, illocutionary particles and complementizers being merged. However, for the Zulu language, it is arguable that clauses especially those with short verb forms, hardly provide efficient evidence to reach the above positions/sections (Chandler, 2005, p.7).

Noun Classes and morphology agreement in Zulu language

As in most of the Bantu languages, Zulu language has a large number of noun classes, which are in most cases assumed to be a complete system of grammatical gender. Many conventions do exist when labeling and referring to the different classes, and the numbering system is the most adopted. For this particular paper, has been integrated by a majority of scholars due to its ability to compare corresponding classes of the Bantu language which do not have some classes that are present in proto -- Bantu. For the case of Zulu, the classes are paired, in a way that the singular and plural forms are in two different classes. It is relevant to note that verbal and nominal modifiers, and complements follow nouns and verbs respectively, and are agreed with head nouns through alliterative prefix agreement that identify certain noun classes uniquely (Wildsmith-Cromarty, 2003, p.177). A tabulated illustration is provided below in figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1

Class

Augment

Prefix

Stem

Gloss

1

u-

m-fana boy

2

a-

ba-fana boys

1a

u-baba father

2a

o-baba fathers

3

u-

m-fula river

4

mi-fula rivers

5

li-gama

6

a-

ma-gama names

7

si-hlalo seat

8

zi-hlalo seats

9

nkomo cow

10

zi-nkomo cows

11

u-

(lu-)

phondo horn

10 (bis)

zi-mpondo horns

14

u-

bu-mnyama darkness

15

u-

ku-cula to sing

17

ku-

(locative)

For instance, is the nouns in class 7 are considered (for example; isikole, which means school, isandla, meaning hand and isihlalo, meaning seat) are all in singular form. Class 8 illustrates the words in plural form (such that the result is; izikole, for schools, izandla, meaning hands and izihlalo, meaning seats). Well selected examples are illustrated in the table above.

It is notably clear that the nouns in the table are actually preceded by two prefixes and not a single one. The first of the prefixes is known as the "augment" or could also be referred to as "preprefix" which could be assumed to be an article. The second prefix is a "class prefix." Mostly, nouns that exhibit an augment will be called augmented. When the nouns lack the augmenting form, then they are referred to as unaugmented or bare. These bare nouns function as the negative ( -- ve) polarity items, which means any or none (Chandler, 2005, p.8). Follow the proceeding examples for a clearer understanding;

A -- Ngi - fun - I zincwadi.

NEG -- 1S.SBJ- want- NEG 10.books

Translation: I don't want any books.

In the urge to attain a shorter gloss, the augment appears separate. However, apart from the class 15 alone, the class prefix is always glommed onto a noun stem.

For the sake of the topic discussed in this paper, only the relevant classes that affect syntactic issues will be discussed; evidently, most of the class 1a and 2a nouns in the table above could either be names of the Zulu people, for instance uSipho, which if translated to English, "siphon" was a man's name (Chandler, 2005, p.10). The nouns could also be kinship terms like ugongo, which means "grandmother." To distinguish between the classes 1 and 1a, then the nominal morphology has to be identified. Agreement morphology is usually comprised of verbs and adjectives. The discussions of this paragraph are also relevant for class2 and class 2a. The glosses, therefore, hardly differentiate 1 and 2 from 1a and 2a.

Class 15 contains verbal nouns (Infinitives) and a few nouns. An example would be ukudla, which possess ambiguity of whether the word would mean 'to eat' which is infinitive or, 'food' which qualifies to be a really concrete noun. Due to the necessity to provide the verb stem like a separate morpheme, then the prefix will would be glossed differently from the clause' stem. An example is provided below. The default verbal agreement is used in agreement failure constructions, for instance impersonal passive. An illustration on the agreement in action is provided below, and one is expected to observe the morphology of classes 2 and 10, including the adjectives and verbs;

A -- bafana a- bancane ba- zo- zi theng -- an i- zincwadi e- Zinkulu.

2- 2.boy REL-2.small 2.SBJ- FUT- 10.OBJ- buy- FV 10-10.book REL.10-10.big.

Translation: The little boys will buy the big books.

Due to the subject abafana, which is translated to "boys," the noun found in class 2 is reflected in the agreement prefix on an adjective, abancane, meaning "small" and also subject agreements on verbs (Chandler, 2005, p.11).

Adjectives in the Zulu language

Where to categorize adjectives has always been a major issue in the previous attempts of language analysis. While Plato and Aristotle viewed an adjective to be a subsection of a verb, Alexandrians regarded adjectives to be a class under nouns. Until the medieval era, the word class for an adjective had not been reached (Posthumus, 2000, pp.3). Copulatives are formed when adjectives are elided from the initial vowel. When the concord (for the adjective) is disyllabic, mostly in class 5 of the noun table, where the concord is monosyllabic, the initial vowel provides space for the vowel i-. Therefore, forms like; izinkomo zinhle, meaning "the cattle are fine" must have been gotten from izinkomo ezinhle which means, "fine cattle." Another example is; inkosi indala, meaning "the chief is old" which was most likely derived from; enkosi endala meaning "the old chief."

For the case of adnominal stems, they can hardly be categorized on their own but are usually constituted in the grammatical construction. Nonetheless, there are three confusing reasons in the analysis of copula constructions as differentiated to adnominal steins. In the first example, both the parts: m (u) and ngim (u) are considered prefixes (such as ngimude and umfana rnude). On the other side, forms like -- de is considered adnominal steins. In the latter statement, the language element is a root and hardly a stem. Forms like ngim (u) are not regarded as a prefix, similar to m (u). For ngim (u), it consists of distinguished morphemes. One is the subject morpheme which is followed by a noun prefix which is either found in class 1 or 1a (Posthumus, 2000, pp.4). Also, copulative construction explains that the grammatical form consists of more than a word. Despite that, the form rnude is one word. Lastly, the in used in class 9 of nouns is a derivation of copula constructions, which is a prefix. The form, therefore, constitutes the subject morpheme i- then followed immediately by n- which is a true prefix, hence is hardly a single prefix. The Zulu adjectives are hence in a separate class of words and should be recognized as a category of "adjectives," comprising real adjectives, enumerative and relatives (Posthumus, 2000, pp.5). Words are, therefore, to be allocated into word categories in relation to distributional, phonological and morphological considerations. Other scholars like Van consider the so-called adjective to be a word group, which will comprise two words (Posthumus, 2000, pp.7). Words vided below;

u- ku- cula

15-15- sing

Translation: to sing.

The 17th class could be defined as non-productive. The class is locative and usually uses the prefix ku-. Essentially, the importance of this class 17 is the fact that the verbal agreement is defaulted for instance like imbi which has the subject morpheme i- is basically an autonomous word that is to be referred to as participles.

Prepositional and adverb phrases (in Zulu)

A preposition could be defined as a set of items preceding noun phases to compose one constituent of structure. Evidently, the second layer inflectional prefixes found in Zulu nominals are compatible with the provided definition because; they usually are in a set of closed items, precede nouns (phrases) and in most cases form a constituent of structure. Therefore, they are deemed to conceptualize prepositional phases (PP) which is a combination of a preposition (P) with a noun phrase (NP) proceeding it. Extra-nominal inflection factors precisely 'point out the relation between words in a sentence (syntactic relationship)' in Zulu language. The factors also cause varied morphological forms in words; hence they could be indentified to be prepositions (Mathonsi, 2001, p.165). The prepositions in Zulu will include the following;

1. The associative prefix na-

2. Instrumentive prefix nga-

3. Comparative prefixes nganga-, kuna- and njenga-

4. Identificative prefix/agentive prefix y (i) - together with allomorphs w (u)-, ng (u) - and many others

5. Locative prefix ku- together with allomorphs e/o-, ki-, k-, kw-….. (-ini).

6. Possessive prefix -a- together with allomorph -ka-

7. Coordinating conjunction noma "or"

The morphemes mentioned above are considered to be prepositional heads (phases), 'PP'. The PP is analyzed as shown below:

1. PP -- P NP; or PP -- P (NP PP)

This is an indication that P, which is the head, could rule both the simple NP and also the NP which is followed by another PP. However, the morphemes are not to be considered heads of phrases they precede, because they are attached to them (Mathonsi, 2001, p.166).

It is fundamental to note that na- which is translated to "and" and noma which stands for "or" could most likely function as coordinating conjunctions hence cannot be categorized to be prepositions because they hardly mark a syntactic change when using the noun (Mathonsi, 2001, p.166).

2. Ubaba nomama bazofika

Translation: Father and mother will arrive

Ubaba noma umama uzofika

Translation: Either father or mother will arrive

A further complication in the analysis of PP's is the fact that it could be used just like a predicative base if employed with a subject agreement marker, but with differences in meaning. For instance, na- would mean either to be in the company of, or simply to have/possess. For example:

3. Umama ufika nobaba meaning mother arrives with father. That is "in the company of."

Inkosikazi inabantwana meaning the lady "possesses" children or "is with children."

Possessive constructions in most cases provide a concordial marker before a putative preposition - (K) a-, making the PP dependent on preceding NP's and also conditioned by following NP's. For instance:

4. Intombi yomfana (Agr i-; possessive preposition -a-; and the dependent NP, which in this illustration would be umfana).

In syntactic terms, formation of a possessive is inflectional and, therefore, controls the agreement. It does not qualify to be a preposition (Mathonsi, 2001, p.167).

Adverbial phrases

Just like other Bantu languages, Zulu language provides a close relationship between nouns and adverbs (Malcolm, 1960, p.40).VP may either contain only a verb or both a verb followed by objects NP. The verb could also be followed by an adverb (ADV) or even by both the NP and the ADV.

That is; VP -- V [NP ADV]

Any descriptive function that is found within a predicate phase (PRED) could be attained by ADV or P -- P.A description is provided above. An adverb could be defined as a word that specifies the mode of action of a verb in a sentence. For example, 'The fox ran faster than the dog'. Nonetheless, grammarians have identified other words, which they have grouped as adverbs, resulting to a class of words that are heterogeneous (Mathonsi, 2001, p.170).

A basic adverb is one of manner, which in English is one formed by suffixation of -ly (for instance steadily, happily, breathlessly) to corresponding adjective stems. Manner adjectives usually follow VP's immediately and precede adverbs. There is an indication that adverbial classes do differentiate words to groups which may just be adverbial in function and not in any form. Examples of adverbial expressions that are in the class of adverbials include upstairs, in the bathroom among others (Mathonsi, 2001, p.171). The distinction is that, as one group has simple structure characteristics, the other is not single and cannot be as a simple word.

Similar issues are observable in isiZulu, for instance -- ngenduku, which means, by means of and Kabi, meaning 'badly' and many others; appear to be simple words that are single. However, the internal structure of say Kabi differs because the prefix (ka-) is added to the adjectival stem. Ka- is actually a gender class prefix, and there is an assumption that the class changes derivational morphemes, which combines with the lexical group -- bi that is an adjective stem in the production of an adverb manner (Kabi). The preceding discussions focus only on the secondary adverbs. Primary adverbs that have no separable morphemes include adverbs like unomphela, njalo, phela, futhi and many others. Adverbs like manje and phakathi meaning 'now' and 'inside' respectively, portray fossilized prefixes. It is notable that the syllable (pha-) is not preceding any 'primary prefixes'. This means the syllable hardly constitutes the second layer inflection. Other adjectives such as phesheya and phezulu meaning 'abroad' and 'above' respectively create the thought that there is a possibility they could be broken to parts as follows; 'pha+ I (li) sheya' and 'pha+ I (li) zulu'.

In cases where an adverb modifies another, for instance Kuhamba Kahle Kakhulu, which in English means 'it goes very well', the adverb, which in this case is "kakhulu," will have a "degree" expression because of the fact it specifies extent of comparison of the adverbs.

Pronouns in the isiZulu language

Pronouns replace nouns. For instance, instead of saying "my teacher speaks three languages" one could simply say "he speaks three languages." The words 'my teacher' are substituted by the 'he' pronoun. Pronouns are categorized into three main groups that is; personal, object, possessive and demonstrative pronouns. In Zulu language, absolute pronouns always lose the trailing -- na especially when used together with any prefix. For instance, nga- +mina when combined, come to ngami, hence an elimination of the -na at the end. When translated to English, Ngami means "about me" (isiZulu.net, 2012, pp.1).

Examples will be relevant for better understanding of how to use pronouns in sentences. For personal pronouns, an example would be ngingumngane wakho which means "I am your friend." In the example, the first pronoun I comes before the verb in the sentence. In case of 2nd pronouns, an example could be as follows; ukhuluma usheshise meaning "you speak very fast." In this illustration, the pronoun comes before the adverb. Object pronouns are used as a target by the verb of a sentence. In Zulu, an example of the object pronouns would be illustrated in the sentence; ngizokunikeza imali meaning "I will give you money." The object pronoun precedes the noun in the sentences. A possessive pronoun example in a sentence is; umfowenu uhlala lapha meaning "your brother lives here." The second possessive pronoun comes before the noun, which in this case is "brother" (Learn101.org, 2012, pp.1). The understanding of Zulu pronouns is quite mandatory, for those wanting to converse effectively in the Zulu language. this is because of the role of pronouns in the Zulu grammatical structures.

Relative Clause Analysis

When analyzing the case of relative clauses, it is obligatory to understand that forms of initial prefixes that are attached to the verb stem do change. The result in most cases is that the verb is automatically prefixed with a relative concord (Zeller, 2003, p.3). Examples of the relative concord are written in bold in the provided examples (i) and (ii). The examples also demonstrate that the relative concords usually agree with the subjects of relative clauses. This means that relativisation and all subject agreements are expressed by relative concords simultaneously. The examples are provided below:

(i) (a)Abafana (aba-sebenza esitolo) ba-fik-e namhlanje

When translated: 'The boys who work in the shop arrived today'.

(b) Incwadi (esi-yi-funda-yo isitsundeni) in-de

When translated: 'the later that the student is reading is long'.

From the above illustrations, the relative concords in the isiZulu language result from a combination of subject prefixes of certain noun classes and relative morphemes with underlying forms a-. The phonological form (of relative morphemes) is arrived at by the Vowel Raising rule which causes vowel a- to drastically assimilate in backness and height to higher vowels of proceeding subject prefixes (Zeller, 2003, p.3). The allomorphs e- and o- are then derived. In case the subject prefix begins with a consonant, as illustrated above, the relative concord will have a form which combines the relative morpheme together with the subject prefix. Nonetheless, if it happens that the subject prefix is a vowel, and then it is automatically deleted. When noun classes have vowel subject prefixes, then the relative concord will only entail the relative morpheme. It is fundamental to note that the subject of relative clauses in the example (i) above is extra posed. However, the subject extra-positioning in the relative clauses is optional in Zulu, though many of the speakers of the language prefer it (Zeller, 2003, p.3).