Actionality in Bantu languages: an empirical and typological approach

• Applicant: Dr. Bastian Persohn
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 389792965

The linguistic category of aspect describes the internal composition ofstates-of-affairs. It differs from tense, which localizes states-of-affairsin time. Aspect is commonly understood as bi-dimensional: the lexicaland phrasal dimension (actionality) encodes the constituent phases ofa state-of-affairs, from which the devices of the grammaticaldimension select specific phases (Sasse 2002). In order tounderstand aspect, it is thus essential to know about languagespecificinstantiations of actionality. Sound analyses of non-Europeanlanguages, however, remain a desideratum (Tatevosov 2002; Bar-el2015). Bantu languages promise insights of particular relevance. Amodel well-received in current research on this language familyassumes that Bantu languages lexicalize complex state-of-affairs in asingle verb (Botne & Kershner 2000, among others), for instance ‘tobe at the point of anger – become angry – be angry’. The morecommon theories of aspect, however, exclude such phaseconfigurations on an a priori base. Allegedly universal simplechanges-of-state (achievements), on the other hand, appear to berare in Bantu languages. Yet analyses of bigger data samples aremissing. Moreover, few diagnostic tests are found – it often remainsunclear if, for example, a resultant state is in fact semanticallyencoded. The primary goal of this research project is thus adifferentiated description of actionality in two Bantu languages:Nyakyusa (Tanzania) and Xhosa (South Africa). For Nyakyusa,preliminary research has been performed by the applicant. Xhosa hasbeen chosen for its genetical, typological and geographical distanceand for the text corpora available. In a first step, diagnostic tests willbe developed to provide insights into the lexicalized phaseconfigurations. These tests, which will be devised with their applicability across Bantu languages in mind, will primarily consist inevaluating the compatibility and possible readings of a given verb orverb phrase with specific aspectual inflections, with phasal verbs (‘tobegin’, ‘to stop’, ‘to finish’) and with temporal adverbials. On the basisof these tests, the actional characteristics of approx. 100 verbs andverb phrases in Nyakyusa and Xhosa will be described. Data will becollected through a combination of evaluating attested utterances inthe available corpora and through fieldwork. The main method will betargeted elicitation, incorporating the techniques described in therecent methodology discussion on semantic fieldwork (contributions inMatthewson & Bochnak 2015). The collected data will ultimately leadto an empirically based evaluation of the core assumptions of recenttheories of aspect. It will thereby contribute to our understanding of how states-of-affairs are conceptualized in human language. Theresults will be made available through articles in peer-reviewedjournals.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants