Difference between revisions of "Classroom:The word KU in Runyankore-Rukiga"

Latest revision as of 08:15, 21 May 2011

This page was created as an in-classroom exercise in LING 2208, NTNU

group of LING 2208 (Linguistics) spring 2011 missing Prof. Dorothee Beermann

Author: Franciane Rocha (Last one in the picture)

Author: Misah Natumanya (First one in the picture)

This page is about the analysis of the grammatical function of the word "ku" in Runyankore-Rukiga.

The data is the result of Typecraft's phrase search done on March 18, 2011.

The conjunction KU in Runyankore-Rukiga

Generalization: "KU as a word in Runyankore-Rukiga works as a conjunction".

We found 46 phrases in which Ku had the function of a conjunction. Some of them were glossed only as CONJ and others had more specific information and were glossed as subordinative conjunctions or as one of its subcategories namely complementizer, relativizer and adverbializer.

In this research we used the definitions about conjunction and its subcategories provided by the Glossary of Linguistic Terms of SIL - Summer Institute of Linguistics ^[1]. The relationship between conjunctions and its subcategories found in SIL's glossary can be summarized in the table below, where the bolded elements and their disposition across the table, show the elements and the relationships we observed in our data set. It is important to point out that no examples were found of the word KU working as a coordinative conjunction or its subcategory correlativizer. This observation allowed us to draw a more specific generalisation, namely, that the word KU works as a subordinative conjunction in Runyankore-Rukiga.

Ku as only CONJ

30 of our tokens are glossed only as conjunction (CONJ) As in:

KU as a CONJS

There were 8 tokens glossed more specifically as subordinative conjunction (CONJS):

The rest of the occurrences were glosses according to the subcategories of subordinative conjunction as follow:

KU as a COMP

5 annotations of KU being a complementizer (COMP):

KU as REL

1 case of KU working as a relativizer (REL):

KU as an ADV

2 occurrences of KU glossed as an adverb (ADV)

We are convinced that the annotator meant adverbializer as it would be the subcategory of subordinative conjunctions according to SIL's GLossary of Linguistic Terms ^[2] addressed on the table above.

However, he/she could not find an appropriate gloss tag in Typecraft's POS list for the function of an adverbializer. This problem has been already reported to the platform and will soon be solved.

Position

In our data set,the word KU appears in both initial and medial positions of a sentence, that is, starting a subordinate clause or being preceded by the subject of the clause. This statement is supported by Taylor's ^[3] (1985) studies about Runyankore-Rukiga's grammar in the section about Subordination and Subordinative markers, where the author affirms that "a subordinative conjunctive particle is placed in second position in the clause where is a lexical subject or topic occupying the first position. Otherwise the particle is in first position."

KU- Initial position

KU- Medial position

Meaning

The word KU can have at least three meanings related to English language, they are:

WHEN

THAT

IF

Tables

Final comments

The generalizations drawn on this work help to understand the data got from Runyankore-Rukiga, shedding light on the structure that the word Ku belongs to in this language. The task demanded the systematization of the information that one must need to understand the function, behavior and position of this particular conjunction on Runyankore-Rukiga's linguistic structure.

References

1. ↑ http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/
2. ↑ http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/
3. ↑ Taylor, Charles. (1985: 15). Nkore-Kiga Descriptive Grammars. Croom Helm: London, England.