| 1. |
- Bernander, Rasmus, 1986, et al.
(author)
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Post-Verbal Negative Particles in Southern Tanzania: Form, Distribution and Historical Development
- 2022
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In: Africana Linguistica. - 2033-8732 .- 2034-8436. ; 28, s. 55-113
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper examines the presence, distribution and historical development of post‑verbal negative particles in a sample of Bantu languages found in Southern Tanzania. It focuses on 12 language varieties found in this area which employ post‑verbal negative particles, including an apparent “outlier” in Matengo which employs a pre‑verbal negative particle. The paper also draws on comparative data from some 20 additional languages spoken in the direct vicinity. We show that there is a high level of variation in the negative forms used, but, at the same time, a preponderance of the use of post‑verbal negative particles as the primary strategy for encoding standard negation. We explore both standard negation and non‑standard negation, including non‑declarative and non‑main clause contexts, as well as instances of non‑verbal predication and copula clauses. The use of these forms as negative replies or interjections is also examined. In exploring etymologies we find sources of the post‑verbal particles in negative replies, reflects of *‑tʊ́pʊ́ ‘only, in vain’, content interrogatives and the negative verb ‑lepa. We also discuss contact as a possible explanation for the prevalence of this negative strategy in the region.
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| 2. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967
(author)
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Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Aspects of Variation in the Eastern Cape: Complexities of Xhosa Language Use
- 2018
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In: Studia Orientalia Electronica. - : Studia Orientalia Electronica. - 2323-5209. ; 6, s. 90-120
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper presents the results of a micro-variation project in which linguistic diversity of the Eastern Cape of South Africa is examined. It shows that regional variation in the Xhosa dialect cluster is minimal and that many older forms and sounds that have previously been reported on are no longer in use. With a specific focus on morpho-syntactic variation, the paper gives examples from a corpus of recorded, transcribed and glossed speech collected across the Eastern Cape. It is argued that spontaneous speech is crucial in analysing morpho-syntactic variation when it is on a fine, intralinguistic level. The paper gives a detailed overview of previous publications on the dialects of the area and relates this to current findings based on the recordings. It is shown that the presumed decline in dialectal differences is not paired with a decrease in linguistic identity which is connected to separate clans and kingdoms. The dwindling use of regional variables is explained by a longstanding situation of personal mobility, standardization and schooling. This paper contributes to our understanding of the linguistic complexities of the Nguni subgroup of Bantu languages. It concludes that any experienced differences between standard Xhosa and the language spoken at home is not due to regional variation, and that their causes should be sought elsewhere
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| 3. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967, et al.
(author)
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Paradisets språkliga rötter
- 2022
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In: Språktidningen. - 1654-5028. ; :2, s. 56-62
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Om swahili och hur Abdulrazak Gurnah använder språket i boken Paradiset
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| 4. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967, et al.
(author)
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Preparing a corpus of spoken Xhosa
- 2023
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In: Proceedings of the 2023 CLASP Conference on Learning with Small Data (LSD), Gothenburg and online 11–12 September 2023. - Gothenburg, Sweden : Association for Computational Linguistics. - 2002-9764. - 9798891760004
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)
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| 5. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967
(author)
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Språk utan status
- 2019
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In: Språktidningen. - 1654-5028. ; 4, s. 40-45
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)
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| 6. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967
(author)
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The existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness : The existential copula in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness
- 2020
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In: Studies in African Linguistics. - : University of Florida George A Smathers Libraries. - 0039-3533 .- 2154-428X. ; 49:2, s. 213-239
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Bare nouns in languages without articles can be semantically ambiguous between definite and indefinite interpretations. It is assumed here that speakers of such languages can still signal to the hearer when such nouns refer to unique and identifiable referents. This paper contributes to the long-standing cross-linguistic question of how bare nouns are interpreted and what means languages without articles have to disambiguate between definite and indefinite readings. This question is largely unexplored for Bantu languages. The answer is sought in the use of different word orders and morphosyntactic constructions, with a focus on the existential, in this paper. In many languages of the world, there is a restriction on definites as pivots in existential constructions, which serves as a motivation for exploring these constructions in Xhosa. Xhosa makes use of a non-verbal copula -kho(na) in prototypical existentials as well as in presentationals. The combination of a long and a short version of the copula, together with a choice between expletive and subject agreement, gives rise to four different forms which express the existence or presence of a referent. The aim of this paper is to answer the question of how these different forms map onto a difference in meaning and function, based on examples from a corpus of natural speech and checked in follow-up elicitation. It is shown that Xhosa has a dedicated existential which is used when the coda, rather than the pivot, is the perspectival center. The existential takes expletive agreement on the copula, and the copula plus pivot have a fixed word order. When the same copula agrees with the theme argument, which can be pre- or postverbal, it functions as a presentational. The existential is used with new referents, which are overwhelmingly indefinite. However, there is no strict definiteness effect. The presentational takes a wider range of referents, which are also mostly indefinite. When it comes to the use of the short and long forms of the copula, the paper reveals an unexpected analogy with the use of the so-called conjoint and disjoint forms in Xhosa tense-aspect paradigms.
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| 7. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967
(author)
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The role of vowel length and pitch in Xhosa sentence type intonation
- 2022
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In: Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-Spil Plus. - 1726-541X. ; 62:2, s. 81-111
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper is a first study of intonation across different sentence types in Xhosa1. A recent increase in intonation research of African languages, including Bantu, has shown that intonation involves the manipulation of several distinct prosodic features such as vowel length and voice, next to pitch (Downing and Rialland (2017a)). Xhosa is, as many other African languages, a tonal language, meaning that the use of pitch for intonational purposes interacts with the use of lexical and grammatical tone. Moreover, other means are employed than pitch rise to distinguish different intonational phrases. For example, previous research shows that polar questions in Xhosa are indicated by reducing the lengthening of the penultimate vowel of a phrase, which is long in declaratives (Jones 2001). This paper expands on such previous studies and includes the intonation of different kinds of questions, in order to sketch a more complete picture of Xhosa intonation. Instead of being experimental, it makes use of examples recorded for non-intonational purposes, representing more natural language use. The study shows that the manipulation of penultimate lengthening plays an important role in distinguishing different phrases, in combination with declination. There are also indications of final lowering of pitch. Furthermore, devoicing the last vowel to a whisper indicates end of the utterance. Understanding the interaction of tone, intonation and phonological phrasing is important for understanding the grammatical structure and discourse pragmatics of Bantu languages.
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| 8. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967
(author)
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The word order in Swahili adnominal constructions with locative demonstratives
- 2015
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In: Nordic Journal of African Studies. - 1235-4481 .- 1459-9465. ; 24:2, s. 118-145
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper analyses the demonstratives of noun classes 16–18, the locative demonstratives, in Swahili. The main focus of the paper is the word order of these demonstratives in adnominal constructions. Corpus research presented in this study shows that the locative demonstratives precede the locative noun that they determine much more frequently than follow, contrary to what is claimed in the literature. In this paper I will demonstrate that the locative demonstrative following the locative noun is the marked word order and I hypothesize that this is the natural focus position of the locative demonstrative. The demonstrative is consequently defocused in the position preceding the noun. This defocus gives a reduction of the demonstrative function in favour of a more prepositional one. It is suggested that this is an on-going grammaticalization process. The article starts with an overview of the form, meaning, function and grammatical distribution of the locative demonstratives, as the information on these specific demonstratives is often sketchy in descriptions of Swahili.
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| 9. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967, et al.
(author)
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Verum in Xhosa and Zulu (Nguni)
- 2023
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In: ZEITSCHRIFT FUR SPRACHWISSENSCHAFT. - 0721-9067 .- 1613-3706. ; 42:3, s. 493-524
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper we investigate how verum is realized in Xhosa and Zulu, two Southern Bantu languages belonging to the Nguni group. The data for our study were collected through interviews with native speakers who were prompted to produce sentences in discourse contexts that typically license utterances with verum. We found that the main grammatical strategy for the expression of verum in Xhosa and Zulu involves the removal of phrasal constituents from the focus domain (the VP). This leaves the verb as the sole remaining focus host, and allows auxiliary features of the verb, such as polarity, to be marked as focus. Consequently, we analyse verum in Xhosa and Zulu as polarity focus, which is expressed indirectly, via the backgrounding of potentially focusable phrasal material. We also examined the prosodic properties of verum utterances in Xhosa. Based on findings from previous studies on Nguni intonation, we expected to observe lengthening of the penultimate vowels of phrase-final verbs and utterance-final words in our data. However, contrary to expectation, we did not find evidence of penultimate vowel lengthening in Xhosa sentences with verum, a (preliminary) result which suggests that the expression of verum may have an effect on prosody in Nguni languages.
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| 10. |
- Bloom Ström, Eva-Marie, 1967
(author)
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What the giant tells us about agreeing post-verbal subjects in Xhosa
- 2017
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In: Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus. - : Stellenbosch University. - 2224-3380 .- 2224-3380. ; 52, s. 73-100
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Constructions with the subject following the verb phrase is a widely studied topic in Bantu linguistics. One such construction, whereby the subject is dislocated, is not considered core subject inversion but is generally considered an afterthought construction. This study takes a spoken text as its point of departure, in this case a narrative, to examine this kind of construction more carefully in terms of its function and morpho-syntactic structure in Xhosa, a Bantu language of South Africa. The paper shows that such agreeing post-verbal subject constructions are used for re-activating semi-active concepts that have already been mentioned previously in the narrative. They reintroduce a concept which then becomes the topic of the sentence and also in the phrases to follow, in which the subject is then often pronominalized. It is also shown that the expected penultimate lengthening, one of the diagnostics used to differentiate core inversion from constructions with a dislocated subject, is often not in place. The function of the construction and other morpho-syntactic diagnostics point to the subject being dislocated, however. Furthermore, it is argued based on a few examples from the narrative, followed by grammaticality judgements, that there is agreeing inversion in Xhosa, with the subject in the immediately after verb position. This inversion construction has not previously been attested in Xhosa and further research is needed in order to corroborate the results. The appendix presents the recorded, transcribed, glossed and translated narrative on which the analysis is based.
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