Browsing by Author "John, Philpo"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The syntax of object marking in Giha
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2012) John, Philpo
    This dissertation is a detailed study of the Syntax of Object Marking in Giha. It attempts to specifically address four pertinent issues: first, to define the notion “object” in Giha and explore conditions that lead to Object-Marking on Giha verb structure; secondly, to analyse the relationship that exists between OMs and the grammatical functions of the postverbal lexical NP (s) in Giha; thirdly, to describe morph-phonological and semantic implications associated with the Syntax of Object Marking in Giha and finally, to explore challenges pertaining to Syntax of Object Marking in Giha. In an attempt to achieve the objectives, a questionnaire of 100 clauses, interviews, FGDs and Giha written tales analysis have been used with the aim to discover conditions that determine the Object Marking within the verb structure and their relationships with their counterpart postverbal NP (s). This study is descriptive in nature and it has adopted the Binding Theory in order to test its applicability in the analysis of Object Marking in Bantu languages like Giha. In this light, it is discovered that both agreement and pronominalisation underlying Object Marking are governed by binding conditions. Furthermore, this study has revealed four things: first, Object Marking in Giha is mainly influenced by the morphosyntactic process of applicativisation and the semantic/pragmatic features of animacy, definiteness, topicalisation and specificity. Based on these parameters, while up to two postverbal NPs can co-occur with their respective OMs, the verb structure in Giha can accommodate up to four OMs. Secondly, there is a substitutability relationship between the OMs and their postverbal NPs, though with a few exceptions. Thirdly, morph-phonological rules and semantic features in Giha drive syntactic processes. Lastly, the Syntax of Object Marking not only in Giha but also in other Bantu languages is faced with challenges such as syntactic status of the “applied object”: is it a verb complement or an adjunct? This is due to its functional variability shown in Giha. Noting the challenges associated with Object Marking, the conclusion is made that a better theory/approach is needed to fully account for its occurrences across Bantu languages.