Browsing by Author "Nyanda, Devis"

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    The adjective as a word category in kisukuma
    (University of Dar es salaam, 2010) Nyanda, Devis
    This study is an attempt to describe the adjective category in Kisukuma. It seeks to establish the core members of adjective category in the language. It also examines the way property concepts are expressed in Kisukuma.To achieve this end, the study uses morphological, semantic, and syntactic approach to identify and analyse the adjectives. Data were collected using questionnaire and interview methods. To get more insights documentary review was also done to supplement the other two methods. The collected data were analysed using data display and analysis strategy. The findings of the study reveal that the adjective category in Kisukuma is open with 39 core members. The category also includes derived adjectives from verbs and borrowed members from Kiswahili. Kisukuma adjectives function as attributive modifiers of nouns. They also function as predicates in copula constructions. In addition, the adjectives in Kisukuma modify nouns from several classes, copy the prefix of the noun they modify and they are used to show comparison. Furthermore, the findings show that property concepts in Kisukuma are expressed through adjectives, associative phrases, possessives, finite clauses and infinitive relative clauses. It would be more interesting if similar studies were done in other Bantu languages to establish similarities and differences.