Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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The Highland East Cushitic language Dhaashatee (often referred to as “Burji”) has two ways of marking the nominative on common nouns: (1) the “long nominative”, marked by the suffixes -ku (m) and ...Show moreThe Highland East Cushitic language Dhaashatee (often referred to as “Burji”) has two ways of marking the nominative on common nouns: (1) the “long nominative”, marked by the suffixes -ku (m) and -shi (f), and (2) the “short nominative”, marked by the suffix -i (m) or vowel shortening (f). In past publications, the usage of the two forms has been linked to definiteness. However, different authors do not agree as to which nominative is definite and which one is indefinite. The goal of the present study was to shed more light on the conditions that determine the choice of one or the other nominative in stories. For the bulk of the data, previous hypotheses have been confirmed according to which modified subjects are marked by the short nominative, while unmodified ones are marked by the long one. Yet, the choice of the nominative is not only based on syntactic principles, but also on discourse-related ones – i.e. whether a participant is newly introduced or re-appears. Thus, an unmodified subject may be marked by the short nominative if the referent has appeared in the story before, while a modified subject may be marked by the long nominative if it appears for the first time. What requires further research is the question under which conditions the discourse-related principle may override the syntactic one.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
This thesis focuses on the description of the ablative case clitic of Iraqw, a Cushitic language of Tanzania. The ablative case clitic of Iraqw is reported to have multiple functions and is...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the description of the ablative case clitic of Iraqw, a Cushitic language of Tanzania. The ablative case clitic of Iraqw is reported to have multiple functions and is attested to be used for expressing source, location, time, reason, and (simile) adverbial constructions. Especially the apparent extension of source to location marker is remarkable, as Iraqw has a separate goal marker and this particular Source=Location≠Goal syncretism is extremely rare in languages of the world. The ablative case clitic is part of the adverbial case clitics of Iraqw, which consist of the ablative, directional, instrumental, and reason case clitics. These clitics introduce an extra oblique argument to a clause and are closely tied to the verb. The source semantics of the ablative clitic inherently express Place and Path. In locational clauses the notion of Path is expressed in a durative aspect and the clitic therefore does not function as a primary locative marker. The ablative is also used in other contexts. It can be extended into the temporal domain to describe a temporal source and into the causal domain to denote the cause of an event. The ablative clitic is used in adverbial constructions that describe similarity and is grammaticalized in certain intensifying verbal adverbs. In conclusion the ablative case clitic is a source marker, and not a locative marker. Therefore I propose the pattern Source≠Location≠Goal for Iraqw.Show less
