Abstract
Ownership, kinship and whole/part relationships are possessive expressions in natural languages. Possession is distinguished between alienable and inalienable possession, depending on the semantic relationship between the possessor and possessum. Alienable possession is a contextually dependent semantic relationship, where the elements in the relationship do not show any semantic dependency, whereas inalienable possession is a permanent semantic relationship between the possessor and the possessum for example as used in the expression of body parts. Besides possession, languages also exploit possessive expressions to express non possessive relationships, for example, emotive states. This paper attempts to compare how possession is expressed in Tugen, a Southern Nilotic language of the Kalenjin macro language and Kiswahili, a Bantu language. It also seeks to show how alienable and inalienable possession is distinguished in the languages, if at all, as well as how possessive expressions are used to express other non possessive relationships in both languages. It also seeks to find out the role of definiteness in the semantic expression of possession. This paper shows that in spite of the differences in the two languages the expression of possession is somewhat similar. Tugen is a VSO language while Kiswahili is an SVO language. Tugen is a native language spoken in Baringo county of Kenya, while Kiswahili is an official and national language in Kenya.
Highlights
Possession, in the context of linguistics is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other [1]
The paper begins with a brief description of the two languages, it embarks on Prisca Jerono: A Comparative Account of Possession Expression in Tugen and Kiswahili describing the expression of nominal possession and how definiteness of nouns influence its expression if at all; the distinction between alienable and inalienable possession if there; verbal possession and how the possessive constructions are used to express other non possessive constructions
This paper set out to find out how two languages- a Bantu and a Nilotic language express both nominal and predicate possession
Summary
Possession, in the context of linguistics is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which (the possessor) possesses (controls, rules over, has a part, has a relative etc.) the referent of the other (possessum) [1]. The paper begins with a brief description of the two languages, it embarks on Prisca Jerono: A Comparative Account of Possession Expression in Tugen and Kiswahili describing the expression of nominal possession and how definiteness of nouns influence its expression if at all; the distinction between alienable and inalienable possession if there; verbal possession and how the possessive constructions are used to express other non possessive constructions. It concludes by showing the differences and similarities between the two languages in the expression of possession
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