Nilotic Research Articles

Weak determinism and the computational consequences of interaction

Recent work has claimed that (non-tonal) phonological patterns are subregular (Heinz 2011a,b, 2018; Heinz and Idsardi 2013), occupying a delimited proper subregion of the regular functions—the weakly deterministic (WD) functions (Heinz and Lai 2013; Jardine 2016). Whether or not it is correct (McCollum et al. 2020a), this claim can only be properly assessed given a complete and accurate definition of WD functions. We propose such a definition in this article, patching unintended holes in Heinz and Lai’s (2013) original definition that we argue have led to the incorrect classification of some phonological patterns as WD. We start from the observation that WD patterns share a property that we call unbounded semiambience, modeled after the analogous observation by Jardine (2016) about non-deterministic (ND) patterns and their unbounded circumambience. Both ND and WD functions can be broken down into compositions of deterministic (subsequential) functions (Elgot and Mezei 1965; Heinz and Lai 2013) that read an input string from opposite directions; we show that WD functions are those for which these deterministic composands do not interact in a way that is familiar from the theoretical phonology literature. To underscore how this concept of interaction neatly separates the WD class of functions from the strictly more expressive ND class, we provide analyses of the vowel harmony patterns of two Eastern Nilotic languages, Maasai and Turkana, using bimachines, an automaton type that represents unbounded bidirectional dependencies explicitly. These analyses make clear that there is interaction between deterministic composands when (and only when) the output of a given input element of a string is simultaneously dependent on information from both the left and the right: ND functions are those that involve interaction, while WD functions are those that do not.

Dependent clauses with the conjunction kṳ̀ ‘and’ in Dinka

Dinka, a Western Nilotic language, has a construction in which a clause with dependent syntactic status is combined with a preceding clause of any type by means of the conjunction kṳ̀ ‘and’, which is also used for coordinating both noun phrases and independent clauses. Dependent kṳ̀-clauses, which all have the same syntactic structure, do not express any particular semantic function and normally have fewer markers of tense, aspect and mood than the clause with which they are combined. But they are interpreted as having the same semantic function and generally also the same tense, aspect and mood as that clause.

A Comparative Analysis of Dholuo and Lubukusu Anaphors within the Government and Binding Theory

Languages exhibit anaphors, reflexives and reciprocals as either lexical items or affixes. This makes it interesting to identify their occurrence and interpretation. The study aimed at comparing anaphoric system of two African languages: Dholuo and Lubukusu to establish their morphological configuration and syntactic properties. Corpus of data for study were drawn from different sources. Dholuo data was derived from native speaker intuition, elicitations and from existing work by scholars. Lubukusu drawn was derived from works from scholars. First, data was categorized to establish their configuration. Then, the data from Dholuo and Lubukusu were compared to establish their morphological and syntactic configuration. Thereafter, a comparison of the anaphors from the two languages was performed. Syntactically, the anaphors were descriptively analyzed using X-bar syntax and Binding Theory modules of the Government and Binding Theory (GB). Results indicate that the two languages belong to different families: Dholuo, a Nilotic language while Lubukusu Bantu. Typologically, both Dholuo and Lubukusu were found to be agglutinating languages characterized with presence of affixes. Similarly, the affixes are bound to the verb. Contrastively, Lubukusu contains reflexives which occur as prefixes and reciprocals as suffixes; while Dholuo anaphors occur as suffixes. Conversely, Lubukusu exhibit the reflexive which occurs as an allomorph with two different morpheme markers; whereas Dholuo has a single reflexive marker. Furthermore, Lubukusu’s reciprocal is distinctly marked while in Dholuo the reciprocal and the reflexive are marked with the same morpheme. Apparently, context is paramount in the interpretation of Dholuo anaphor whereby both the speaker and listener must be aware of what is being conveyed. Lastly, both languages met the conditions highlighted in Chomsky’s Binding Principle A in establishing grammaticality of constructions. The anaphors are bound to respective antecedents irrespective of their positions in the two languages.

A binary inflectional voice contrast in Mabaan (Western Nilotic)

Abstract In Mabaan, a Western Nilotic language, there is a binary inflectional voice contrast in the morphology of verbs. In addition to a morphologically unmarked basic voice, there is a fully productive applicative voice, which is morphologically marked. This applicative voice may be called circumstantial in order to distinguish it from another applicative voice, which is derivational, namely benefactive. The circumstantial voice turns an adjunct into an object, making an intransitive verb transitive and a transitive verb ditransitive. In a main clause, however, a transitive verb needs to be detransitivized via antipassive derivation in order for an adjunct to become object through the circumstantial voice. In some types of subordinate clauses, by contrast, any verb can get the circumstantial voice, whatever its transitivity, derivational status and meaning. This voice is obligatory in relative clauses when the relativized constituent is an adjunct and in some types of adverbial clauses.

Morphological analysis of alienability contrast in Nuer: an atypical typical case

AbstractThis article presents evidence that alienable versus inalienable possession is distinguished in the morphology of Nuer, a West Nilotic language. Although the distinction in possession type is subtle due to Nuer morphology being mostly non-segmental and is additionally obfuscated by numerous exceptions, we show that Nuer conforms to the well-established typological observation that alienable possessive constructions involve more structural complexity than inalienable ones. We argue that alienable possession is marked on the possessum with a non-segmental suffix owing to the presence of PossP structural layer; in contrast, inalienable possession involves a simple juxtaposition of the possessum and the possessor, which are in a head-complement configuration. These structural assumptions account for several morphological patterns where possessed nouns behave differently based on possession type. We also suggest that the exceptional patterns can be dealt with under a presumption that another non-segmental morpheme – the linker – intervenes between the possessum and the possessor when one of them is larger than a monosyllable.

Perceptual Sensitivity to Tonal Alignment in Nuer.

This paper examines the perceptual threshold in patterns of tonal timing (alignment) of Falling versus Low tones. The results indicate a remarkable sensitivity among the listeners. In a perception experiment with 30 participants, we tested how native speakers of the West Nilotic language Nuer responded to stimuli in which the timing of the F0 fall that distinguishes Low versus Fall following a High target is manipulated. We measured the threshold for the responses to shift tone perception from 25% to 75%. The results show that listeners only needed an average of 19 ms to differentiate between the melodic shapes and as little as 13 ms for one item. Perceptual sensitivity this fine-grained is not expected based on what is known about the Just Noticeable Difference (JND) from previous studies. Results from non-tonal languages report a sensitivity threshold for tonal timing of at least 50 ms at category boundaries. This difference suggests that whether or not subjects speak a tone language may be a determining factor in their JND.

The value of “triangulation” in determining phylogenetic relationship: On the areal and genetic connections of the Berta languages

In this paper, I argue against a recent attempt at re-classifying the small group of Berta languages, spoken in Ethiopia, as being closely related to the geographically adjacent East Jebel group, based on numerous lexical similarities between the two taxa. It is suggested that the best method to determine if these similarities are due to common genetic descent or intense contact is to “triangulate” the lexical data by introducing another possible linguistic relative into the comparison. A simple lexicostatistical test shows that the Jebel languages show at least as strong a link with Nilotic languages as they do with Berta, while Berta and Nilotic, on the contrary, have very little in common. This is a significant argument that Jebel languages belong together with Nilotic in the East Sudanic family, while most of the lexical matches between Jebel and Berta are due to the latter’s strong lexical influence on the former.

Maren Rüsch. 2020. A conversational analysis of Acholi: structure and socio-pragmatics of a Nilotic language of Uganda. Leiden: Brill Academic, 376pp. ISBN 978-90-04-43758-6, $174.00

Article Maren Rüsch. 2020. A conversational analysis of Acholi: structure and socio-pragmatics of a Nilotic language of Uganda. Leiden: Brill Academic, 376pp. ISBN 978-90-04-43758-6, $174.00 was published on May 1, 2022 in the journal Journal of African Languages and Linguistics (volume 43, issue 1).

Endangered Languages: A Sketch of the Sengwer Sound System

Within the next century as many as half of the world’s seven thousand languages, are poised to become extinct at an alarmingly accelerated rate (Evans 2010). This correlates to a loss of knowledge, collective and individual identities, and social values. This loss is not only one of the most serious issues facing humanity today, but also it is representative of an unspeakable loss of information invaluable to humanity. This is so because these languages are among our few sources of evidence for understanding human history and each of these languages embodies unique local knowledge of the cultures and natural systems in the region in which they are spoken. This paper focuses on identifying and describing the characteristics of the Sengwer language in terms of its sound system as a contribution towards its preservation as an endangered language. The Sengwer language is an indigenous Nilotic language and has not previously received much linguistic attention. It belongs to the Kalenjin family of languages and is now on the brink of extinction. No research has been carried out in the linguistic domain regarding the sounds of this hidden gem that is critically endangered. A single speaker was used to elicit linguistic data because it has to be borne in mind that very few native speakers of the language exist. The Swadesh word list was used for this purpose because Sengwer orthography has not yet been developed and so it would not have been possible to compile a word list. Results indicate that the Sengwer phonemic inventory consists of five short vowels, five long ones, and six diphthongs. It also exhibits nineteen consonants in its inventory with tones that are used to mark both lexical and grammatical distinctions. Five syllable structure types are also noted and that the language tends to avoid marginal consonant clusters. This paper, therefore, intends to describe these aspects of this language that is poorly understood.

Syntacticized topics in Kurmuk

This article argues that Kurmuk, a little-described Western Nilotic language, is characterized by a syntacticized topic whose grammatical relation is variable. In this language, declarative clauses have as topic an obligatory preverbal NP which is either a subject, an object, or an adjunct. The grammatical relation of the topic is expressed by a voice-like inflection of the verb, called orientation here. While subject-orientation is morphologically unmarked, object-oriented and adjunct-oriented verbs are marked by a subject suffix or by a suffix indicating that the topic is not subject, and adjunct-orientation differs from object-orientation by a marked tone pattern. Topic choice largely reflects information structure by indicating topic continuity. The topic also plays a crucial role in relative clauses and in clauses with contrastive constituent focus, in that objects and adjuncts can only be relativized or contrastively focalized if they are coded as topics. Moreover, some types of adverbial clauses require adjunct-orientation.

Anti-Logophoricity and Indirect Mode in Mabaan

In Mabaan, a Western Nilotic language, indirect speech is characterised by the following three features. Firstly, verbs are inflected in a special way, having an indirect mode as opposed to the direct mode of direct speech. Secondly, in pronominal morphemes a distinction is made between forms that refer to a third person reported speaker (third person forms) and forms which have other third person referents (fourth person forms), a distinction which is coextensive with the use of the indirect mode. Thirdly, third person pronominal forms are identical to the third person pronominal forms used in direct speech, while fourth person pronominal forms are different and, thus, anti-logophoric. Taken together, these features make Mabaan typologically unusual.

Geographical and linguistic structure in the people of Kenya demonstrated using 21 autosomal STRs

Kenya is a diverse and populous nation that employs DNA evidence in its criminal justice system, and therefore requires reliable information on autosomal STR allele frequency variation across the country and in its many ethnic groups. In order to provide reference data and to assess population structure, we analysed the 21 autosomal STRs in the GlobalFiler multiplex in a sample of 510 indigenous Kenyans representing the country’s eight former provinces, 43 of its 47 counties, three main linguistic families and all 29 ethnic groups that each comprise >0.5% of the 2019 census population. The indigenous population originated from successive migrations of Cushitic, Nilotic and Bantu speaking groups who settled in regions that suited their distinctive sustenance lifestyles. Consequently, they now largely reside in a patchwork of communities with strong associations with particular counties and provinces and limited degrees of inter-group marriage, as shown by DNA donors’ ancestry details. We found significant genetic differentiation between the three Nilotic language sub-families, with Western Nilotes (the Luo ethnic group) showing greater similarity to the Bantu than the Southern and Eastern Nilotes which themselves showed closer affinity to the Cushitic speakers. This concurs with previous genetic, linguistic and social studies. Comparisons with other African populations also showed that linguistic affiliation is a stronger factor than geography. This study revealed several rare off-ladder alleles whose structure was determined by Sanger sequencing. Among the unusual features that could affect profile interpretation were a deletion of Amelogenin Y but no other forensic marker (autosomal or Y-chromosomal), a triallelic pattern at TPOX and an extremely short SE33 allele falling within the expected size range of D7S820. Compared with the currently implemented Identifiler multiplex, Random Match Probabilities decreased from 6.4 × 10–19 to 3.9 × 10–27. The appreciation of local population structure provided by the geographically and ethnically representative sample in this study highlights the structured genetic landscape of Kenya.

«Tu boca está en buen estado»: Las cucharas con forma de pata de toro y el ritual de la apertura de la boca en la tradición fenicio-púnica

En la actualidad se conocen un total de siete cucharas con mango decorado en forma de pata de bóvido procedentes de contextos de clara filiación fenicio-púnica. Estas piezas, a las que se les ha prestado escasa atención dentro de la historiografía, han sido tenidas por cucharas para incienso. En este estudio se propone su relación como instrumentos utilizados dentro de un extendido ritual conocido como ‘apertura de la boca’. Para ello se analizará el papel de esta liturgia en el Antiguo Egipto, así como el significado y función dados a este mismo tipo de cucharas dentro de la tradición nilótica. Por último, se reinterpretan otros objetos arqueológicos como piezas propias de este ceremonial dentro del área cananea, fenicia y púnica. Con ello se pretende reforzar la existencia del ritual de la apertura de la boca dentro sus creencias religiosas.

Multiple adnominal modification in Dinka

In Dinka, a Western Nilotic language, most adnominal modifiers follow the head noun. Before most of these modifiers, the head noun is in one of two construct states. One construct state, CS1, occurs before, among others, demonstratives, nominal possessors and relative clauses as CS1-modifiers. The other construct state, CS2, which is morphologically more complex, occurs before, among others, possessive pronouns, a few numerals and a diminutivizer as CS2-modifiers. When a construct-state triggering modifier is added to a CS2-modifier, the latter itself gets construct state marking, and the head noun changes from CS2 to CS1. Some CS1-modifiers also get construct state marking when followed by a construct-state triggering modifier. Multiple adnominal modification in Dinka may thus result in a chain of construct states, which is similar to what is found in Iranian languages with so-called ezafe marking.

Dholuo Kincepts in Western Kenya

The Luo are a Nilotic people living in western Kenya, north-eastern Tanzania and in western Uganda. Their language, Dholuo, forms part of the Western Nilotic group of languages. This article presents the traditional kincepts (kinship terminology) of the Luo people as described by elders living in Central Sakwa location, Siaya County, western part of Kenya. The kincepts for consanguine as well as affine relatives in up to three ascending and five descending generations are described. The paper applies a combined linguistic and anthropological approach. Linguistically, the terms are analysed in relation to current Dholuo vocabulary, grammar and modes of expression. Anthropologically, the Luo kinship rules of patrilineality and virilocality are considered. The domain of kincepts is a research field bringing together linguistics, anthropology and history. It contributes to the inquiry of diachronic linguistics, which can provide insights on the development and interaction of related languages as well as population groups’ migratory patterns not least in parts of the world where written historical sources are scarce.

Position of Wh-Words in Kipsigis Wh-Questions

The wh-parameter determines whether the wh-expression can be fronted or not. Studies on a number of languages among them English, Shona, Kiitharaka and Chinese have revealed that different languages use different ways to form wh-questions. This paper examines the positions a wh-phrase can occupy in Kipsigis, a southern Nilotic language. A descriptive research design was adopted and a structure generation exercise was used to elicit data from ten competent native speakers of Kipsigis. Data was analysed within the context of the minimalist program developed by Chomsky. The analysis revealed that Kipsigis wh-words can be found in their canonical position, a position termed in-situ. The wh-words can also be moved to the front of the matrix clause. This movement is triggered by a strong focus feature manifested by a focus marker which is always attached to the verb. The wh-words can undergo partial wh-movement where the wh-phrase moves to a position lower than its relevant position. The study also established that adjuncts remain in-situ except for the wh-phrase ‘why’ which can be fronted in addition to being found in-situ. This study contributes towards the understanding of universal and parametric linguistic features in syntactic theory.

The Syntax and Semantics of Clause-Chaining in Toposa

Some languages make extensive use of clause-chaining. According to Payne (1997: 312), clause-chaining has been documented for languages in the highlands of New Guinea, Australia and the Americas. In Africa it is found in Ethiopia (Völlmin et al. 2007), in Kiswahili, a Bantu language (Hopper 1979: 213-215, Mungania 2018), in Anuak, a Western Nilotic language (Longacre 1990: 88-90 and 2007: 418) and in Toposa, a VSO language of South Sudan (Schröder 2011). Clause-chaining is characterized by a long combination of non-finite clauses that have operator dependency on a finite clause, and it usually signals foregrounded information in discourse (see also Dooley 2010: 3). Besides its discourse function, clause-chaining exhibits morpho-syntactic and semantic properties as demonstrated in this paper with examples from Toposa, an Eastern Nilotic language.

External possession of body-part nouns in Jumjum: Possessor raising with possessum incorporation

Abstract In Jumjum, a Western Nilotic language, some body-part nouns, and only such nouns, may be externally possessed in transitive and antipassive clauses. In these external possessor constructions, the possessor is either the object of a transitive verb or the demoted patient of an antipassive verb. The externally possessed body-part noun is partly incorporated into the verb, as shown by the following properties: It immediately follows the verb, its tone is determined by the final tone of the verb, it may combine with a nominalized verb in a kind of compound, and it does not exhibit the root-final nasalization that is prevalent in monosyllabic singular nouns in Jumjum, including internally possessed body-part nouns.

An Interrogation of the Phonological Similarities between Somor and Aror Sub-Dialects of the Tugen Dialect in Kenya

The paper sets out to find the extent of the phonological similarities of Somor and Aror sub-dialects of the Tugen dialect. Phonological and semantic structures are many and varied and cannot be studied within such a limited time. Thus the study focused on tone and length in Tugen sub-dialects. The selected structures were epenthesis, vowel deletion, fusion, demonstratives, negation, possessives and definiteness. In semantics, the study focused on meaning in general. Stratified and random sampling procedures were used to get samples of Somor and Aror speakers from the population of those who practice in the selected domains in Torongo and Kapuskei locations of Baringo County. The data for the study was a Swadesh list of one hundred and fifty words and fifty sentences. These were drawn from the fields of education, domestic life, religion, health and administration. Data was collected by use of language performance test, which were recorded, on an audiotape. These words were written in gloss and transcribed using the IPA symbols. This was in preparation for the phonological and semantic analysis, which was done by using Natural Generative Phonology and Descriptive Linguistics. This study adds knowledge in the area of theoretical linguistics of Nilotic languages and Kenyan languages in general.

Probing the interaction of language contact and internal innovation

The Bantu language Rangi is spoken at the northern borderlands of Tanzania, where Bantu, Cushitic and Nilotic languages meet. In many regards, Rangi exhibits the morphosyntax typically associated with East African Bantu: SVO word order, an extensive system of agreement and predominantly head-marking morphology. However, the language also exhibits a number of features which are unusual from a comparative and typological perspective, and which may have resulted from language contact. Four of these features are examined in detail in this paper: 1) Verb-auxiliary order found in the future tense, 2) clause-final negation, 3) a three-way distinction in verbal deictic markers, and 4) an inclusive/exclusive distinction in personal possessive pronouns. These features are assessed with reference to three criteria: syntactic structure, lexical/morphological form and geographic distribution. The examination shows that two of the unusual features result from a combination of internal and external factors, while the other two appear not to be related to external influence through contact. The results of the study show the complex interaction between internal and external factors in language change, and the importance of investigating potentially contact-induced change in detail to develop a more complex and fine-grained understanding of the morphosyntactic process of innovation involved.