Lecture | Descriptive Linguistics Seminars
Particles and clitics in Bemba verbs
- Date
- Friday 22 November 2024
- Time
- Series
- Descriptive Linguistics Seminars
- Location
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 1.23
Abstract
Bemba (Bantu, Zambia) has a small group of post-verbal clitics and particles (po, -ko, -mo, -fye) whose function and use is currently not well understood, with only limited work on particles in Bantu more broadly (but see Schneider-Zioga 2015 and Taji 2019). Cross-linguistically, particles typically perform grammatical or pragmatic functions but do not neatly fit into other parts of speech categories. In Bantu languages particles are typically short, often monomorphemic, uninflected forms and where observed denote locational meanings (see, e.g., Jerro 2016 and Diercks 2013). This is also the case for Bemba -po, -ko, and -mo which derive from locative noun classes but by contrast these clitics/particles exhibit more varied semantics, including partitive and exclusive interpretations. Contrasting with the locative based clitics/particles is the particle fye, whose meaning includes ‘only’, ‘just’, ‘in vain’, which appear to be extensions of its independent lexical meaning of ‘nothing’ or ‘empty’. In addition to a lexical meaning, it can also convey exclusivity, and intensive readings reminiscent of those seen across Bantu more widely. The distribution of fye both positionally and in terms of its host is wider than that of the locative based clitics/particles and perhaps begins to distinguish particle types. The talk is descriptive and aims to understand the distribution and function of these particles/clitics and how this can contribute to our understanding of the particle category as perhaps distinct from adverbs and clitics also in this instance.