The acquisition of Swahili / Kamil Ud Deen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ud Deen, Kamil.

Series:

Language acquisition & language disorders ; v. 40.

Language acquisition & language disorders, 0925-0123 ; v. 40

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Swahili language--Acquisition.

Swahili language.

Swahili language--Dialects--Kenya--Nairobi.

Swahili language--Verb.

Swahili language--Affixes.

Children--Language.

Children.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (256 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : J. Benjamins Pub. Co., 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This monograph is the first study of the acquisition of Swahili as a first language. It focuses on the acquisition of inflectional affixes, with a particular emphasis on subject agreement and tense. Other inflectional affixes are also investigated, including object agreement and mood. The study surveys the adult dialect in question, Nairobi Swahili, discussing social, phonological, morphological and syntactic properties. Data, analyses and copious examples are presented of the naturalistic speech of four Swahili speaking children. The data are tested against six influential theories of child language, and the results show that processing and metrical theories of telegraphic speech fail to account for the observed patterns, while grammatical theories of child language fair significantly better. The data and analyses presented in this book are indispensable for linguists and psychologists interested in the acquisition of inflectional material and other cross-linguistic properties of child language.

Contents:

The Acquisition of Swahili

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

dedication

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1. SETTING THE SCENE

1.0. Introduction

1.1. The Study

1.2. Early Morphosyntactic Convergence

1.3. Acquisition of Bantu Languages

1.4. Other Morphologically Rich Languages

1.5. Organization

2. THE SWAHILI LANGUAGE

Part I: Description

2.1. Basic Facts

2.2. General Phonological Facts

2.3. Noun Classes

2.4. The Verbal Complex

Part II. Theoretical Analysis of Swahili

2.5. The Derivation of a Tensed Clause

2.6. Null Subjects - null pro

2.7. Rate and Context of Null Subjects

2.8. Subject Agreement Omission

2.9. [-SA] Clauses

2.10. Null Subjects in [-SA] Clauses

2.11. Rizzi's Null Constant

2.12. Null Constants in Swahili

2.13. Conclusion

3. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

3.1 Theories of Omission in Child Language

3.2 Predictions of the Theories of Omission for Swahili

3.3 Theories of Null Subjects in Child Language

3.4 Predictions of Null Subject Theories for Swahili

4. RESULTS AND EVALUATING THEORIES

4.0. Introduction and the Children

4.1 Results - Clause Types in Child Swahili

4.2 Results - Null Subjects in Child Swahili

4.3 Revisiting Theories of Omission

4.4 Revisiting Theories of Null Subjects

4.5 Remaining questions

4.6 Conclusion

APPENDIX 1. METHODOLOGY AND RELATED ISSUES.

1.1 Children

1.2 Data Collection

1.3 Linguistic Measures

APPENDIX 2. STATISTICAL PROPERTIES OF ADULT SWAHILI

APPENDIX 3. THE STAGING PROCESS

APPENDIX 4. INDIVIDUAL CHILD DATA

REFERENCES

SUBJECT INDEX

INDEX OF NAMES

The series Language Acquisition and Language Disorders.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [221]-234) and index.

ISBN:

9786612156267

9781282156265

1282156268

9789027293978

902729397X

OCLC:

191952754