The diachronic semantics of the dissociative past completive construction in the Kikongo language cluster (Bantu)

dc.contributor.authorDom, Sebastian
dc.contributor.authorDe Schryver, Gilles-Maurice
dc.contributor.authorBostoen, Koen
dc.date.accessioned2019-02-01T09:28:32Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.description.abstractThis article aims to give a semantic study of the reflexes of one specific tense/aspect form, namely the so-called *-a-B-a construction, in a cluster of about 40-odd Kikongo language varieties spoken in a wide area around the mouth of the Congo River in Central Africa. We first present a detailed analysis of the multiple uses of these cognate constructions at sentence level, in order to arrive at a formal and semantic reconstruction for the most recent common ancestor of the Kikongo Language Cluster, namely Proto-Kikongo. The analysis departs from the overall aspectual meaning of the linguistic expression in which the tense-aspect construction is used. Therefore, we also take into consideration the contribution of different aspectual tiers, such as lexical and grammatical aspect, adverbials and taxis constructions. Through the discussion of themultiple uses of the -a-B-a construction,we argue that its overall meaning is complex, combining both temporal and aspectual semantics. It is furthermore shown that a lexical-aspect distinction between statesof- affairs with transitional versus non-transitional temporal structure is crucial in order to understand the various uses of the -a-B-a construction. Methodologically, the formal and semantic reconstruction to Proto-Kikongo are based on a thorough comparison of a multitude of existing data sources, some of which several centuries old, as well as original fieldwork. This bottom-up approach has rarely been pursued over the past half century in Bantu grammatical reconstructions.en_ZA
dc.description.departmentAfrican Languagesen_ZA
dc.description.embargo2019-10-01
dc.description.librarianam2019en_ZA
dc.description.sponsorshipThe research of the first author is funded through an FWO doctoral fellowship, that of the second and third authors by the Special Research Fund of Ghent University, and that of the third also by the European Research Council through a Consolidator Grant (BantuFirst, Grant No. 724275).en_ZA
dc.description.urihttp://www.degruyter.com/view/j/flinen_ZA
dc.identifier.citationDom, S., De Schryver, G.-M. & Bostoen K. 2018, 'The diachronic semantics of the dissociative past completive construction in the Kikongo language cluster (Bantu)', Folia Linguistica Historica, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 297-340.en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn0168-647X (print)
dc.identifier.issn1614-7316 (online)
dc.identifier.other10.1515/flih-2018-0011
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/68353
dc.language.isoenen_ZA
dc.publisherDe Gruyteren_ZA
dc.rights© 2018 Walter de Gruyteren_ZA
dc.subjectBantuen_ZA
dc.subjectKikongo language clusteren_ZA
dc.subjectDissociative past completiveen_ZA
dc.subjectTense/aspecten_ZA
dc.subjectLexical aspecten_ZA
dc.subjectGrammatical reconstructionen_ZA
dc.subject.otherHumanities articles SDG-04
dc.subject.otherSDG-04: Quality education
dc.titleThe diachronic semantics of the dissociative past completive construction in the Kikongo language cluster (Bantu)en_ZA
dc.typeArticleen_ZA

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