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All Outputs (128)

Morphosyntactic borrowing in closely related varieties: “False cognates” in Swahili (2025)
Book Chapter
Marten, L., & Gibson, H. (2025). Morphosyntactic borrowing in closely related varieties: “False cognates” in Swahili. In H. Kennard, E. Lindsay-Smith, A. Lahiri, & M. Maiden (Eds.), Historical Linguistics 2022. Selected papers from the 25th ICHL, Oxford, 1–5 August 2022. (pp. 184-197). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.369.12mar%3Flocatt%3Dmode%3Alegacy

The paper examines contact-induced morphosyntactic change in Swahili, where material which had historically been lost is ‘reintroduced’ through contact with closely related languages which have retained the original feature. The paper discusses three... Read More about Morphosyntactic borrowing in closely related varieties: “False cognates” in Swahili.

Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu (2024)
Book
E.-M. Bloom Ström, H. Gibson, R. Guérois, & L. Marten. (Eds.). (2024). Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198821359.001.0001

This volume explores the rich and complex pattern of morphosyntactic variation in the Bantu languages, providing a comprehensive overview of the wealth of empirical and conceptual work in the field. The chapters discuss data from some 80 Bantu langua... Read More about Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu.

Encoding politeness in African urban youth languages: Evidence from Southern Africa (2024)
Journal Article
Gibson, H., Marten, L., & Ndlovu, S. (2024). Encoding politeness in African urban youth languages: Evidence from Southern Africa. Linguistics Vanguard: A Multimodal Journal for the Language Sciences, 10(S4), 331-341. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2022-0147

African urban youth languages (AUYLs) often function as languages of resistance and “anti-languages”, establishing alternative semiotic spaces. In this paper, we analyse the encoding of politeness and respect in AUYLs, drawing on examples from Southe... Read More about Encoding politeness in African urban youth languages: Evidence from Southern Africa.

Morphosyntactic retention and innovation in Sheng, a youth language or stylect of Kenya (2024)
Journal Article
Gibson, H., Githiora, C., Kanana Erastus, F., & Marten, L. (2024). Morphosyntactic retention and innovation in Sheng, a youth language or stylect of Kenya. Studies in Language, 48(4), 909-950. https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.22017.gib

This paper examines the morphosyntax of the East African Swahili-based urban youth language or stylect Sheng. Research on urban youth languages has often focused on these varieties as sites of rapid change and linguistic creativity. However, we show... Read More about Morphosyntactic retention and innovation in Sheng, a youth language or stylect of Kenya.

Morphosyntactic variation in Old Swahili (2024)
Book Chapter
Marten, L., Gibson, H., Guérois, R., & Jerro, K. (2024). Morphosyntactic variation in Old Swahili. In H. Gibson, R. Guérois, G. Mapunda, & L. Marten (Eds.), Morphosyntactic variation in East African Bantu languages: Descriptive and comparative approaches (pp. 383-420). Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10663785

The comparative and historical study of Bantu and other African languages is often based on contemporary, synchronic data since many African languages do not have a long-written record. In contrast, for Swahili such a record exists in the form of an... Read More about Morphosyntactic variation in Old Swahili.

Morphosyntactic variation in East African Bantu languages: Descriptive and comparative approaches (2024)
Book
H. Gibson, R. Guérois, G. Mapunda, & L. Marten. (Eds.). (2024). Morphosyntactic variation in East African Bantu languages: Descriptive and comparative approaches. Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10453704

The approximately 500 Bantu languages spoken across vast areas of Central, Eastern and Southern Africa are united by the presence of a number of broad typological similarities, including, for example, complex noun class system and agglutinative verba... Read More about Morphosyntactic variation in East African Bantu languages: Descriptive and comparative approaches.

Introduction (2024)
Book Chapter
Marten, L., Gibson, H., Guérois, R., & Mapunda, G. (2024). Introduction. In H. Gibson, R. Guérois, G. Mapunda, & L. Marten (Eds.), Morphosyntactic variation in East African Bantu languages: Descriptive and comparative approaches (pp. 1-13). Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10663761

Linguistic Variation in Kipemba (2024)
Thesis
Hamad, Y. S. (2024). Linguistic Variation in Kipemba [PhD thesis, SOAS University of London]. https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00042758

Kipemba is one of four varieties of the Zanzibar Swahili cluster, spoken on the Island of Pemba by approximately 500,000 people. Kipemba has been understudied and under-documented for decades, resulting in a substantial shortage of linguistic literat... Read More about Linguistic Variation in Kipemba.

Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: The case of Setswana (2023)
Journal Article
Kula, N. C., & Marten, L. (2023). Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: The case of Setswana. Studies in African Linguistics, 52(supplt 13), 53-69. https://journals.flvc.org/sal/article/view/134347

Within the context of microvariation in Bantu, three processes are examined in Setswana – object marking, inversion constructions and diminutive marking. Setswana morpho-syntactic structures for these constructions present instances that distinguish... Read More about Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: The case of Setswana.

Suffix order restrictions in Bantu (2023)
Book Chapter
Gibson, H., Kula, N. C., Marten, L., & Taji, J. (2023). Suffix order restrictions in Bantu. In P. Ackema, S. Bendjaballah, E. Bonet, & F. Antonio (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Morphology. Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119693604.morphcom002

Bantu languages typically have a rich and complex verb structure, where a range of derivational suffixes can be distinguished. Focusing on the interaction of applicative, causative, reciprocal and passive suffixes, different theoretical and analytica... Read More about Suffix order restrictions in Bantu.

Content words and contextual meaning: Lexical NPs as discourse anaphora in Makhuwa and Cuwabo (2023)
Book Chapter
Marten, L., Gibson, H., Guérois, R., & Poeta, T. (2023). Content words and contextual meaning: Lexical NPs as discourse anaphora in Makhuwa and Cuwabo. In B. Achiri-Taboh (Ed.), The Bantu Noun Phrase: Issues and Perspectives (pp. 183-209). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003254188-12

A distinction is often made between words expressing lexical content and those expressing grammatical functions. As a result, content words such as nouns and verbs are typically distinguished from function words such as auxiliaries and pronouns. The... Read More about Content words and contextual meaning: Lexical NPs as discourse anaphora in Makhuwa and Cuwabo.

A micro-parametric survey on typological covariation related to focus marking strategies, based on the Bantu Morphosyntactic Variation database (2023)
Journal Article
Shinagawa, D., & Marten, L. (2023). A micro-parametric survey on typological covariation related to focus marking strategies, based on the Bantu Morphosyntactic Variation database. Linguistique et Langues Africaines, 9(1), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.4000/lla.9676

This paper discusses typological tendencies of focus marking strategies from a cross-Bantu perspective based on the Bantu Morphosyntactic Variation (BMV) database, a large-scale database of morphosyntactic variation of Bantu languages built around 14... Read More about A micro-parametric survey on typological covariation related to focus marking strategies, based on the Bantu Morphosyntactic Variation database.

Englishes in Africa - Foreword (2023)
Book Chapter
Marten, L. (2023). Englishes in Africa - Foreword. In M. Akinlotan (Ed.), Englishes in Africa (pp. ix-x). Peter Lang.

Chasu, Taveta and Mbugu: A comparison (2023)
Thesis
McNeill-Everduim, F. (2023). Chasu, Taveta and Mbugu: A comparison [PhD thesis, SOAS University of London]. https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00038600

This doctoral thesis focuses on three Bantu languages: Chasu (G22, a.k.a. Asu, Pare, Chathu, Kipare), Mbugu (G221, or “Normal Mbugu”) and Taveta (G21, a.k.a. Kitaveta, Tubheta). Chasu has been linked strongly to Mbugu (e.g. Mous 2003) and to Taveta (... Read More about Chasu, Taveta and Mbugu: A comparison.

Negation, Accommodation and Thought-ascription— On The Inferential Meaning of Connectives in Mandarin Chinese (2023)
Thesis
Xue, L. (2023). Negation, Accommodation and Thought-ascription— On The Inferential Meaning of Connectives in Mandarin Chinese [PhD thesis, SOAS University of London]. https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00039488

The meanings of Mandarin adverbs often display a chameleonic nature. Some of them, like propositional connectives, are used as Boolean operators and can be readily translated as such in a logical way. However, in the specific conversational context,... Read More about Negation, Accommodation and Thought-ascription— On The Inferential Meaning of Connectives in Mandarin Chinese.

Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: Focus on East Africa (2022)
Journal Article
Edelsten, P., Gibson, H., Guérois, R., Mapunda, G., Marten, L., & Taji, J. (2022). Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: Focus on East Africa. Journal of the Language Association of Eastern Africa, 1(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.5642/jlaea.OMUG7174

Recent studies have developed a systematic approach to morphosyntactic variation among Bantu languages, taking well-known and widely attested construction types as a starting point and sketching their distribution across the family. One such approach... Read More about Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: Focus on East Africa.