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[PANEL] 0809 SOCIOLINGUISTIC AND DIALECT STUDIES ON TIGRINYA
Organizers:
DANIEL Teklu Redda, Department of Tigrinya, Mekelle University, Ethiopia
Paper presenters:
TEKLAY Kahsay; DAGNEW Mache Asgede; HAGOS Gebregziabher
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ASPECTUAL CLASSIFICATION OF VERBS AND ARGUMENT STRUCTURE IN TIGRINYA [Abstract ID: 0809-02]
Verbs are organized into syntactically and semantically distinct verb classes and that class membership determines the grammaticality of argument structure. Cross-linguistically, it has been shown that verbs fall into different semantic and morpho-syntactic categories (Chafe 1970, Perlmutter 1978, Rosen 1984, Givón 1984, Levin 1993, among many others). This study aims to present and describe aspectual classes of verb argument structure constructions and their alternation processes of Tigrinya within the theoretical framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRP) approach. It considers the relationship between the lexical semantics of a verbs and their structure (realization), the specified number and types of arguments a verb requires and the ordering of those arguments on a thematic hierarchy. These verbs are arranged into four subgroups as activity, accomplishment, stative and achievement verbs according to a number of semantic variables related to their argument structures. The result of the study revealed that verbs of creation, Verbs of ingesting, the verbs of heating and inherently directed motion verbs are categorized as Accomplishment verbs in Tigrinya. Manner of motion verbs, walking verbs, verbs of dispatching are classified as activity verbs in Tigrinya. Perception verbs, subject experiencer psych-verbs, liking verbs, body posture verbs, position verbs are classified as stative verbs in Tigrinya. Moreover, changes of physical state verbs, object experiencer psych-verbs are classified as achievement verbs in Tigrinya. Unlike the three verb classes Tigrinya accomplishment verbs have inherent causative semantics, which can be expressed either lexically or morphologically and they have feature [+ causative]. Tigrinya, object-experiencer verbs are derived from their subject-experiencer correspondents via the overt causative morpheme ʔa-and the changing position of the subject and object and have an un-accusative structure. Unlike others, achievement verbs disallow the durative adverbials like for six weeks, all summer etc. It is also observed that there aspectual shift from activity verbs to accomplishment verbs by adding near demonstratives like (to this, to those and quantity specifiers like one, two….).
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MULTI READINGS OF TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL DEICTICS IN THE RAYYA TIGRIGNA [Abstract ID: 0809-03]
The main aim of this paper is to describe the deictics in the Rayya Tigrigna. Deictics are linguistic expressions used to point the time, place, and text location of a subject under discussion. Though Rayya Tigrigna enfolds temporal, spatial, and discourse deictics, in this paper, the temporal and the spatial deictics are given emphasis. Both the temporal and the spatial deictics have different readings parallel to varied contexts. The temporal deictic ʕantəwo ‘earlier’ for instance points to different points of time in different contexts. It points to a time, minutes or hours, back from the time of speaking; it also points to a time many years back in other contexts. In the later reading, the deictic has similar meaning with χ’adəm ‘in the old time’. The spatial deictics in the Rayya Tigrigna are a bit confusing. For instance, kɨjjə ‘over there’ refers to a place distant from the participants but visible to both of them; it also may refer to a place that is remotely distant place that is not physically visible to both the speaker and the addressee. ʔabʔu ‘over there’ is a spatial deictic that refers to a place that is far from the speaker but near to the addressee; it also refers a place that is far away (might be physically visible or not to the participants) from both participants. Such varied readings of deictics of Rayya Tigrigna are described in the paper.
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THE USE OF LINGUISTIC TABOO DISCOURSES IN /WƏDDI MƏN/: ORAL GAME OF BRIDES IN EASTERN TIGRAI [Abstract ID: 0809-01]
This paper investigates on the taboo discourses in /wəddi mən/: Oral Game of Brides in Eastern Tigrai. The main objective of this study is to describe the linguistic taboos and their functional theme in the social discourse of /wəddi mən/, literal meaning is 'whose son', and functionally 'whose bridegroom/ bride, fiancé/ fiancée are you?' In the rural areas of eastern Tigrai, when people visit the brides in their home on their honey moon, they often prefer to play /wəddi mən/ as an entertainment and socio-linguistic practice; however this socio-linguistic practice has currently been replaced by some modern entertaining games such as cards and playing modern music. Because this socio-linguistic practice is still oral and has been transferred from generation to generation by word of mouth, it has become badly endangered. Therefore, it needs to be transcribed into written status. This work will be play an important role in documenting the oral languages use for the first time. Specifically, this paper describes the linguistic taboo discourses used in /wəddi mən/ in relation to their linguistic and social contexts. The nature of the research is designed based on the qualitative approach of descriptive research. The main tools of gathering data for this research have been mainly ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews. The researcher has directly participated in the socio-linguistic event of /wəddi mən/ in the eastern part of Tigrai regional state. For its theoretical frame work, this research has been using Halliday's theory of systematic functional linguistics (SFL), an approach that views languages as a social phenomenon which is more concerned with function and meaning than the structural aspects of the language.