A morphosyntactic analysis of ambiguity of mood in Dholuo : minimalist programme aproach (1995)

Abstract

This thesis is a qualitative study of mood and ambiguity in Dholuo, a Nilotic language spoken in western Kenya. It also examines the content of the verb phrase (VP) and the role of tone in the expression of mood in Dholuo. Specifically, the study set out to find out how mood is expressed and how ambiguity is resolved in Dholuo, the modal structure of the language and how it can be explained within Chomsky’s Minimalist Programme (1995), particularly regarding feature checking.

The thesis comprises six chapters. Chapter One is the introduction and focuses on background information to set the scene for this study. Specifically, it considers the context and the research methodology, which is mainly qualitative. The researcher’s knowledge of the language is of great importance in this study of mood and ambiguity in Dholuo, and native speakers of Dholuo were consulted to avoid bias. In addition, desk research is carried out. The chapter outlines the objectives, discusses the research problem, motivation, scope and limitations of the study. It explains the language situation in Kenya, the number of languages and their families, dialectal variations, the status of the languages and their use in education and parliament, including the recent provisions made in the 2010 constitution. Chapter One also presents the challenges concerning the language situation. Lastly, a synopsis of each chapter is provided.

Chapter Two comprises the literature review. The study is based on mood in Dholuo, but the review first deliberates on how mood is expressed in English, as well as types of ambiguity and interpretations in English language studies. In order to determine how mood is expressed in an African language, the chapter discusses a study on tense, aspect and mood as expressed in Kihavu, a Bantu language spoken in the Kalehe district in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Rusizi/Nyamasheke districts in the Republic of Rwanda. Next, Dholuo descriptive grammars, research and related works are discussed.

Presented in Chapter Three is the theoretical framework, the main tenets of the Minimalist Programme (MP) and its aims. The theory is adopted as a tool to handle the data in Dholuo. The chapter also discusses how MP differs from Generative Grammar (GG) and Government and Binding (GB) (Chomsky, 1981), including the problems it aims to resolve that could not be properly addressed by GG and GB. How the theory accounts for the data on mood and ambiguity in Dholuo and its challenges is also discussed. The study hopes to contribute to the Minimalist Programme’s further development and refinement, as most linguistic theories including the MP are informed and inspired by Indo-European languages, particularly English.

Chapter Four presents Dholuo's basic morphosyntactic structures, phonology, the morphology of nouns, personal pronouns and verbs, since some of the features in these domains have a bearing on mood. The language known to many as Luo is actually called Dholuo; ‘Dho’ serves as a noun class prefix in Bantu languages, as in ‘ki-‘ for Kiswahili and ‘gi-‘ for Gikuyu. It is a prefix referring to language: ‘the language of’ the Luo people.

Mood and ambiguity in Dholuo are discussed in Chapter Five. Types of Dholuo modal auxiliaries are described and instances where there is ambiguity between modal auxiliaries and words belonging to other word categories are mentioned. How MP theory accounts for data on mood and ambiguity in Dholuo, and the problems encountered in the application of this theory, are considered. The label ‘mood’ is adopted for the study as a syntactic/grammatical category. The categories of Dholuo mood and possible word formation processes of inflection and derivation realised on the auxiliary are also discussed. Ambiguity is seen through conversion as a word formation process where there is derivation with no morphological marking, but there is functional shift. The modal auxiliary, which precedes the main verb in a construction, is inserted into its base position in the VP. The inflectional nodes are for feature checking. Chomsky (1993) states that morphology plays an important role in the new theory. The operations in the computational system are driven by morphological and lexical necessity. The amount of movement that takes place in the structure building depends on how rich or weak the morphology of a language is.

Chapter Six summarises how mood is expressed in Dholuo, how it is affected by ambiguity in terms of accessing the meaning and the role tone plays in resolving ambiguity so that meaning becomes accessible. The study concludes that this theory is adequate in accounting for the data on mood and ambiguity in Dholuo, although modifications have to be made to cater for the feature checking of Dholuo mood and ambiguity in terms of the creation of some heads. Such modifications include heads for mood and aspectual tone for the auxiliary that derives from a noun or tonal distinction where an auxiliary is used together with the verb from which it derives. This is in line with the idea that the Minimalist Programme is based on feature checking and structure building; both processes are morphologically or lexically driven. The features build the structure. Morphemes are moved out of the lexicon to build the structure. Suggestions for further research based on the limitations of the study are presented. The study focuses only on mood and ambiguity in Dholuo as spoken in western Kenya, although Dholuo is a cross border language. There is an opportunity for further research into Dholuo as it is spoken in Uganda and Tanzania.