A revision of the word categories in Zulu
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Authors
Nkabinde, Abram Charles
Issue Date
1975-02-14
Type
Thesis
Language
en
Keywords
South African indigenous content , African languages
Alternative Title
Abstract
This work is an attempt to revise the classification of
Zulu words into their respective word categories.
The material used in this research was obtained from
publications and fieldwork .
Zulu is largely a tone language . However, Zulu tone is
not uniform. It appears to be regional . We, therefore, use
the tone dialect of the area to the north and north- west of
Eshowe district . The distinction of tones or tone patterns is
done by ear. Only difficult examples were tested in the
language laboratory .
Since there is no perfect model for linguistic analysis,
several approaches are integrated in this investigation as far
as possible. Accordingly, we employed both the structural and
the functional approach. Bantu diachronic linguistics as
postulated by Meinhof and Guthrie also proved helpful . Very
limited use is made of the techniques of transformational-generative
grammar .
We follow the conjunctive approach to word identification.
In this research, Zulu words are classified into various
grammatical categories by using the following four criteria:
phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic characteristics
of words . The application of these criteria yields the following word categories:
1. Nominal words
Noun
Absolute Pronoun
Demonstrative
Quantitative
Modifier: Adjective / Relative , Adverbial
2. Predicative Words
Verb
Copulative
3. Marginal Words
Infinitive
Verbal Relative
4. Non- Relational Words
Ideophone
Interjective