|
|
 E-mail this message to a friend
|
|
Title:
|
Tense and Aspect in the Mòfòlí Dialect of Yorùbá
|
|
Author:
|
Felix Fábùnmi
|
|
Email:
|
click here to access email
|
|
Degree Awarded:
|
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife
, African Languages and Literatures
|
|
Degree Date:
|
2006
|
|
Linguistic Subfield(s):
|
Morphology
Syntax
|
|
Subject Language(s):
|
Yoruba
|
|
Director(s):
|
|
|
|
Abstract:
|
|
This study examined the syntax of tense and aspect system of Mòfòlí, a
dialect of Yorùbá, spoken in the Plateau State of the Republic of Bénin. It
also illustrated various forms of interpretations that could be adduced to
tense and aspect in the context of the Mòfòlí linguistic communication
milieu and contrasted them with what obtained in the Standard Yorùbá. This
contrastive effort was with a view to examining the question of the
sensitivity or otherwise of Mòfòlí verbs to specific aspectual and tense
notions, an issue that had been a subject of contention among the Yorùbá
scholars.
The research methodology involved collection of data through oral
interviews with about forty native speakers of the Mòfòlí dialect whose
age bracket ranged between twenty-five and eighty-four. This is with a view
to be able to sample people of varying age-grades, and randomly sample
within the dialectal area of Mòfòlí. This was supported by Ibadan
400-wordlist and a set of relevant self-generated questions. Library and
archival researches which provided the requisite review of literature on
the grammatical formatives in Yorùbá were also used. The analysis of data
was carried out within the theoretical framework of Government and Binding
(GB).
The finding showed that the interpretation of tense and aspect of some
forms of the Mòfòlí verbs could reflect the notion of events, points of
reference and moments of speech, which could ultimately instantiate the
binarity of future/non-future for tense and perfect/non-perfect for aspect.
The markers involved in the standard Yorùbá were á/yóò/óò/ó/máa (neutra),
á máa (imperfective progressive aspect), á máa/ma máa (imperfective
habitual aspect), á ti máa/ti ma máa (perfective aspect continuous), á ti/ó
ti/ti máa (perfective aspect past), ń (progressive aspect); while those of
the Mòfòlí were á / mée (neutra), í mée (imperfective progressive
aspect), éé mée (imperfective habitual aspect), í ti mée /éé ti
mée (perfective aspect beginning), à ti/ti mée (perfective aspect
ending) and ín/ń (progressive aspect). The study also found that temporal
order was a fundamental tool for the notion and identification of tense and
aspect. Thus, the study was able to demystify a number of key syntactic
misconceptions hitherto associated with Yorùbá tense and aspect. For
instance, it was discovered that the controversies on the sources and
status of the syllabic nasal, which also marks the progressive aspect, were
unnecessary because the inherent forms of ń in Mòfòlí pointed to their
proto status. In addition, the study showed that tense in standard Yorùbá
and Mòfòlí is not synonymous with a morphological representation of the
opposition present-past; and that an across-the-board morphological
application of the implications of the analysis of tense and aspect to
Mòfòlí (as in English) will invariably lead to syntactic inaccuracy.
The study concluded that although tense was not overtly marked in Mòfòlí,
time reference was sometimes lexicalized by the use of deictic adverbials.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page Updated: 27-Nov-2009
Please report any bad links or misclassified data
LINGUIST Homepage | Read
LINGUIST | Contact us
While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed
on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.
|
|
