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OverviewDerek Nurse looks at variations in the form and function of tense and aspect in Bantu, a branch of Niger-Congo, the world's largest language phylum. Bantu languages are spoken in central, eastern, and southern sub-Saharan Africa south of a line between Nigeria and Somalia. By current estimates there are between 250 and 600 of them, as yet neither adequately classified nor fully described. Professor Nurse's account is based on data from more than 200 Bantu languages and varieties, a representative sample of which is freely available on the publisher's website. He devotes substantial chapters to the analysis and comparison of the different tense and aspect systems found in Bantu. He also examines the verbal categories with which they interact, including negation and focus. Synchronic and diachronic perspectives are interwoven throughout the book. Following a brief history of Bantu over the last five thousand years, the final two chapters look systematically at the history of tense and aspect in Bantu. The first deals with the reconstruction of the earlier forms from which contemporary structures, morphemes, and categories are derived, and the second with the processes of change, including grammaticalization, by means of which older analytical structures and independent lexical items moved as they became incorporated as grammatical inflections and categories. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Derek Nurse (, Memorial University of Newfoundland)Publisher: Oxford University Press Imprint: Oxford University Press Dimensions: Width: 17.60cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 25.20cm Weight: 0.900kg ISBN: 9780199239290ISBN 10: 0199239290 Pages: 424 Publication Date: 03 July 2008 Audience: College/higher education , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: To order Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us. Table of Contents1: Introduction 2: Verb Structure and Categories in Bantu 3: Tense 4: Aspect 5: Other Categories 6: What Can be Assumed for Proto-Bantu? 7: Processes of Change Appendices AcknowledgementsReviewsAuthor InformationDerek Nurse is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Emeritus Professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland. His books include, with T. J. Hinnebusch, Swahili and Sabaki: A Linguistic History (University of California Press 1993) and, with Bernd Heine, African Languages (CUP 2000). Future work will extend the current book to the non-Bantu Niger-Congo languages. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |