1996
100 pp.
6 diagrams, numerous tables and charts
Text language: English
This is the only in depth study of the relative clause in Luganda, a Bantu language (J.10) of major importance in Uganda. Based on a dissertational manuscript, it has been revised and updated by the author according to the latest development of the Transformational Grammar model. It is a rare example where, in the field of African languages, the Transformational Model is applied by a mother tongue speaker. A methodological comparison of such a study with one of the alien writers may shed light on the significance of the question raised. In this book, relativization is analysed as a process which involves transformational rules. The analysis focuses on relative clause formation, the relationship between relative clause and focus constructions, a detailed examination of headless relative clauses and predicate sentences, stacked and conjoined restrictive relative clauses and constraints on relativization.
The former doctoral thesis which the author wrote at the University College of Los Angeles (UCLA) was supervised by Talmy Givón. The author reviewed and updated his manuscript during a research visit at the University of Cologne.
Under these links you will find descriptions and text collections of further East African and Great Lakes Bantu languages and an etymological analysis of the cultural vocabulary of this region:
