Swahili

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Browsing Swahili by Subject "Swahili"

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    Learning Swahili Morphology
    (2022-03-29) Goldsmith, John; Mpiranya, Fidele
    We describe the results of automatic morphological analysis of a large corpus of Swahili text, the Helsinki corpus, using Linguistica, an unsupervised learner of morphology. The result is a fine-grained analysis, with some results corresponding to the familiar linguistic analysis, and with others that are possible only with exact quantitative measures available with computational analysis. The prefixal inflectional morphology is largely done well, while the suffixal morphology is successfully analyzed in some cases and not in others.
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    Linguistic Complexity: A Case Study From Swahili
    (2018-05-23) Jerro, Kyle
    This paper addresses the question of linguistic complexity in Swahili, a Bantu language spoken in East and Central Africa. Literature on linguistic complexity in other languages has argued that high levels of second-language learning affect linguistic complexity over time. Swahili serves as an ideal case study for this question because it has been used as a lingua franca for several centuries. I compare the phonological and morphological systems in Swahili to five other related Bantu languages, as well as compare all six languages to the original Proto-Bantu systems. The results of the study show that there is no decrease in phonological or morphological complexity in (standard) Swahili when compared to other closely related Bantu languages, though the grammar has strongly diverged from the other related languages.
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    Towards A Unified Theory Of Morphological Productivity In The Bantu Languages: A Corpus Analysis Of Nominalization Patterns In Swahili
    (2018-05-23) Kloehn, Nick
    Models arguing for a connection between morphological productivity and relative morpheme frequency have focused on languages with relatively low average morpheme to word ratios. Typologically synthetic languages like Swahili which have relatively high average morpheme to word ratios present a challenge for such models. This study investigates the process of agentive nominalization from the perspective of the Dual Route Model. The findings suggest that all agentive nominal forms should decompose when accessed and thus that speakers of Swahili should include these morphemes in their lexical inventory apart from root morphemes. This process appears to not be influence by noun classification, or verbal derivation.