The morphological evolution of the -ile suffix across Bantu languages in the Nyasa-Tanganyika corridor
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Date
2021
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Journal of University of Namibia Language Centre
Abstract
This paper describes the morphological evolution of -ile suffix across four Bantu languages
selected from the Nyasa-Tanganyika corridor. The suffix -ile which is traditionally an aspect
(perfective) marker is changing and becoming amenable to different roles across Bantu
languages. This poses a challenge in specifying its roles as a tense and/or an aspect marker
unless attention is paid to an individual language. The findings presented in this paper
indicate that in the languages under study, the suffix -ile functions as both a tense and an
aspect marker. It co-occurs with pre-root formatives to mark different past tenses. In
Nyakyusa, in particular, the suffix marks different categories of aspect, namely anterior,
non-progressive and indefinite conditional aspect. However, in Ndali, Malila and Nyiha, the
suffix -ile marks only the non-progressive aspect. In this view, this paper concludes that the
-ile suffix is gradually vanishing in the forms for aspect meanwhile it extends its roles into
marking different tense categories.
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Journal article
Keywords
Morphological evolution, Ile suffix, Tense, Aspect, Nyasa-Tanganyika corridor