International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue VI, June 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186
Mercy Zemba
Copperbelt University, Kitwe, Zambia
Abstract: The study focuses on the verbal extensions of Kunda, It investigates the expressions and ordering of Kunda extensions. It looks at the main extensions which are the single extensions and the combined extensions. It employs mirror principle theory (MP) proposed by Alsina (1999) and Baker (1985) and morphological template known as CARP template (TM) proposed by Hyman (2003) to account for the order of verbal extensions. The study employs qualitative research design and descriptive in nature. The data used for this analysis is from the Kunda native speakers. A purposive sample of four (4) informants was done. The informants were interviewed and a list of 200 verb roots was used in the study for informants to identify the productive roots to which the verbal extensions were attached. The study analyses how verbal extensions are presented or expressed in Kunda as the morphological process. The results show that Kunda verbal extensions interact with each other although with some restrictions. It is the meaning of a sentence that determines the order (and co-occurrence) of verbal extension morphemes. Kunda combines the Mirror principle and CARP template to determine the order of verbal extensionsand that some orders are fixed although, they violate the CARP template ordering.
Key words: Verbal extensions, Mirror principle CARP template, combined extensions, Kunda
I.INTRODUCTION
Morphology is the study of morphemes and their arrangements in forming words (Nida 1949).There are a number ofmorphological processes that facilitate word creation in Bantu languages and verbal extension is one of them.
According to Waweru (2011), Verbal extensions constitute an aspect of verbal morphology of languages and they play an important role in marking thematic relations. The derivational affixes change the syntactic category of the root to which they apply. They are affixes added to the root and result into new verb stem. Mutaka and Tamanji (2000)
The presence of verbal extension suffixes is considered among the main criteria to establish whether a language belong to the Bantu family or not. Guthrie (1967) andHyman as cited in Lusekelo (2007/2008) verbal extensions are a major morphological property of Niger Congo languages. According to Cocchi (2008)the number, the types and form of verbal extensions vary among languages.
Waweru (2011) as cited in Werigbelegha (2019) further noted that extensions are considered as derivational affixes because of the ability to alter the argument structure or valence of the host verb. The verb is considered as the most central element of the sentence for it determines the number of arguments that it takes.