Discourse Pragmatics and Semantic Categorization: The Case of Negation and Tense-Aspect with Special Reference to Swahili [Reprint 2019 ed.] 9783110889031, 9783110115611

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Discourse Pragmatics and Semantic Categorization

Discourse Perspectives on Grammar 1

Editors

Paul Hopper Sandra Thompson

Mouton de Gruyter • Berlin • New York

Discourse Pragmatics and Semantic Categorization The Case of Negation and Tense-Aspect with Special Reference to Swahili

by

Ellen Contini-Morava

Mouton de Gruyter • Berlin • New York

1989

M o u t o n de Gruyter (formerly M o u t o n , The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Contini-Morava, Ellen, 1 9 4 8 Discourse pragmatics and semantic categorization. (Discourse perspectives on grammar ; 1) Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. Swahili language— Negatives. 2. Swahili language — Aspect. 3. Swahili language — Tense. 4. Swahili language — Discourse analysis. I. Title. II. Series. PL8702.C66 1989 496'.3925 89-1655 ISBN 0-89925-436-5 (alk. paper)

Deutsche Bibliothek Cataloging in Publication Data

Contini-Morava, Ellen: Discourse pragmatics and semantic categorization : the case of negation and tense-aspect with special reference to Swahili / by Ellen Contini-Morava. — Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1989 (Discourse perspectives on grammar ; 1) ISBN 3-11-011561-1 NE: GT

® Printed on acid free paper © Copyright 1989 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 30. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form — by photoprint, microfilm or any other means nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from the publishers. Printing: Arthur Collignon GmbH, Berlin. Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. — Printed in Germany.

to the memory of my parents, Paolo Contini Jeanne Elgart Contini

Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction 1. A f f i r m a t i v e - n e g a t i v e asymmetry systems: the analytical problem 2. The data

xi 1 in

tense-aspect

Chapter one Why "correspondences" fail 1. Structure of the Swahili verb 2. Traditional analyses of a f f i r m a t i v e - n e g a t i v e relationships 3. Discussion

1 7 13 13 18 22

Chapter two The Swahili system of occurrence 1. Theoretical introduction 2. The analysis 2.1 Explanation of the analysis 2.2 Co-occurrence restrictions: a semantic explanation

33 33 44 46

Chapter three The a f f i r m a t i v e system 1. Introduction 2. The subsystem of time: temporal ordering and d e f i n iteness 2.1 Introductory 2.2 General overview of the time subsystem 2.3 The relationship between a ('time relevant') and na ('event includes time orientation point'): a case of apparent synonymy 2.4 The relationship between me ('event begins before time orientation'), na ('event includes time orientation'), and li ('past')

61 61

51

61 61 62

66

79

viii

Contents

2.4.1 T h e e f f e c t s of g r a m m a t i c a l meaning on lexical meaning: the case of "inceptive" verbs 2.5 li ('past') 2.6 Non-literal extensions of li, na and me 2.7 T h e m a r k e r hu ('event not related to a specific point in time') 3. T h e d e p e n d e n t system 3.1 ki ( ' b a c k g r o u n d e d ' ) 3.2 How ki d i f f e r s f r o m na in messages of simultaneous or progressive action 3.3 On ka ('contingent')

87 92 96 101 103 103 111 116

Chapter four T h e negative system 1. I n t r o d u c t i o n 2. Negation, p r o b a b i l i t y and temporal boundedness 3. -i vs. ku/ja: degrees of temporal boundedness 3.1 -i vs. ku: general vs. specific negation 3.2 -i vs. ja: persistent state vs. change of state 4. ja vs. ku: degree of a f f i r m a t i v e expectation 5. Conclusion 6. Q u a n t i t a t i v e d a t a 6.1 Statistics and langue 6.2 Presence vs. absence of time-specification 6.3 State vs. a c t i v i t y 6.4 Presence vs. absence of Object P r e f i x 6.5 Explicit suggestion of the a f f i r m a t i v e 7. Conclusion

125 125 127 130 131 138 142 148 150 150 154 158 160 162 166

Chapter five Conclusion 1. A f f i r m a t i v e - n e g a t i v e relationships in Swahili 2. Cross-linguistic observations about a f f i r m a t i v e negative tense-aspect asymmetry 3. Theoretical implications: t r u t h - c o n d i t i o n a l vs. signbased semantics

171 171

Bibliography

183

174 177

Contents

ix

Swahili references

197

Name index

199

Subject index

201

Acknowledgments

In preparing this book I have benefitted from discussion with a number of colleagues. The analysis of the Swahili tenseaspect-modality system presented here owes much to a series of stimulating meetings with Erica G a r c i a , Florimon van Putte, Robert de Jonge and Thilo Schadeberg of the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, where I spent the spring of 1986 on a sesquicentennial research fellowship from the University of Virginia. I would also like to thank Sharifa M. Zawawi, of the City University of N e w York, for help in interpreting some of the Swahili examples and for background information on the Swahili authors and texts used for this study. Finally, my heartfelt thanks to Betty Snead and Melody Roberts of the University of Virginia Word Processing Center for preparing the pre-final version of the manuscript, Wade Komisar of the U V A Anthropology Department for translating that into a f i n a l version, and Jack Morava of Mars, for help with the thoats. None of the above are responsible for my mistakes.

"Precisely what did you mean, Cadet Clevinger, when you said we couldn't f i n d you guilty?" "I didn't say you couldn't f i n d me guilty, sir." "When?" "When, what, sir?" "Goddammit, are you going to start pumping me again?" "No, sir. I'm sorry, sir." "Then answer the question. When didn't you say we couldn't f i n d you guilty?" "Late last night in the latrine, sir." "Is that the only time you didn't say it?" "No, sir. I always didn't say you couldn't find me guilty, sir. What I did say to Yossarian was--" "Nobody asked you what you did say to Yossarian. We asked you what you didn't say to him. We're not at all interested in what you did say to Yossarian. Is that clear?" Joseph Heller, Catch-22. Copyright 1955, 1961 by Joseph Heller. Reprinted by permission of Simon and Schuster, Inc. and Jonathan Cape Ltd.

Introduction

1. Affirmative-negative asymmetry in tense-aspect systems: the analytical problem This work explores a relatively neglected area of grammar: the i n t e r r e l a t i o n s h i p between tense-aspect and negation. It is tcommon among the languages of the world to f i n d tense-aspect systems that are asymmetrical with respect to a f f i r m a t i v e vs. negative. O f t e n f e w e r tense-aspect distinctions are made in the negative t h a n in the a f f i r m a t i v e , i.e. some a f f i r m a t i v e tenseaspects simply f a i l to occur in the negative. Some systems also have tense-aspects restricted only to negative contexts. In extreme cases the tense-aspect paradigms f o r a f f i r m a t i v e and negative may be entirely distinct. Even when the same tenseaspect categories are expressed in both a f f i r m a t i v e and negative, o f t e n d i f f e r e n t types of negative markers or auxiliaries are used to negate d i f f e r e n t tense-aspects. T h a t is, a subcategorization among tense-aspects m a n i f e s t s itself in the negative as opposed to the a f f i r m a t i v e . Some languages combine both types of asymmetry. For example, most Bantu languages have separate negative m a r k e r s f o r indicative, subjunctive, relativized a n d / o r i n f i n i t i v e f o r m s of the verb. The phenomenon of a f f i r m a t i v e negative a s y m m e t r y is characteristic of the Niger-Congo languages of sub-Saharan A f r i c a , and is also f o u n d in all the other m a j o r language groups of A f r i c a , as well as in other parts of the world. Given the widespread n a t u r e of a f f i r m a t i v e - n e g a t i v e tenseaspect a s y m m e t r y , it is r e m a r k a b l e that so little a t t e n t i o n has been paid to it f r o m the point of view of semantics. T h e phenomenon is not even mentioned in general works on language typology (e.g. Comrie 1981, Mallinson and Blake 1981). General studies of tense-aspect (e.g. Bybee 1985; Chung and T i m b e r l a k e 1985; Comrie 1976, 1985; Dahl 1985) v i r t u a l l y ignore the negative. General t r e a t m e n t s of negation (e.g. Horn 1978, 1985; G i v o n 1979; Payne 1985) sometimes note that

2

Introduction

distinctions made in the a f f i r m a t i v e are not always preserved in the negative, but limit themselves to attributing such asymmetries to the "presuppositionally marked" status of negatives in comparison to a f f i r m a t i v e s . Grammars of individual languages try to f i t a f f i r m a t i v e and negative verb forms into patterns of "correspondences", treating gaps or overlaps in the pattern as idiosyncratic anomalies. Neither the general studies of negation nor the descriptions of individual languages make an explicit connection between the "presuppositionally marked" status of negation and the specific distinctions encoded into particular tense-aspect systems. Perhaps this blind spot with respect to a f f i r m a t i v e - n e g a t i v e asymmetry is due to the common assumption, inherited f r o m traditional grammar, that a negative sentence, like a negative logical proposition, merely asserts that its "corresponding a f f i r m a t i v e " is false. T h a t is, just as the operator in classical (two-valued) logic indicates the falsity of the associated proposition, so the meaning of a negative sentence is analyzed as a proposition, some or all of which is claimed to be false. This by now standard view of the semantics of negation is illustrated, f o r example, in the following passage f r o m Kempson's (1977) Semantic Theory. Unlike positive indicative sentences which are used to assert some proposition, negative sentences are used to claim that this corresponding positive proposition is false. Accordingly, f o r example, just as the necessary and s u f f i c i e n t conditions f o r the t r u t h of It was a woman (ignoring tense) are that there be someone who was human, female, and adult, so the necessary and s u f f i c i e n t conditions f o r the truth of It wasn't a woman are that the conditions required f o r the t r u t h of It was a woman are not in f a c t met in the world, (p. 119) If one begins with the assumption that the only d i f f e r e n c e in meaning between a f f i r m a t i v e and negative is the assertion of truth vs. falsity, it is a natural step to deal with the grammar of negation in natural language by setting up tables of a f f i r m a tive verbs and their "corresponding negatives".

1. Affirmative-negative

asymmetry

3

Whatever the reason, the assumption of n e g a t i v e - a f f i r m a t i v e parallelism has so f a r been challenged only f r o m the point of view of pragmatics. It has been pointed out, f o r example, by Garcia (1975a) and Givon (1979 [1975]) that in actual language use negative and a f f i r m a t i v e sentences d i f f e r in communicative f u n c t i o n . Givon describes the d i f f e r e n c e as follows: A f f i r m a t i v e s and their corresponding negatives in language do not d i f f e r by only their truth value, but also by an additional—pragmatic—element, namely by their discourse presuppositions... [The discourse presuppositions] involve what the speaker assumes that the hearer tends to believe, is likely to be leaning toward, or is committed to by a probability higher than 50% (1979 [1975]: 92, emphasis in original) Givon goes on to state that a felicitous discourse context for the negative is the previous mention of the corresponding a f f i r m a t i v e , or alternatively the belief by the speaker that the hearer has heard of the possibility of that corresponding a f f i r m a t i v e being true, and in f a c t has tipped his belief toward the truth of that corresponding a f f i r m a t i v e . (1979 [1975]:104, emphasis in original) The f a c t that negative sentences are interpreted in terms of an implicit possibility of the a f f i r m a t i v e has also been pointed out by philosophers (e.g. Bergson 1970:738, quoted in Volterra and Antinucci 1979) and psycholinguists (Volterra and Antinucci 1979). However even those who recognize the d i f f e r e n c e s in discourse f u n c t i o n between a f f i r m a t i v e and negative still adhere to the traditional view that the semantic d i f f e r e n c e between a f f i r m a t i v e and negative is limited to presence vs. absence of the negative operator. This amounts to an assumption that there is a direct semantic mapping between the proposition negated by a negative sentence and that asserted by some "corresponding a f f i r m a t i v e " sentence. Of course, a logical conception of negation does not necessarily require any

4

Introduction

such assumption. Even if one believes that every natural language sentence expresses some logical proposition, there is no need to assume that the same propositions underlie both negative and a f f i r m a t i v e sentences. Indeed, if one considers the d i f f e r e n c e s in communicative f u n c t i o n mentioned above, one may well be led to ask whether there is any need to signal the same kind of i n f o r m a t i o n in the negative as in the a f f i r m a t i v e . For example, an actual occurrence (i.e. one r e f e r r e d to in the a f f i r m a t i v e ) may begin or end at a certain point in time, it may be temporally ordered with respect to other actual occurrences, it may continue f o r a determinate period of time, be completed, intermittent, etc. On the other hand, an occurrence that is merely a rejected possibility is much more d i f f i c u l t to describe in terms of these temporal characteristics—indeed, strictly speaking negated events cannot be said to have a "time reference" at all. 1 In f a c t , the only way a negated event can be related to a specific point in time is by reference to a time when the event in question might have been expected to occur. So, f o r example, to describe a sentence like I didn't buy any milk as "past negative" is to say that the opportunity to buy milk, i.e. the time when this action might have been expected to occur, preceded the moment of speaking. If the temporal and aspectual characteristics of negated events d i f f e r f r o m those of a f f i r m e d events, and in particular if negated events can only have an indirect connection to specifications of time, via the time associated with an a f f i r m a t i v e expectation, then it is entirely possible that in some languages temporal or aspectual i n f o r m a t i o n might be signalled only in the a f f i r m a t i v e , leaving the negative to characterize events in other ways. However, in order to discover whether this is the case one obviously cannot begin with the question "how is such and such a sentence negated?". Such a query presupposes the very relationship that is being questioned. It makes denial, or the contradiction of an a f f i r m a t i v e assertion, the model f o r the semantics of negation, when in f a c t denial of an a f f i r m a t i v e statement accounts f o r only a small f r a c t i o n of the negative utterances in actual language use. By f a r the majority of negative utterances occur in a context where no explicit

1. Affirmative-negative

asymmetry

5

mention of the corresponding a f f i r m a t i v e possibility has been made. 2 Although there is no doubt that every language has some g r a m m a t i c a l means f o r c o n t r a d i c t i n g a f f i r m a t i v e statements, this does not entail that rejected possibilities are necessarily categorized in the same ways as events that are claimed to occur. It is also t r u e that every language has a way to r e f e r to an event that is in progress at the moment of speaking, but it does not follow f r o m this that every language has a "present tense". Instead of eliciting negative tense-aspects via a f f i r m a tives, the negative tense-aspects must be studied on their own terms, in relation to the range of messages each one can be used to convey, and in relation to the e f f e c t s of their m u t u a l opposition. T h a t is, one must treat the choice among the negative tense-aspects as motivated by the same considerations that lead a speaker to choose among the a f f i r m a t i v e s : the c o n t r i b u t i o n a given tense-aspect makes to the message the speaker is communicating. U n f o r t u n a t e l y , descriptive g r a m m a r s rarely do this. As mentioned earlier, even the g r a m m a r s of languages with asymmetrical tense-aspect systems almost always present negative tense-aspects in terms of their relation to a f f i r m a t i v e s r a t h e r than in relation to one another or to their use in other, possibly non-negative contexts (such as questions or " a f f e c t i v e " environments). Also, the extreme variation in d i f f e r e n t a u t h o r s ' use of terms like "tense", "aspect", "mood", "perfect", and the like, and their almost total reliance on examples detached f r o m any discourse context, makes comparison of asymmetrical tense-aspect systems based on descriptive g r a m m a r s d i f f i c u l t if not impossible. Because of these problems of i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , I will not a t t e m p t to p r o v i d e a comprehensive survey of asymmetrical tense-aspect systems here. (For some cross-linguistic observations, see chapter f i v e , section 2.) Instead I will apply the research strategy described above to one p a r t i c u l a r asymmetrical tenseaspect system, that of Swahili (NE Coast Bantu). Swahili is an example of w h a t I called an "extreme case"~a language h a v i n g distinct verbal paradigms f o r a f f i r m a t i v e and negative. As I mentioned above, this situation is typical of Bantu languages

6

Introduction

and is also f o u n d in many other parts of the world. In Swahili, a f f i r m a t i v e tense-aspect markers categorize events in terms of fore- vs. backgrounding, interdependence, and temporal ordering, whereas the negative tense-aspects categorize events in terms of temporal boundedness and relative probability of occurrence. These semantic d i f f e r e n c e s lead to d i f f e r e n c e s in the kinds of messages (=context-dependent interpretations) expressed in a f f i r m a t i v e vs. negative in Swahili. Common message-types in the a f f i r m a t i v e include p u n c t u a l / i t e r a t i v e , completed/incompleted action, simultaneity/sequentiality and the like, whereas the negative more o f t e n expresses messages having to do with anticipated change of state vs. lack of change, restricted vs. unrestricted opportunity to occur, categorical vs. generalized denial, relative emphasis and the like. The analysis I propose f o r Swahili is supported by detailed discussion of individual examples f r o m Swahili texts, and by demonstrating statistical correlations between the use of particular tense-aspects and semantically related contextual variables. On the basis of this analysis, I conclude that the actual relationship between a f f i r m a t i v e and negative in n a t u r a l language is f a r more complex than that represented by the logical pairing of p and ~p. The relationship involves at least the following factors: (a) general pragmatic d i f f e r e n c e s between a f f i r m a t i v e and negative utterances in discourse; (b) d i f f e r e n c e s of value, or number and type of oppositions within a particular semantic domain; (c) d i f f e r e n c e s of substance, or choice of semantic domain. By providing an in-depth account of a particular asymmetrical system, I hope to establish a precedent, both theoretical and methodological, f o r the study of such systems, and f o r the comparative study of other forms of grammatical categorization as well. The presentation is organized as follows. In chapter one I describe the structure of the Swahili verb and present the relevant morphology, together with a discourse-based critique

1. Affirmative-negative

asymmetry

7

of the traditional analysis of a f f i r m a t i v e and negative tenseaspects in terms of "correspondences." In chapter two I describe the theoretical f r a m e w o r k for my analysis of the Swahili tenseaspect system, give an outline of the analysis, and show how it provides a semantic explanation for co-occurrence restrictions between verbal prefixes and suffixes, and between the tenseaspect markers and the markers of negation. In chapter three I discuss in more detail the semantic relationships within the "affirmative" subsystem (i.e. the set of verbal a f f i x e s that never co-occur with a negative marker), using data f r o m Swahili texts and quantitative analysis of semantically related contextual variables. Chapter f o u r is devoted to the negative subsystem (i.e. the set of a f f i x e s that must co-occur with a negative marker). In the concluding chapter I summarize my findings about the semantic relationships between a f f i r m a t i v e and negative in Swahili, and discuss the implications of these findings f o r the analysis of negation in other languages and f o r linguistic theory.

2. The data My data nearly all consist of excerpts f r o m prose texts written in "standard" Swahili, or Kiswahili sanifu, a variety based on the dialect of Zanzibar Island. Although the use of written texts obviously limits the range of stylistic and social variation in the data, it is not clear that extending the sociolinguistic range of the data would significantly a f f e c t the semantic analysis of the tense-aspect system I am concerned with here. In f a c t , concentration on sociolinguistic factors tends to limit semantic analysis rather than vice versa: covariation between linguistic forms and social variables is o f t e n taken as evidence against a semantic explanation for the variation (for discussion, see Lavandera 1978; see also chapter 2, section 3 below). Of greater concern is regional variation, which is known to a f f e c t the tense-aspect system in Swahili (cf. Lambert 1957, 1958; Nurse 1983; Wald 1973; Whiteley 1956). In order to preserve some degree of u n i f o r m i t y in the object of study I

8

Introduction

have c o n c e n t r a t e d on works w r i t t e n by speakers f r o m Z a n z i b a r or the a d j a c e n t T a n z a n i a n coast. Most of these are "native speakers", i.e. people who learned Swahili as their mother tongue. However the d e f i n i t i o n of "native speaker" is problematic in m u l t i l i n g u a l societies. As a lingua f r a n c a , Swahili is used daily by millions of people, especially along the coasts of T a n z a n i a and K e n y a , who are not technically "native speakers" because they are a f f i l i a t e d with one or a n o t h e r ethnic group that has its own (usually related, Bantu) language. The prevalence of Swahili as a second or t h i r d language in East a n d Central A f r i c a was one of the most i m p o r t a n t f a c t o r s c o n t r i b u t ing to the choice of Swahili as the national language of T a n z a n i a on i n d e p e n d e n c e (Whiteley 1969). Since that time S t a n d a r d Swahili has been vigorously promoted by the T a n zanian g o v e r n m e n t , through the educational system, government a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , literacy campaigns, and the media. As argued by M k i l i f i (1978), by now Swahili has established itself as the only m e d i u m of communication f o r certain social situations, especially in u r b a n areas, and it is continually e x p a n d i n g its domains of use at the expense of ethnic mother tongues. I have t h e r e f o r e f e l t it legitimate to include some examples f r o m texts w r i t t e n by bilingual or multilingual speakers who were raised and e d u c a t e d on the T a n z a n i a n coast in the post-independence period, even though a n o t h e r language might be regarded as their "mother tongue". T h e texts were chosen to provide a range of styles, f r o m relatively casual, as in play dialogue representing conversations among intimates, to relatively f o r m a l , as in the n a r r a t i v e portions of novels with a d i d a c t i c purpose. All except one (to be discussed below) were w r i t t e n a f t e r World War II; the great m a j o r i t y were published in the 60's and 70's. The f o l l o w i n g genres are represented: (a) Plays. This is a relatively recent a d d i t i o n to the Swahili literary repertoire, but has now become an established and popular genre. Plays are p e r f o r m e d at high schools and u n i v e r sities and are aired over the radio. Since I lacked d a t a on spontaneous conversational Swahili, I chose d r a m a as the

2. The data

9

written medium most representative of the spoken language. Although play dialogue, like other written forms, lacks the "unplanned" quality of true spontaneous speech (see Ochs 1979), this is unlikely to have a distorting e f f e c t on the semantics of the tense-aspect system focussed on here. The authors of the plays cited in this work are respectively a native speaker of Swahili f r o m Zanzibar (Ebrahim Hussein) and a second speaker of Swahili f r o m the Tanzanian mainland who has lived f o r many years in Dar es Salaam (Penina Muhando). My statistical data also include text counts on a collection of plays by a second speaker of Swahili f r o m coastal Kenya (Mwanyegela Ngali). (b) Popular fiction. These texts include detective stories, novels of romance or adventure, and short stories written f o r adults, and didactic novels or novel-length stories aimed at a schoolage audience. Prose fiction is also a relatively recent genre in Swahili, and most of these works show evidence of European influence in organization and content. All are narratives and most include some dialogue. Almost all the authors are native speakers f r o m Zanzibar (i.e. M.S. Abdulla, M.S. Farsy, M.S. Mohamed, C.A.S. Omar, S.S. Yahya, S.A. Mohamed and A.M.A. Hilal); one is native speaker f r o m Tanga, north of Dar es Salaam on the Tanzanian coast (Shabaan Robert). (c) Folktales. These come f r o m an anonymous collection transcribed d u r i n g the 1930's, the Hekaya za Abunuwas. Of the original narrators and transcribers and published edition states only "stories told and written down by Africans", but it is evident f r o m the language and content that the sources were native speakers f r o m Zanzibar or the adjacent coast. Unlike the prose fiction mentioned above, these stories are part of traditional Swahili folklore, and their style is typical of oral narratives. (For discussion of d i f f e r e n c e s between oral and written n a r r a t i v e that involve the tense-aspect system, see chapter 3, section 3 below.)

10

Introduction

(d) Finally, I have cited a few examples f r o m a Swahili textbook, Kiswahili kwa kitendo by Sharifa Zawawi, a native speaker f r o m Zanzibar, and f r o m a collection of Swahili proverbs by S.S. Farsi, also f r o m Zanzibar. Some of my text counts also include two works by second speakers f r o m Tanzania: an essay by Julius K. Nyerere, former president of Tanzania, and a book about the history and customs of the Wazaramo, who live on the Tanzanian mainland in an area adjacent to the Swahili, by R a m a d h a n i Mwaruka, a Zaramo. All citations f r o m texts in this work are identified by page number and title initials (e.g. MWK f o r Mzimu wa Watu wa Kale by M.S. Abdulla). The f u l l Swahili references are listed together in the bibliography.

Notes

11

Notes 1. The d i f f i c u l t y of assigning a "time reference" to negated events is also pointed out by Givon(1975), who notes that unlike events that actually occur, events that f a i l to occur range over a potentially i n f i n i t e number of points in time. As illustration Givon points to the contrast in acceptability between ( i) When did John arrive? and (ii) ?When did John not arrive? (1975:89) If John failed to arrive, then this is true f o r all points in time, which makes it absurd to try to relate this state of a f f a i r s to any particular point in time.

2. For example, in a count of 1059 negative verbs in nine Swahili plays, only 4% were f o u n d to be explicit denials of a f f i r m a t i v e statements or negative answers to questions containing an a f f i r m a t i v e form. In modes of discourse involving only a single speaker, e.g. narrative, the proportion would presumably be even smaller.

Chapter one Why "correspondences" fail

1. Structure of the Swahili verb In Swahili, as in other Bantu languages, semantic notions roughly corresponding to the t r a d i t i o n a l categories of "tense", "aspect" and "mood" are conveyed by a set of a f f i x e s a t t a c h e d to the v e r b stem. T h i r t e e n of these are p r e f i x e s and three are s u f f i x e s . T h e p r e f i x e s are: ki- ("conditional"), ka- ("consecutive"), a- ( " i n d e f i n i t e time"), hu- ("habitual"), li- ("past"), me("action completed"), na- ( " d e f i n i t e time"), ta- ("future"), nge("possible supposition"), ngali- ("unrealized supposition"), ja("not yet tense"), kux- ("past negative") and ku2- ("infinitive"). 1 Labels are f r o m Ashton (1944), the most comprehensive Swahili r e f e r e n c e g r a m m a r . I exclude the negative relative -sipo-, which conveys no tense-aspect-modality i n f o r m a t i o n , and the "concessive" -japo-, which is u n p r o d u c t i v e in modern Swahili, being restricted to the verb kuwa 'be'. I also exclude the p r e f i x ngeli-, which is a p p a r e n t l y a dialectal v a r i a n t of ngali- (cf. Salone 1983). T h e tense-aspect-modality s u f f i x e s are -a ("indicative"), -e ("subjunctive") and -i ("negative present"). Historically, the tense-aspect-modality s u f f i x e s are a p p a r e n t l y older than the p r e f i x e s , being traceable back to Proto-Bantu (Meinhof 1906, G u t h r i e 1967). The p r e f i x e s , on the other h a n d , show a lot of v a r i a t i o n in both f o r m and meaning f r o m one Bantu language to another, and are assumed to have developed 1 more recently, mainly f r o m a u x i l i a r y verbs ( G i v o n 1971). T h e historical p r i o r i t y of the s u f f i x e s over the p r e f i x e s is r e f l e c t e d in their distribution: all Swahili verbs with a tense-aspect-modality p r e f i x must also have a s u f f i x , but not vice versa. S t r u c t u r a l l y , the Swahili verb consists of a series of "slots", or p o s i t i o n a l l y - d e f i n e d categories, each of which can be "filled" by a member of a set of p a r a d i g m a t i c a l l y related f o r m s (some sets

14 Why "correspondences"

fail

c o n t a i n i n g only one member). In Table 1 I have set up a column f o r each potentially f i l l e d "slot", showing its position r e l a t i v e to the v e r b stem and to other "slots". No verb f o r m expresses all possible categories. Instead there are co-occurrence restrictions both between i n d i v i d u a l "slots" and between p a r t i c u l a r signs. In order to show these, I have subdivided Swahili verb f o r m s into three s t r u c t u r a l types: (1) non-negative (forms which c a n n o t co-occur with a n y of the negative markers); (2) optionally negative ( f o r m s w h i c h occur either with or without a negative marker), and (3) negative ( f o r m s which must co-occur w i t h a negative marker). Plus-signs indicate obligatory presence of a member of the category in question, minus signs i n d i c a t e obligatory absence of the category in question and "+" means that the category is optional. Where more than one f o r m is listed in a single box, only one member of that set can be chosen f o r a n y i n d i v i d u a l verb. From now on I will use the a b b r e v i a t i o n "VM", f o r "verbal marker", as a comprehensive label f o r all the tense-aspect-modality a f f i x e s , w h e t h e r pre- or post-verbal. Here are examples of each structure. Non-negative: tuSubj. Pfx.: 1 pi.

//-

VM: 'past'

'we w a t c h e d t h e m '

waObj. Pfx.: 3 pi.

tazamVstem: 'watch'

a VM: 'indie.'

1. Swahili verb structure

S > •e „ «a > V)

s11 o •o o

^ a a a —a +

O& H +i

+ +

+

+

+

+ +

+i +i +i +i +i +i +i +i

ou«o z

+1

•o c et o> et uati

S >

aK (so--, Ka"S«u f» a ¿a5- 6or sùo^ea

c •o p oX o

00

N

Q c« aa -v a £s -s:

00

o3 O > JS rt *

«

o

+1 •

+1

£> X

l/l P-

+ +

ooo O • z s

+1

+ +

C/î a

H

£>

ao ouo 22

O