A Corpus Study Of The Swahili Demonstrative Position

Synchronic studies on Swahili adnominal demonstratives have not addressed the interplay between syntactic position and pragmatic function of these structures. This study shows how referential givenness of discourse entities may explain Swahili word order variation in Swahili adnominal demonstratives. Class 1 (animate nouns) demonstratives are examined in the two attested word orders: NP+DEM and DEM+NP. A close analysis of dataset extracted from the Helsinki Corpus of Swahili reveals that the two structures have distinct pragmatic values. The NP+DEM order is used for active topics while the DEM+NP order reactivates semiactive/inactive topics. This study reveals how the syntax-pragmatics interplay may explain distinct structures viewed as semantic equivalents by native speakers.

搜集汇总

背景与挑战

背景概述

该数据集基于赫尔辛基斯瓦希里语料库，研究斯瓦希里语中指示词与名词短语的词序变化（NP+DEM和DEM+NP）及其语用功能。分析显示，两种词序具有不同的语用价值：NP+DEM用于主动话题，而DEM+NP用于重新激活半主动或非主动话题，揭示了句法与语用互动如何解释母语者视为语义等同的结构差异。