Department of Languages and Literature

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Browsing Department of Languages and Literature by Author "Ndomba, Rodrick Gregory"

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    Agreement between nPs and modifiers in Bantu DPs
    (Dar es Salaam University College of Education, 2018) Ndomba, Rodrick Gregory
    Agreement is one of the conspicuous characteristics of structural relations holding among the categories or elements in syntactic constituents—clauses and phrases—in Bantu languages. This paper focuses on agreement relations in nominal phrases, specifically agreement between nouns (nPs) and respective elements, also called modifiers, in Bantu languages. The paper is premised around the Noam Chomsky’s minimalist approach, which assumes that items or elements in a phrase or clause standing in an agreement configuration are arranged via successive Merger binary operations taking place in a bottom-up fashion. Using evidence from Kiswahili, the paper argues that the agreement between head nouns and its modifiers of DP in Bantu languages stem from the raising of the head noun – nP. The approach to deriving agreement in Bantu DPs pursued departs from head specifier relations via government and the raising of N to class prefix via probe goal relations. The paper has assumed that proper agreement is a function of syntactic operations, specifically the raising of XP (nP) to Spec DP.
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    Are we experiencing a ‘post-method’ era in second language teaching?
    (Journal of Education, Humanities, and Sciences, 2015) Ndomba, Rodrick Gregory
    Approaches to Second Language teaching have been changing over time. The pivotal force behind the changes globally has been the quest for the best approach. New methods have emerged as old ones are discarded, with less prospects to achieve the best. This paper revisits the chronology of events characterizing the war of methods globally, and highlights key current issues underlining English language teaching in Tanzanian secondary schools. Central to the battle on methods is the need for proper preparation of English language teachers amid claims that their linguistic and methodological standards have been on the decline over decades. Indeed, the switch to competence-based curriculum (CBC) in the current English language curriculum in the Tanzanian system of education invariably calls for an assessment of the Second Language teaching profession in the ‘post-method’ era.
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    The Definite Article in Swahili
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2017) Ndomba, Rodrick Gregory
    This paper contributes to the debate on whether or not Swahili nominals have overt determiners to qualify for DP analysis. It has been concluded in some circles that Swahili nominals are not amenable to DP analysis for lacking determiners – definite articles. It is assumed in this paper that what appear to be articleless DPs in Swahili are underlyingly headed by the D node which always remains empty except in cases when D is occupied by the prenominal demonstratives base generated in a lower position inside the DP structure. The strongest evidence in Swahili comes from asymmetries between prenominal and postnominal demonstratives whereby the prenominal demonstratives are said to be anaphoric and postnominal demonstratives deictic. Assuming that the prenominal demonstrative is base generated below D, the conclusion must be that the demonstrative appears in the prenominal position following the raising.
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    Samatengo noun phrase structure
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2006) Ndomba, Rodrick Gregory
    THE study on Samatengo Noun Phrase Structure draws experiences from earlier works on the nominal morphology of the nouns in Bantu languages. The morphology of the nouns has been one of the leading factors in classifying Bantu languages and at the same time grouping nouns into gender classes. Studies by Johnston (1919, 1922) and Guthrie (1948, 1967 – 1971, 1970) based on the morphological analysis of the noun in the Bantu languages. Recent studies like that of Maho (1999), Katamba (Nurse and Philippson, 2003:103 - 120), Kahigi (2005) and Rugemalira (2005, 2006a, 2006b) have gone further looking into concordial patterns of the noun classes with the aim of analyzing the noun class markers in more broad parameters. This study, however, has made a leap forward by including an analysis of different elements in the entire structure of the noun phrase. Besides looking solely at noun classification and their concords, this study describes the noun phrase structure in terms of noun class dependents – their forms and semantic characteristics, agreement forms, derivation processes and the ordering and co-occurrence of the noun and its dependent elements. The study reveals that noun pairing in Samatengo has great variability, which can be attested to particular semantic roles. Overlaps come to defeat semantic criteria for noun class analysis. In terms of the derivation process, nouns in Samatengo are productive showing different ways of deriving new nouns. Included in the analysis is the order of elements – dependents – that co-occur with the noun head in a phrase structure. The study establishes flexibility in terms of some dependents while others seem to have more restricted occurrences.
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    The structure and derivation of the Swahili Determiner Phrase
    (University College Dublin, 2017) Ndomba, Rodrick Gregory
    This study investigates the configuration of the Determiner Phrase (DP) of Swahili. The study is guided by three main objectives. The first objective is to map Swahili nouns into a DP structure. The study has revealed that the Swahili DP structure is underlyingly the same as the English DP except that in Swahili DP nP raises to Spec DP (XP movement). The study has shown that the raising of nP to Spec DP is motivated by the Extended Projection Principle. The derivation based on XP movement allows D to be occupied by a functional category functioning as the definite article, eloquently explains agreement pattern on modifiers (elements), and provide plausible accounts of varied order of elements in DP structure. The second objective is to determine the order of elements in the Swahili DP structure. The study has revealed that the underlying order of the elements in Swahili DPs have the same underlying structure relations as the English demonstrative, numeral, adjective, and noun – those three beautiful children. However, the head noun-initial surface structure of Swahili elements stems from nP movement to the initial position, Spec DP, which results in the opposite order – children those three beautiful. The study has also revealed that variations in the canonical order derive from the possessive which appears have no fixed place in DP hierarchy. The third objective is to determine the agreement pattern of elements in Swahili DPs. The study has revealed that agreement between nP and other elements in DP structure emanates from cyclical raising of nP followed by feature checking in a Spec head relation at each stop of raising in a bottom-up fashion. The study has used a cartographic approach to investigate the Swahili DP structure and derivation. The study has revealed that Swahili DP is headed by a functional category – XP, which interacts with other elements of DP via step-by-step movement to Spec DP. The analysis based on XP movement has made it possible to draw structural contours or maps for the order of elements in Swahili DP as this study has revealed.