Browsing by Author "Isingoma, Bebwa"
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Item Accounting for Variability in the Linearization of Ditransitive Constructions in English among Native Speakers(Argumentum, 2018) Isingoma, BebwaIn order to account for the variability in the linearization of ditransitive constructions in English, semantic and syntactic as well as pragmatic motives have been proposed. Of recent, gradience grammar has been proposed (cf. Bresnan & Ford 2010), whereby categorical semantic constraints have been discounted and probabilistic tendencies advanced. While the current study subscribes to all those criteria, it intends to focus on two auxiliary properties that have so far not received enough attention as regards their role in the variability in the linearization of ditransitive constructions, namely diachronic factors and analogical leveling. This complementary account will thus fill up the lacuna posed by the fact that despite the role of the multifactorial predictors advanced so far, these do not fully answer, for example, the question as to why some speakers or speech communities accept, while others reject, constructions in which these very predictors are at work.Item Between exonormative traditions and local acceptance: A corpus-linguistic study of modals of obligation and spatial prepositions in spoken Ugandan English(Open Linguistics, 2022) Isingoma, Bebwa; Meierkord, ChristianeResearch into Ugandan English places it in the nativisation phase of the evolution of Englishes, amidst a nexus of local acceptance with ingredients of endonormativity and ingrained exonormative traditions. The current study shows how the use of modal verbs of obligation and spatial prepositions provides insights into how the nexus of the above phenomena has shaped Ugandan English. For example, although the preference of have to over must is a global trend, in Ugandan English, it is more prevalent in Bantu-speaking than in Nilotic-speaking areas because of substrate influence. Crucially, although the use of spatial prepositions is generally similar to how they are used in, for example, (standard) British English, the peculiar use of from to encode stative location in Ugandan English is, despite some regional variations, so widespread in the country that it tends towards endonormative stabilisation.Item Empaako 'Praise Names': An historical, sociolinguistic and pragmatic analysis(African Study Monographs, 2014) Isingoma, BebwaThis paper traces the origin of empaako “praise names” and explicates their sociolinguistic and pragmatic significance. The 14th (or 15th) century was marked by both political change in the Bunyoro-Kitara Kingdom of Uganda and the genesis of an important sociolinguistic phenomenon: the introduction of empaako, an idiosyncratic type of personal name in Runyoro-Rutooro (a language spoken in Uganda) used to show intimacy, endearment, and respect. The use of empaako emerged following the Biito (an aristocratic Luo clan) conquest of the Bunyoro-Kitara Kingdom. As most typical African personal names have explicit semantic content, the lexical meaninglessness of empaako in Runyoro-Rutooro indicates that they are borrowed from Luo (a Nilotic language), in which similar name forms with explicit semantic content exist. Although empaako are ubiquitous in everyday discourse and carry robust social import, they are only 12 and this raises the issue of their referential indeterminacy. In this paper, I examine this issue within the givenness hierarchy framework of Gundel, Hedberg, and Zacharski (1993).Item Homogeneity and heterogeneity in the pronunciation of English among Ugandans(English Today, 2022) Adokorach, Monica; Isingoma, BebwaEnglish is an official language in Uganda and is said to be in its nativization phase when placed within Schneider’s (2007) model of the trajectorial development of Englishes (Isingoma & Meierkord, 2019). In the present study, we delineate the general features of the Ugandan accent of English (i.e. those that cut across regional or ethnic boundaries) as well as features that evince variability among Ugandans due to regional or ethnic background. The first description of the phonological features of the variety of English spoken in Uganda is included in Fisher’s (2000) seminal paper on this L2 (second language) variety of English. Another description of these features is found in Nassenstein (2016). Both Fisher (2000) and Nassenstein (2016) provide a short section, outlining the features which are similar to the general features of L2 Englishes, notably the restructuring of the phonemic system, e.g. /a/ replacing /ɜ:, ɑ:, ʌ, ə/ and the free variation of [l] and [r], although the latter occurs regionally (see similar findings on L2 varieties of English in Bailey & Görlach [eds.] 1984; Platt, Weber & Ho, 1984; Schmied, 1991; Simo-Bobda, 2000; Atechi, 2004; Schneider et al. [eds.], 2004; Tsilimos, 2018; among others). Additionally, Simo-Bobda (2001) and Schmied (2004) describe more or less the same features but in a more detailed way under the label ‘East African English’ (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania). Schmied (2004) posits three reasons that underlie the features in question: substrate influence, simplification and spelling pronunciation. To these studies, we add a more focused study on one particular aspect of the Ugandan accent(s) of English, namely by Meierkord (2016), who looks at diphthongs and how they are realized by speakers of different L1s. Her findings demonstrate variability but also convergence in the idiomorphic pronunciation of diphthongs by Ugandans.Item Implicit Arguments in English and Rutooro: A Contrastive Study(Linguistik online, 2020) Isingoma, BebwaThe present study is a contrastive analysis of the syntactic behavior of verbs that are ontologically specified for objects but these objects may be left out without rendering sentences ungrammatical. The study unveils asymmetries between English and Rutooro (a Bantu language spoken in Uganda) in the (non-)omissibility of postverbal arguments, stemming from lexicosemantic and morphological factors as well as syntactic and discoursal factors. In light of the asymmetries arising from syntactic and discoursal factors, the study adopts a typology of indefinite implicit arguments that categorizes them into two: general indefinite implicit arguments and discourse-bound indefinite implicit arguments. Denotational nuances between synonyms as well as morphological specifications are also crucial linguistic ingredients that trigger variability in the syntactic behavior of synonymous verbs intralinguistically and cross-linguistically. In order to formalize the syntactic behavior of the verbs involved, the study employs the analytical tools provided by Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG). While Asudeh/Giorgolio (2012) use a combination of LFG and Glue Semantics in order to account for the occurrence of implicit arguments, this study proposes an alternative approach, by using only the LFG functional specifications in the lexical entries of the verbs under consideration without having recourse to an auxiliary framework. Using Bresnan (1978) as a point of departure and informed by proposals advanced by Nordlinger/Sadler (2007), the study posits a non-ambiguous bistructural analysis, with the postverbal argument instantiating the specification ± higher structure – a feature that caters for the (non-)omissibility of the postverbal argument.Item Innovative Pragmatic Codes in Ugandan English: A Relevance-theoretic Account(Argumentum, 2013) Isingoma, BebwaThe paper investigates innovative pragmatic codes in Ugandan English within the conceptual framework of Relevance Theory (cf. Sperber & Wilson 1986, Wilson & Sperber 2004). Wilson & Sperber (2004) state that an utterance is optimally relevant if it is worth the hearer’s processing effort, and if it is compatible with the speaker’s linguistic abilities and preferences. The reasoning behind these tenets of Relevance Theory can be used to account for the pervasive use of many expressions peculiar to Ugandan English. For example, in Ugandan English safe house means illegal place of detention; one dirtens a place (vs. dirties a place), etc. The innovative use of such expressions can be said to be triggered, among others, by the need to achieve optimal relevance, because the expressions are not only compatible with the abilities of Ugandan English speakers, but also their preference to choose them so as to satisfy the addressees’ expectations of relevance. Furthermore, Ugandan English exhibits many calques, including the discourse connective as (e.g. As you’re brave, which can mean I’m surprised that you’re brave!). Ugandan English as directs the addressee to the recognition that the relevance of the utterance resides more in the speaker’s attitude description than in the actual propositional content. This cognitive effect is unobtainable in the native English use of the connective as.Item Lexical and grammatical features of Ugandan English(English Today, 2014) Isingoma, BebwaEnglish plays an important role in the lives of Ugandans. For example, official government records are written in English, Parliament conducts its business in English, national newspapers are written in English. English is the medium of instruction from elementary to tertiary level. English is a lingua franca among people of different ethnic groups whose mother tongues are mutually unintelligible, especially if they cannot use Luganda or, to some extent, Swahili. Most Ugandans learn English at school. Whereas the principles of English language teaching and learning in the Ugandan school syllabuses are purportedly drawn from Standard English (henceforth StE), deviations in everyday usage are unquestionably visible. Hence, as Fisher (2000: 61) puts it, the variety of English spoken in Uganda has been ‘indigenized’. Apart from featuring prominently in spoken discourse, Ugandan English (henceforth UgE) is also noticeable in Ugandan print media, official documents, and even in books written in Uganda. We should note that while there are significant pronunciation differences in UgE across the different regions in the country, Fisher (2000: 59) rightly contends that there are generally uniform grammatical and lexical features of UgE throughout the country.Item Politeness Strategies in Ugandan English: Making Requests and Responding to Thanks(Brno Studies in English, 2021) Isingoma, BebwaThis study examines politeness strategies and specific expressions employed by Ugandans when making requests and responding to thanks, against the backdrop that contact phenomena, as one of the key factors that characterize L2 varieties such as Ugandan English, make it virtually inevitable to have peculiarities in this respect. Specifically, in relation to the illocutionary acts of request, Ugandan English relies more on direct strategies (due to substrate influence), with various idiosyncratic mitigating devices such as the use of the past progressive with performative verbs, the use of the lexical mitigator first with imperatives, and the use of verbs with inherent supplicatory semantics in the imperative mood. As regards responses to thanks, while there is a clear preference for exonormative standards, formulae arising from substrate influence are visibly present, while several of the formulae used in L1 English (e.g. Standard British English) are not used in Ugandan English.Item The Pragmatics of kandi: A Relevance-theoretic Account(Argumentum, 2017) Isingoma, BebwaThe paper presents an exploratory analysis of the pragmatic functions of kandi within Relevance Theory (cf. Sperber & Wilson 1986, Wilson & Sperber 2004), a clausal coordination connective in Rutooro (a Bantu language spoken in Uganda). Kandi can roughly correspond to English and (cf. Ndoleriire et al. 2009). The discussion specifically explores the inferential relations between the conjuncts of an utterance linked by kandi. The paper shows that despite the semantic closeness of kandi to English and, kandi does not express temporality or causality/consequentiality, as opposed to and (cf. Carston 2002). In Rutooro, temporality and causality/ consequentiality are expressed by the so-called Virtual Present tense. Kandi is mainly used to encode explanation and to constrain inferential processes involving mental representations in which a speaker’s attitude description is foregrounded.Item Structural Properties of Rutooro Ditransitive Constructions: a lexical functional analysis(Linguistica Atlantica, 2021) Isingoma, BebwaDitransitive verbs in Rutooro (JE12, Uganda) are mainly realized multimorphemically in the double object constructions (DOC), while there are a few cases of prepositional phrase constructions (PPC). Couched within the Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) formalism, the current study shows that despite the existence of both the DOC and the PPC in Rutooro, it seems implausible to posit that the derivation process of the verb in the DOC involves the permutation of grammatical functions by rearranging semantic participants of the base verb to different grammatical relations, as Ndoleriire & Oriikiriza (1996) suggest in consonance with Kroeger's (2004) applicative rule. Rather, this study reverts to Alsina & Mchombo's (1993) applicative rule, and augments it so as to accommodate both the DOC and PPC, whereby all multimorphemic ditransitive verbs in Rutooro are derived from monotransitive verbs which have the potential of introducing a third argument (Harford 1993) by means of a verb extension mechanism or provided that such verbs can be used with appropriate prepositional phrases. Since the Rutooro goal PPC is constrained by the 'locomotional criterion' (Isingoma 2012), there are very few occurrences of goal PPCs in Rutooro, which moreover are ambiguous. While structural ambiguity is usually resolved in LFG by providing a different constituent structure for each meaning, the ambiguity of the Rutooro PPC cannot be resolved at this level, since one interpretation contains a non-overt NP that would appear here as an empty category in contravention of LFG axioms. Thus, a functional structure that treats the non-overt NP as 'higher structure' (cf. Attia 2008) is posited in one of the interpretations.Item Triadic Constructions in Rutooro(Cascadilla Proceedings Project, 2012) Isingoma, BebwaIn triadic constructions, we typically find three arguments, namely a subject and two postverbal arguments.1 Two formal varieties obtain, as shown in (1) for English and in (2) for Rutooro, a Bantu language spoken in Uganda. In (1a) and (2a), the postverbal arguments are linearly realized as two contiguous NPs, i.e. NP1 and NP2, instantiating a double object construction (DOC), while in (1b) and (2b) they are realized as NP2 and PP, instantiating a prepositional phrase construction (PPC)