The relative clause formation in Zulu

Dossier / Travail , 2009 , 23 Pages , Note: 2,0

Philologie Anglaise - Linguistique

My term paper deals with one of the South African languages, the Zulu language.
In my grammar report, accompanying the seminar, I already dealt with the Zulu language more precisely I tried to explain the phenomenon of the Zulu noun. Besides our seminar, the motivation and idea to deal with this topic has arisen from my personal experiences. Since I lived and worked approximately five months in South Africa last year. The Zulu language aroused my interest because it differs from all languages I know, but nevertheless it includes English words or word parts.
This time, in my term paper, I will try to discuss the way of forming a relative clause in Zulu. This formation usually involves a prefix, also called relative concord, which is attached to the predicate of a relative clause. A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun. Generally in most European languages, a relative clause is introduced by a relative pronoun, which belongs to a special class of pronouns. “In other languages, relative clauses may be marked in different ways: they may be introduced by a special class of conjunctions called relativizers; the main verb of the relative clause may appear in a special morphological variant; or a relative clause may be indicated by word order alone. In some languages, more than one of these mechanisms may be possible.“
Since relative clauses in Zulu were formed in a different way than in most European languages I would like to examine this problem in more detail.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. The Zulu language and its characteristics
a. Geographical and social facts
b. Grammatical facts

III. The relative clause
a. The different relative clause formation across languages
b. The relative clause formation in German
c. The relative clause formation in Latin
d. The relative clause formation in Spanish
e. The relative clause formation in English

IV. The relative clause in Zulu
a. The agreement system and the relative concords in Zulu
b. Relative clitics in Zulu

V. Conclusion

VI. Bibliography
a. Books
b. Articles
c. Dictionary
d. Internet Resources

• Université: University of Freiburg (English Seminar)
• Cours: HS: Grammaticalization
• Note: 2,0
• Auteur: Alexandra Orth (Auteur)
• Année de publication: 2009
• Pages: 23
• N° de catalogue: V171577
• ISBN (ebook): 9783640911400
• ISBN (Livre): 9783640909452
• Langue: anglais
• mots-clé: Grammaticalization, Zulu, Afrika, Sprache, relative clause