FROM your native language what do you know about grammar?

 FROM Your native language what do you know about grammar?

I’m Kiwale Brasto, Festo. @ 2016

Ruaha Catholic University- Iringa, Tanzania

Published from Kiwale Company Publishers

This handout is here to help all people, therefore all right reserved no one would be allowed to copy, print, or any kind of plagiarism is involved, but read then leave it as it is.

Grammar is a model of competence of a speaker of the language. Means that there is regular and uniform correspondence between what the grammar asserts to be true of the language and what speaker tacitly knows about his or her language (Stockwell, 1988).

Grammar is the whole system and structure of a language(s) in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology whereby syntax is to study various aspects of how sentences are formed and how they are understood in a particular language and in language generally. While morphology refers to how words are formed (Stockwell, 1988). But the other grammatical branches are phonology and semantic but are regarded as a minor because phonology and semantic can be included in a syntax.

Grammar is (the study or use of) the rules about how words change their form and combine with other words to make sentences (walter, 2008)

Generally, grammar refers to the whole system, structure and properties of a particular language with reference of Bena. The following are the descriptive grammar of Bena.

Segmental inventory; Bena has 22 consonants and 5 vowel which each exhibit contrastive length. Bena Consonants include stops, fricatives, affricates, pre-nasalized and approximants. It contrast at the bilabial, labiodentals, alveolar, palatal, velar and glottal place of articulation. There is voiced and voiceless consonant.

Examples: stops: [P], [b] in words like [Pu:mula] means “smell good” and [Buda] means “kill”.

Nasal: [n, m] as in word like [ng’a:si] means “njia” and [ma: ma] “older sibling”

Fricative: [F, V] as in word like [fiha] and [viha]

                                                  “arrive”      “crow”

But the vowel of Bena can be front, central and back as front [i, e], central [a], back [u] and [o].

Example [ve: mba] “To cry”

                  [havila] “be witch”

Syllable structure; only open syllables are allowed in Bena word. Initial syllables can occur with or without an onset syllable onsets in Bena may be either simple or complex. Complex onsets include pre-nasalized consonants, the voiceless alveolar, affricate and consonant plus glide sequence which resulted to several syllables types. Syllable with no onset occur only word initially, word final syllable can only contain short vowel, syllable nasal are possible only when [mu-] is reduced to “M”

Example: [u:mwa:na] - word initial syllable.

                 “child”

              [hu:genda] - word final

            “To walk”

Tone; as in other Bantu language tone play important role in Bena. There are both lexical and grammatical tone lexical tone is underlying grammatical tone in Bena occurs when high is assigned to a particular more (as in the case of tense aspect). The tone can be high tone or toneless and each word assigned a single tone but with few exceptions word- final tone is disallowed, but the tone varies according to the geographical location of the speaker of Bena.

Example: [Mu.go:si] means a man.

Bena nouns always have high tone on the prefix and the final vowel always is low and the vowel in between may vary it can be either high or low.

Example: [u: mwa: na] – child

                    [ama: tswi] – Words

Concord agreements, this are types of constraint on the form of words occurring together. They require that one form must change to match the form of something else. Thus whether a verb is singular or plural depend on whether its subject is singular or plural.

Example:     A. iteleha ihyahulya

                        “She/he is cooking food”

                        B. viteleha ihyahulya

                        “They are cooking food”

In a sentence “A” the  morpheme “i” iteleha and ihyhulya show that the sentence are in a 3^rd first singular person but the same sentence in “B” change to “vi” to show that the verb are in plural form. It does so as to have concord agreement.

Tense aspect mood: the tense aspect of Bena are marked using a set of tense aspect prefixes, limited set of suffixes, various inflecting and non inflecting auxiliaries and temporal adverbs and this can be in past, present and future tense.

Example: present [Ndi: gona] “Sleep”

                        Past        [Ndi: ha: gonile] “slept”

                        Future [Ndi: dzi: gona] “will sleep”

The morpheme “Ndi” in present “ha” in past and “dzi” in future show the tense aspect mood.

Basic word order, in Bena the basic word order in SVO where as 5 represent subject, V- verb and O-object. But the intensive sentences that are sentences which do not carry object have the order of SV.

Example: [u mwa: na aitova i:li: bwa]

                        S          V           O

                        “The child is hilting the dog”

                        [u mwayuva ilima]  (intransive sentence).

                               S               V

                        “The women is digging”

But it is also possible to have constructors that contain two post verbal objects.

Example: [U: mwa: yuva avalisidze avana ihyahulya]

                        S                      V         O₁        O₂

It is not obvious strict, it can change the word order.

Question formation

In Bena language there are yes no question and content questions. But both questions have rising intonation sentence finally with yes no question the intonation pattern is the only way that question can be distinguished from declarative, content question. In addition to containing interrogative intonation make use of series of interrogative word which usually occur in “situ”.

Yes no question do not use special question particle or different word order instead are differentiated from statement with rising intonation.

Example:          a. wihelela hunega ululenga neng’uni (declarative)

                        You are going to fetch water today

                        b. wihelela hunega ululenga neng’uni? (Yes or no question)

                        “Are you going to fetch water today?

The only different between “a” and “b” is that the “b” is spoken with rising intonation to mark the question. Among of Bena question words are like “hi” (which).

“linga” how many

“naan” who

“hihi” what

“ndali” when and “panili” when

Negative system: Bena negative system is straight forward. There are 3 negative morpheme that are “si” this occur 1 or two position immediately preceding the subject used in all inflected finite verb forms.

Example:   Ndigona - sindigona or ndisigona.

                   “I sleep”   “I cannot sleep”

“-ta”- used to negative verbal infinitives

It occurs before verbal stem

Example: Wadze – “hi ta dza”

                (come)     (don’t come)

“-tane” used to negative the sub inactive

            It followed by infinitve

Example: bite                tane hubita

                (go)              (don’t go)

Morphophonemic process: one of the processes is glide formation where as Bena does not allow sequences of two non- identical vowels. When a high vowel is followed by non- identical vowel a first vowel becomes a glide. The glide formation accompanied by lengthening of the following vowel. This means that when the high front vowel /i/ is followed by /w/, /e/, /o/ or /u/ it become the glide /j/

Example: mi. aha à  myaaha

                 (year)          (years)

With the high back vowel /u/ glide formation applies only when /u/ is followed by a non- rounded vowel.

Example:        a. u+ a        mu. ana à mwa.ana à “child”

                                                           [mwa:na]

                        b. U+e       hu.eluha à hweeluha à “to climb”

                                                             [hwe:luha]       

But there is exceptional to the glide formation when a high front vowel /i/ is preceded by a prenasalized consonants.

            Example: ndi.adzi.ile à ndaadzileà I have come

                                                     [nda:tsile]

The syllable “mu” can be optionally reduced to a syllabic nasal [m]. This occurs in the noun class prefixes.

Example: a. mudala       [mudala] à [mdala]à “women”

    b. ndihumutova [ⁿdihumutova] à [ⁿdihutova] à I am hitting him/ her.

Verb with reduced morphology; this is another properties of Bena grammar where as there are number of verbs that show reduced inflectional morphology and cannot take any type of derivational morphology. Example “va” (huvebza) “be”.

The auxiliary “va” has the richest morphological making of the morphologically reduced verb. It can take subject marker, tense and aspect, affixes. However unlike full verb “va” cannot take  derivational morphology “va” can take epenthetic “edz” between the root “v” and the final vowel “a” when it need additional more in order to bear tone like “huvedza” because without “huva” would not be long to hear tone. There for epenthetic “edz” is inserted to bear tone. The auxiliary “va” when used together with “na” (and) has the meaning have as the word “vana”. Also “va” is used as auxiliary in a number of tense aspects.

Example:         Ndi: va (I am)

                        Ndi: haave (I was)

                        Ndidzivedza (I will)

Another word with reduced morphology is like “huna” (to exist). The verb used to predict the existence of something. It cannot be marked for tense aspect. It used only in the present tense

Example: ndiwona huna ng’wale njolofu.

Also “gaya” in Bena which means “lack” also it takes no tense or aspect marking. There is no infinitival form of “gaya”. Gaya marked for noun class through consultants used with both the noun class prefix and agreement prefix.

Example: ndili mugaya sida (I have no problem)

                Mugaya mapesa (people with no money)

Formation of commands: in Bena commands are formed using either the imperative form of s verb subjunctive. The imperative form is only used for second person singular. Other persons must use the subjective to form commands. Even with second person singular. The subjunctive is more commonly used in commands as it is seen to be more polite. The word order of commands is the same as declarative.

Example: washe umooto “light the fire”

                        Mubite! (go)

When two commands occur in a same construction both verbs as subjunctive.

Example: mwadze muwashe umooto

                 “Come light the fire”

The negative commands are formed by using the subjunctive form of the negative verb (hutaana) followed by a verbal infinitive.

Example: mutaanage uhuliya ihyahulya.

                        “Don’t eat this food”

Generally scholar claims that grammar concerns with syntax and morphology but not only that but also in a normal sense grammar are used to describe language in general. It is a properties or a whole system of a particular language. Its branches are like phonology, morphology, syntax and semantic. When we say a grammar of language we refer to the system or properties of language in general.