The morphological evolution of the -ile suffix across bantu languages in the Nyasa-Tanganyika corridor
| dc.creator | Mallya, Aurelia | |
| dc.creator | Robinson, Nichodamus | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-07-25T09:09:57Z | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-08-05T07:15:18Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-07-25T09:09:57Z | |
| dc.date.created | 2022-07-25T09:09:57Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2021 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This paper describes the morphological evolution of -ile suffix across four Bantu languages selected from the Nyasa-Tanganyika corridor. The suffix -ile which is traditionally an aspect (perfective) marker is changing and becoming amenable to different roles across Bantu languages. This poses a challenge in specifying its roles as a tense and/or an aspect marker unless attention is paid to an individual language. The findings presented in this paper indicate that in the languages under study, the suffix -ile functions as both a tense and an aspect marker. It co-occurs with pre-root formatives to mark different past tenses. In Nyakyusa, in particular, the suffix marks different categories of aspect, namely anterior, non-progressive and indefinite conditional aspect. However, in Ndali, Malila and Nyiha, the suffix -ile marks only the non-progressive aspect. In this view, this paper concludes that the -ile suffix is gradually vanishing in the forms for aspect meanwhile it extends its roles into marking different tense categories | |
| dc.identifier | 2026-8297 | |
| dc.identifier | http://www.suaire.sua.ac.tz/handle/123456789/4338 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://repository.costech.or.tz/handle/20.500.14732/96491 | |
| dc.language | en | |
| dc.subject | -ile suffix | |
| dc.subject | Nyasa-Tanganyika corridor | |
| dc.subject | Morphological evolution | |
| dc.subject | Tense | |
| dc.subject | Aspect | |
| dc.title | The morphological evolution of the -ile suffix across bantu languages in the Nyasa-Tanganyika corridor | |
| dc.type | Article |