O Departamento de Linguística da FFLCH-USP divulga a palestra On the origins of Chikunda (N42): Morphosyntactic innovations in the Bantu languages of the Lower Zambezi, a ser ministrada por Aron Zahran, no dia 28 de Agosto, às 16:30, sala 266 do prédio de Letras. Sobre o palestrante:

Aron Zahran is a Swedish/Tanzanian PhD student doing a joint PhD at Llacan, CNRS (France) and Ghent University (Belgium). Aron is currently working on a comparative analysis of verbal morphosyntax in the Zambezi Valley Bantu languages (N30-40, S10). His research is part of the larger research project entitled 'OriKundaː On the origins of Chikunda, a language without a land' (CNRS).

Abstract da palestra:

This presentation concerns the development of selected TAMP (tense-aspect mood-polarity) markers in Chikunda (N42) and surrounding Bantu languages in the Lower Zambezi Valley. Chikunda is a cross-border language spoken in Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. The Chikunda language is said to have originated as a “mixed language” spoken by the Chikunda slave-soldiers. These soldiers were taken from various areas around the Zambezi Valley to work on the Portuguese-owned prazos in central Mozambique. Due to the diverse origins of these enslaved people, the language is said to have developed out of a fusion of the different Bantu languages that these slave-soldiers brought with them (e.g., Barwe, Chewa, Sena, Tonga, and Tawara etc.). Despite significant historical and anthropological studies on the Chikunda their linguistic history remains underexplored.

Through a comparative analysis, the presentation attempts to; 1) assess whether the morphosyntax of Chikunda shows evidence of language mixture; 2) evaluate lexicon-based genealogical sub-groupings using morphosyntactic data; and 3) propose a diachronic analysis of synchronically attested TAMP morphology in the Zambezi Valley.

Uma versão expandida do abstract pode ser consultada aqui.