Passivisation in Tanzanian Chingoni

This study investigates passivisation in the Tanzanian Chingoni language (N12), a relatively underexplored area in the language. We specifically aim to explore the strategies for encoding the passive and determine their extent of use. We employed two methods of data collection: elicitation from thre...

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Main Authors: Gastor Cosmas Mapunda, Julius Taji
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2025-12-01
Series:Cogent Arts & Humanities
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2025.2515113
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author Gastor Cosmas Mapunda
Julius Taji
author_facet Gastor Cosmas Mapunda
Julius Taji
author_sort Gastor Cosmas Mapunda
collection DOAJ
description This study investigates passivisation in the Tanzanian Chingoni language (N12), a relatively underexplored area in the language. We specifically aim to explore the strategies for encoding the passive and determine their extent of use. We employed two methods of data collection: elicitation from three proficient Chingoni speakers, and documentary review. Through elicitation, we gathered data from two males and one female speaker, all aged above 55 years. The elicitation process involved prompting participants to transform active sentences into passive constructions, allowing for exploration of alternative grammatical forms. Through documentary review, three publications written in Chingoni were consulted. Our findings reveal that Chingoni employs at least three strategies for expressing passivisation. These are morphological passivisation, which is encoded through specific morphological modification to the verb; impersonal passivisation where a class 2 subject marker coreferencing an unspecified human agent is used; and subject-verb inversion, which positions the object at the beginning of sentences, thus producing an (O)VS word order. These insights broaden our horizon of understanding the mechanisms for encoding passivisation in Bantu languages.
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spelling doaj-art-e9c65c3736744904b2264d82b0f061442025-08-20T03:11:14ZengTaylor & Francis GroupCogent Arts & Humanities2331-19832025-12-0112110.1080/23311983.2025.2515113Passivisation in Tanzanian ChingoniGastor Cosmas Mapunda0Julius Taji1Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, TanzaniaDepartment of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, TanzaniaThis study investigates passivisation in the Tanzanian Chingoni language (N12), a relatively underexplored area in the language. We specifically aim to explore the strategies for encoding the passive and determine their extent of use. We employed two methods of data collection: elicitation from three proficient Chingoni speakers, and documentary review. Through elicitation, we gathered data from two males and one female speaker, all aged above 55 years. The elicitation process involved prompting participants to transform active sentences into passive constructions, allowing for exploration of alternative grammatical forms. Through documentary review, three publications written in Chingoni were consulted. Our findings reveal that Chingoni employs at least three strategies for expressing passivisation. These are morphological passivisation, which is encoded through specific morphological modification to the verb; impersonal passivisation where a class 2 subject marker coreferencing an unspecified human agent is used; and subject-verb inversion, which positions the object at the beginning of sentences, thus producing an (O)VS word order. These insights broaden our horizon of understanding the mechanisms for encoding passivisation in Bantu languages.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2025.2515113BantuChingonipassivisationmorphological passiveimpersonal passivesubject-verb inversion
spellingShingle Gastor Cosmas Mapunda
Julius Taji
Passivisation in Tanzanian Chingoni
Cogent Arts & Humanities
Bantu
Chingoni
passivisation
morphological passive
impersonal passive
subject-verb inversion
title Passivisation in Tanzanian Chingoni
title_full Passivisation in Tanzanian Chingoni
title_fullStr Passivisation in Tanzanian Chingoni
title_full_unstemmed Passivisation in Tanzanian Chingoni
title_short Passivisation in Tanzanian Chingoni
title_sort passivisation in tanzanian chingoni
topic Bantu
Chingoni
passivisation
morphological passive
impersonal passive
subject-verb inversion
url https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2025.2515113
work_keys_str_mv AT gastorcosmasmapunda passivisationintanzanianchingoni
AT juliustaji passivisationintanzanianchingoni