Sammendrag
Semantic assignment rules are central to the description of Bantu nominal classes. Traditionally, classes 1/2 are described as human/animate classes, 5/6 as augmentative classes and 7/8 as diminutive classes. This book draws attention to the fact the traditional rules have a number of shortcomings. For example, they do not inform the student or researcher that classes 1/2 contain inanimate denoting nouns and NPs. Traditional semantic rules also require augmentative and diminutive denoting terms to take concords of their respective classes only, whereas native speakers ignore these prescriptive rules and generate concords in classes 1/2, if they wish, for animate denoting nouns, irrespective of considerations of size. Furthermore, some animate denoting nouns of classes 1/2 may take concords in other classes too. There are also semantic assignment patterns that are not accounted for systematically by rules in traditional descriptions. For example, all classes have locative denoting nouns and, apart from most animates, nouns of other classes may take locative class concords in verbs in predication-sentences. Nouns of classes 9/10 may generate concords in their own classes too even if they are animate denoting items. The picture reveals that traditional semantic assignment rules are inadequate and in many ways misleading. The book puts forward a reanalysis of the traditional rules. It argues that all nouns take concords, first and foremost, in their own classes, but they may take concords of other classes if there are motivated linguistic reasons for doing so, e.g. native speaker choice. By means of the reanalysis proposed, we discover that augmentative and diminutive rules are, in fact, redundant rules of Bantu classes. The study draws attention to the fact that historically and in the present day, many lexical nouns in Bantu are polysemic in meaning and function and this accounts for their ability to refer to both animate and non-animate senses in the grammar. Semantic assignment rules have ignored polysemy, semantic extension, collocation between animate nouns and inanimate terms, and lexical movements across class boundaries which enable speakers to expand their powers of expression in the language. The book corrects an anomaly in the semantic studies of Bantu nominal classes and their classifications that has not been addressed since the genesis of Bantu grammatical studies. Hopefully these new rules will replace the prescriptive semantic rules of traditional Bantu grammars in the future.
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