Sammendrag
The paper addresses the subject of objects in a grammar, with particular reference to Kiswahili Bantu. It draws attention to the fact that, in general, traditional grammarians and linguists, such as Ashton (1947) who has come to be regarded as a classic for Kiswahili grammatical descriptions, have relied on Indo-European verb classes in determining the verb classes found in Kiswahili Bantu. The approach, although commendable for languages with unwritten or not well described grammars, has disadvantages. The traditional approach relies on translations into the language of description, usually an Indo-European language, to arrive at its verb classes. The result is that very often, the outcome does not represent the full or real picture of the transitivity of a particular verb in Kiswahili Bantu. The paper gives examples of verbs such as -lala 'sleep', -enda 'go', -fika 'arrive at', etc., that are commonly classified as intransitive verbs in Kiswahili Bantu whereas language internal evidence reveals that they have transitive and intransitive functions and, as a result, have dual transitivity (Amidu 2001). For example they can take object markers (OMs). The paper also points to the fact that in Kiswahili Bantu, verbs said to be intransitive take complements that undergo object relative operation. It points out that unless linguists and Bantuists are being cynical in their description of the language, one can hardly call a verb intransitive if it has complements that undergo such an operation. The paper draws attention to the fact that several linguists, e.g. Keenan (1985: 281), have pointed out clearly that the Bantu languages have no adverbial relative constructions due to the nature of their noun class systems. Thus many verbs that allegedly are intransitives with adverbial relative complements are in fact transitive verbs with object relative complements. The paper concludes that it is only in understanding these peculiarities of Bantu languages that needless controversies and misclassification of verb classes in Kiswahili Bantu can be avoided. In addition, an understanding of Bantu transitivity also means that the transitivity of verbs in different languages is never exactly the same. The findings confirm the inductive character of the descriptions in Amidu (2001).
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