Ke in utterances: uses and functions of the Xhosa discourse marker ke

Masinyana, Abdul-Malik Sibabalwe Oscar

Ke in utterances: uses and functions of the Xhosa discourse marker ke

Master Thesis

2013

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

African Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

Discourse Markers (DM) have been identified in so many languages, utterance contexts, and studied from so many angles and theoretical approaches (Ogoanah, 2011;; Jantjies, 2009;; Jabeen, et. al, 2011;; Dér and Markó, 2010;; Verdonik et.al, 2007;; Li, 2010;; Hernández, 2011;; Camiciottoli, 2009), so much that another study hardly seems necessary. Focusing on Xhosa, a linguistic context where hardly any work is being done on DMs, this thesis argues that the Xhosa particle ke is a DM that is popular in, but not restricted to, oral utterances and a DM that is present even in 19th century Xhosa utterances. At present, the general agreement between Xhosa grammars and dictionaries is that ke is either/and/or a conjunction or conjunctive, an interjective, an adverb, an enclitic, an expletive or a form word with a variety of translation equivalents in English. Using a DM analysis framework provided by Schourup (1999) ? which corresponds closely with the pioneering framework by Schiffrin (1987) and also contains elements of Fraser's model (1996, 2009) ? this thesis examines these three claims and concludes that ke is mainly a DM (over and above being one or more or all of the present classifications) and should be presented as such in future Xhosa dictionaries, grammars and linguistic research.

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