The focus of this study is Lunyala, a Bantu language of western Kenya. The aim of the study is to document Lunyala in terms of the phonological and morphological rules that operate within its lexicon. In addition, the different tonal features of Lunyala form part of this study' s scope. The opening chapter describes the Lunyala language in terms of the language group to which it belongs, the geographical location where this language is spoken, and the people who speak the language. The existence of two languages with the same name "Lunyala" is highlighted and explained. Also provided is justification as to why Lunyala was chosen to be studied. The chapter ends with a general overview of the language situation in Kenya. The methodology, involving a statement of the target objectives, the procedures through which the objectives will be achieved, sources of data, as well as any limitations faced by the study, are presented in Chapter Two. Within Chapter Two is also a discussion of feature geometry, lexical phonology and syllable theory, which form the theoretical underpinnings that the study has adhered to. Chapter Three considers the derivation ofLunyala sounds from Proto-Bantu sounds, the aim of which is to bring into focus ways in which Lunyala might relate with/to other Bantu languages. This discussion culminates in a phonemic inventory of Lunyala. Chapters Four and Five focus on discussing the different processes affecting vowels and consonants, respectively, in Lunyala. Processes to do with the syllable and syllabification are taken up in Chapter Six. Different syllable types, together with illustrations of processes that affect these syllables to alter their shapes, are also given. Ways in which Lunyala handles 'foreign' syllable types are also illustrated, and the rules behind them listed. The morphology of Lunyala is introduced in Chapter Seven, in which noun stems, noun classes, nominal extensions and also some concordial relations are presented. Tone assignment on the nominal elements is included. As is characteristic with Bantu languages, Lunyala verbs, together with their accompanying tones, constitute a large group of elements. As such, both Chapters Eight and Nine are devoted to a discussion of verbs. The nature of the verb is considered to be a dominant element which causes Bantu morphology to be highly agglutinative. In these chapters the tonal aspects of the verbs are examined from the radicals (or verb-roots) to the different tenses, with a view to identifying any changes that arise when the verbs take different extensions. The final chapter of this work is an evaluation focusing on how effectively the objectives listed in Chapter Two were achieved. Suggestions for future research on Lunyala are also made.

Research on Gender and Language has been carried out in various languages and cultures, and from various perspectives (see Harrington et al. 2008). However; in Africa and other third world contexts where the gender gap is arguably more culturally circumscribed, paradoxically, less work has been done. It is even worse when it comes to the intersection between gender, language and the (African) Diaspora (but see Martin-Ogunsola 2004; Cooper 2008). Yet, this intersection is important for the gender and language field because, in the light of the current academic conceptualisat ion and discussion of gender as a social construct, the Diaspora presents (African, Ghanaian) men and women with particularly diverse resources for multiple, competing and sometimes conflicting identity constructions. In contributing to filling these gaps in scholarship, I investigate constructions of gender identities in the discourses of Ghanaian couples in Milton Keynes (UK) in relation to (a) what gender identities are constructed, (b) whether they conform to or challenge stereotypical gender identities, (c) the linguistic evidence for such constructions, and (d) the conflicts and dilemmas arising out of such constructions. employ three theoretical approaches: Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, cognitive linguistics approaches to discourse, and Discursive Psychology. The results show that paricipants perform identities consistent with Ghanaian sociocultural norms and expectations about gendered practices in public contexts (often constructing what I call 'traditional man', 'traditional woman' and 'virtuous woman' identities), but reportedly challenge these practices in private or among people they consider to share their views on such practices (often constructing 'modern we man/woman', 'career woman', 'alomo gyata', ':Jbaa barima ', and ':Jbaa akobnini' identities). The tendency to construct identities that support traditional gender practices, I argue, is likely to be informed by wider socio-cultural expectations and individuals' desire to present themselves in a way that is acceptable by others, at least in 'traditional' contexts. Such self-presentation is often the result of underlying social pressure, expressed in discourse, for individuals to conform to stereotypical gender practices, and not to transgress. The findings also point to an underlying discursive pressure on both women and men to sustain traditional gender practices and identities, but especially on men since being considered as 'feminine' positions them as 'not man enough'. Such pressures sometimes create dilemmas and conflicts in participants' talk, as evidenced by the struggles, inconsistencies, contradictions and competing statements articulated. However, participants appear to be able to socially manage these dilemmas better when they are abroad than in Ghana because there are fewer people to criticise them abroad.

Two notable typological characteristics of the Bantu languages are the phenomena of subject and object marking, the cross-referencing of co-referential arguments via verbal morphology. The cross-linguistic variation with respect to the distributional and interpretational properties of Bantu subject and object markers has led to a dichotomy of their roles between being either agreement morphology or (incorporated) pronouns. Despite an increasing number of explanatory attempts of these phenomena, a unifying formal derivation of this inter- and intra-language variation is yet to be found. This thesis is an attempt towards providing a solution by giving a grammatical description of the under-documented Bantu language Bembe (D54) and presenting a novel analysis that employs an Agree-based approach while still accounting for the pronominal properties of Bembe subject and object markers. Subject and object markers in Bembe cannot co-occur with the arguments they cross-reference, unless the latter are dislocated. In addition, subject marking only occurs with preverbal subjects (A’-position) but not with postverbal subjects (A-position). I demonstrate that these and a number of other facts are explained under the assumption that both subject and object markers in Bembe are pronominal elements rather than agreement morphology. In particular, I treat subject and object markers as defective clitics (φPs), which incorporate into their probe whenever their φ-feature set is a subset of the φ-feature set of the probe. Incorporation is seen as Agree-based phenomenon (Roberts 2010a,b), necessary to satisfy the feature-valuation requirements of heads. Besides capturing the subject and object marking facts in Bembe, the presented analysis is able to give a principled explanation as to (a) the difference in interpretation of preverbal and postverbal elements, (b) the constraint on locative constructions and default agreement inversions to appear only with unaccusative and copular verbs, (c) the ungrammaticality of subject-object reversals, and (d) the variation in subject marking in object relative clauses.

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This thesis investigates the forms, functions and behaviour of tone in the phonology,lexicon, morphosyntax and the phonology-grammar interfaces in Ikaan (Benue-Congo, Nigeria). The analysis is based on an annotated audio corpus of recordings from 29 speakers collected during ten months of fieldwork complemented with participant observation and informally collected data. The study demonstrates that tone operates at a wide range of levels of linguistic analysis in Ikaan. As phonemes, tones distinguish meaning in minimal pairs and are subject to phonological rules. As morphemes, tones and tonal melodies bear meaning in inflection, derivation and reduplication. In the syntax, tones mark phrase boundaries. At the phonology-semantics interface, constructionspecific constraints on the tonal representation distinguish between predicating and referential nominal modifiers. Combined with intonation and voicing, tones distinguish between statements and morphosyntactically identical yes/no questions. The research identifies a range of unusual tonal behaviours in Ikaan. The two tones H and L follow markedly different phonologies. In the association of lexical and grammatical tonal melodies, H must be realised whereas non-associated L are deleted. Formerly associated but de-linked L however are not deleted but remain floating. The OCP is found to apply to L but not to H. H is downstepped after floating L but not after overt L. In addition, three different locations of downstep are attested which correlate with different syntactic and semantic properties of the respective constructions. In two of these downstep locations, a leftward copying process occurs in addition to a generally applicable rightward copying process so that two directions of copying occur. The thesis concludes by discussing the implications of the Ikaan findings for the wider theoretical discourse with respect to the status of the OCP, the directionality of spreading and the modelling of downstep.

This thesis presents a language-documentation-based description of aspects of the grammar of Efutu (Niger-Congo, Kwa, Southern-Guan), spoken in Winneba, a coastal town in the Central Region of Ghana, West Africa, by a group of fisherfolks. The thesis is in two parts. As the language is previously under-studied, the first part presents a general description of the basic phonology, morphology and syntax. Topics in the first part therefore include the sound system (vowels and consonants), tone, and some prominent phonological processes (vowel harmony, homorganic nasal assimilation); parts of speech; and tense, aspect, mood and negation. Part two focuses on serial verb constructions (SVCs), a prominent feature identified in the grammar of Efutu. SVCs from the documentation corpus are analysed using a set of criteria that help to classify them into groups. The methodology of such an analysis is considered to be data-driven. In addition to the data-driven methodology, a typological classification from Aikhenvald (2006) is adopted as a complementary approach to the analysis, especially, regarding the classification of SVCs. Various semantic types of SVCs, categorised as compositionally symmetrical or asymmetrical are identified and analysed. The means by which SVCs are used in expressing various meanings and functions in the grammar of the language are examined in some detail. Other properties of the SVCs, such as argument sharing and marking of grammatical categories, are also analysed. The documentation of the language mainly involves audio and video recordings of various speech and cultural events, as well as still photos and some texts, all generated through fieldwork totalling approximately fifteen months at three different stages. The recorded materials have been annotated (transcribed, translated, glossed, commented) in collaboration with native speakers in the field. The annotated corpus is then used as a basis for the description of the grammar of the language in this thesis.

The primary purpose of this thesis is to investigate the form and meaning of Otjiherero praises in order to pinpoint their essential features. The main focus of the analyses of praise texts falls on the distribution of information and how the information status shapes the structure and meaning of the praise. The interactions and relations between internal entities of linguistic expressions that convey the required meaning and effect are interpreted to characterize the overall pattern of Otjiherero praises and the meaning conveyed by such structures. Therefore the thesis aims to pinpoint the manner and purpose of praising the topic in question. It tries to discover how the oral poet arranges and expresses the information and how he presents it in linguistic expressions and what he means by that linguistically expressed information. This is to explore what the oral poets do with the language, the way experience, facts and imagination are linguistically organised. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part is the overview which defines praises and explains their uses in the community and outlines the sources of praises. The second part is about approaches and their application to Otjiherero praise texts (analyses and interpretation), followed by a conclusion that brings the thesis to a close. The first part consists of eight short chapters. Chapter 1 is a general introduction concerning the situation of African languages and oral literatures in Namibia with special focus on Otjiherero oral literature. Chapter 2 is a classification of Otjiherero oral poetic genres. The explanation of how they are intertwined and the distinctions between them will be made in chapter 4. Chapter 3 defines the genre of praise and explains its functions. Chapter 4 explains how praises are used in different discourses and performance in our socio-cultural contexts. Chapter 5 is about sources of praises in the Otjiherero community and explains the subjects of praising, in so doing it introduces the broader social context in which oral poets operate. Chapter 6 is about the oral poet and his art and explains how an oral poet acquires praises as well as his literary competence. Chapter 7 summarises the data analysed in this thesis. Chapter 8 reviews the relevant literature. It discusses other works on Otjiherero oral poetic genres. The second part comprises the last three chapters. Chapter 9 explains the approaches and interpretative procedures used to analyse praises in this study. Chapter 10 deals with the analysis of praise texts. Chapter 11 closes the thesis with summaries of findings, and with a general conclusion.

This study is concerned with embedded sentences in Shona which are not relative clauses. These complements seem to be of two types, namely, those dominated by NP which are referred to as noun phrase complements and those directly dominated by VP which are referred to as verb phrase complements. The case for each type is argued in the first chapter. The second chapter deals with the complementizing morphemes found in Shona (Zezuru dialect), A procedure is adopted by which complementizers are identified. This study also brings out the fact that infinitival complements and derived nominals should be treated differently. Evidence is adduced to show that the former are derived transformationally, but not the latter. Chapter Four discusses the insertion of complementizers into the underlying structure by analyzing first the transformational approach, then its inadequacy, and finally the phrase structure approach. The latter approach is preferred to the former on empirical evidence. The transformational rules which are mentioned in this study are described in the fifth chapter. Although some of the rules are dealt with fairly extensively, for others no more than an outline is given, The main purpose of this chapter was to provide only enough information about how these rules work in order to facilitate understanding of the thesis. The grammatical function of embedded sentences, that is, whether a given complement clause functions as a subject or an object etc, is the concern of Chapter Six. I consider the main contribution of this thesis to be the chapters dealing with (a) the arguments for setting up the two types of sentence complements, (b) procedures for the discovery of complementizers, (c) the arguments showing how complementizers should be inserted into the underlying structure, and (d) the distribution in sentences of embedded clauses.