In the following thesis, an analysis of the fundamental aspects of Lucumí phonology and word-formation will be presented with the aim of determining the extent to which this liturgical language is related to Standard Yoruba. Additionally, this thesis will provide an overview of selected socio-cultural and historical factors pertaining to the environment in which Lucumí developed. This overview aims to offer a general perspective on how interactions with other languages may have influenced certain innovations observed in Lucumí. However, it is important to note that the scope of this research is primarily confined to the comparison of sound correspondences between Lucumí and Yoruba, which is considered to be the ancestral language of Lucumí. The findings of this historical examination reveal that there is a minimum of 29% cognates in basic vocabulary between Lucumí and Standard Yoruba. This implies that, at a lexical level, Lucumí can be classified as a close relative of Yoruba. Nevertheless, the dynamic evolution of phonemes and allophones appears to be arbitrary, lacking clear and consistent correspondences. In the thesis this phenomenon is discussed as being effects of language death. From a phonological perspective, Lucumí demonstrates evident influences from various languages, most notably Spanish, as well as a substantial number of loanwords whose origins are not thoroughly addressed within the confines of this thesis.

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This thesis studies the inter-group variation of the consonant endings among five principal subgroups of the Chaoshan dialect, a branch of the South Min dialect in Eastern Guangdong Province, from the perspective of language contact and horizontal transmission. I conduct a quantitative study to present the synchronic variance of the consonant endings among five Chaoshan subgroups and the diachronic variance from Middle Chinese to modern Chaoshan dialect on a numerical scale. The current literature tends to take the change of the consonant endings as a process of weakening governed by regular rules. My research findings challenge this conventional view. First, the change of the consonant endings from Middle Chinese to five subgroups of modern Chaoshan dialect is irregular, which is an exception to the linguistic laws proposed in the existing literature. Secondly, I find that some characters without consonant endings or with a weakened ending in Chaozhou in the 19th century reverse to have a consonant ending in modern Chaoshan dialect. This reversal contradicts to the weakening hypothesis that regards the change of the consonant endings as a process of simplifying. Finally, my quantitative research shows that Chaozhou dialect in the 19th century in much closer to modern Xiamen dialect than to five subgroups of modern Chaoshan dialect in terms of the relativeness in consonant endings, which is the opposite to the prediction that languages become more and more different and have no consequent contact with other daughter languages after separating from the proto-language. We propose that the actual situation of the consonant endings in different subgroups of the Chaoshan dialect can be better explained from the perspective of language contact and horizontal transmission. The interaction between Han Chinese and non-Han Chinese is the primary reason for the change of the consonant endings of the Chaoshan dialect. Also, the language contact between Chaoshan aborigines and migrants from the Fujian Province leads to the divergence of the consonant endings in different Chaoshan subgroups.Population structure and other social factors determine what phonetic features survive after several times of horizontal transmission.

The hP’ags-pa script was created in the late 13th century (the early Yuan dynasty) which was intended to transliterate all the languages of the Mongol empire such as Tibetan, Uyghur and Chinese into a single writing system. Among all the Chinese hP’ags-pa materials, the primer Bǎijiā xìng 百家姓 [Surnames of the Hundred Families] (BJX) offered us extensive hP’ags-pa syllables and their corresponding Chinese characters. The BJX in hP’ags-pa script has four editions that are currently known to scholars. A careful comparison and examination of the four editions of the BJX text reveals three main types of errors in hP’ags-pa syllables: (1) The misuse of similar-looking letters; (2) Pure clerical errors; and (3) Errors in the transliteration of variant pronunciations. The variant transliterations in the C edition provide some clues to sound changes, including (1) The devoicing of voiced stops and fricatives and (2) The loss of the bilabial nasal coda [m]. Aside from the variant transliterations, the majority of errors are purely graphic and reflect a lack of knowledge about the writing system. An examination of the use of the hP’ags-pa script in the BJX text suggests several potential reasons for the failure of the script to come into common use. These include: (1) A misconception of the nature of the hP’ags-pa writing system; (2) An ineffective learning approach; (3) The discrepancy of phonological categories and phonetic values; and (4) The non-adaptability to the Chinese language.

This thesis is a comparative study of Pai and Swati. The Pai language is spoken in the easten1 parts of the Mpumalanga Province of the Republic of South Africa. The study concentrates on the correspondences and differences of the speech sounds of these two languages and reference is also made to the morphology. The previous comprehensive work on Pai was by Ziervogel (1956) where he classified the Pai language as one of the three dialects of Eastern Sotho. He also considered the Swati elements present in Pai to be merely borrowings. The present investigation into the history of the Pai people indicates that Pai may have had links with languages other than those belonging to the Sotho group and, from the evidence, an Nguni connection has become a distinct possibility. The speech sounds of Pai are described in detail in chapter two and corresponding speech sounds in Swati are included. The vowels of both languages receive special attention because Pai apparently has a seven-vowel system and Swati a five-vowel system. The corresponding consonants in these two languages soon points towards a relationship that is based on more than just borrowed items. In chapter three the Ur-Bantu sounds of Meinhof and their reflexes in Swati and Pai are described and compared. The wide variety of attestations in Pai and the instability of some phonemes are indicative of a language that has been subjected to many outside influences and that is at the moment in a state of flux. In chapter four some aspects of the morphology are described in order to highlight the peculiar characteristics of Pai as an individual language. The relationship with Swati is again emphasized by the findings in this chapter. A statistical analysis of the speech sounds of Pai and Swati in chapter five indicates that an Nguni core of sounds exists that is shared by both these languages. A re-classification of Pai within the language context of that area may therefore be necessary. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

This thesis presents a description and analysis of non-canonical case-marking of core arguments in Lithuanian. It consists of an introduction and six articles, providing historical and/or contrastive perspective to this issue. More specifically, using data from Lithuanian dialects, Old Lithuanian and other languages such as Icelandic, Latin and Finnic for comparison, the thesis examines the development and current state of non-canonical case-marking of core arguments in Lithuanian The present work draws on empirical findings and theoretical considerations to investigate non-canonical case-marking, language variation and historical linguistics. Special attention is paid to the variation in the case-marking of body parts in pain verb constructions, where an accusative-marked body part is used in Standard Lithuanian, and alongside, a nominative-marked body part in Lithuanian dialects. A common objective of the first three articles is to clarify and to seek a better understanding for the reasons for this case variation. The research provides evidence that nominative is the original case-marking of body parts in pain specific construction, i.e. with verbs, with the original meaning of pain, like skaudėti and sopėti ‘hurt, feel pain’. On the contrary, in derived pain constructions, i.e. with verbs like gelti with the original meaning of ‘sting, bite’ and diegti with the original meaning ‘plant’, accusative is the original case-marking of body parts. This accusative is explained by means of an oblique anticausative and it is argued furthermore that it is extended into the pain specific construction. The three last articles focus on the comparative and contrastive perspective. Their main results include the following: Lithuanian and Icelandic differ considerably in the frequency of using accusative vs. dative marking on the highest ranked argument. Accusative is more frequently used in Lithuanian while dative is dominant in Icelandic. The semantic fields of the dative subject construction have remained very stable, suggesting that the dative subject construction is inherited. It has, however, become productive in the history of Germanic, Baltic and Slavic. The similarities in Finnic and Baltic partiality-based object and subject-marking systems are due to Baltic influence. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: In press. Paper 2: In press. Paper 3: In press.</p>