M.A. (African Languages) / The main purpose of this study was to investigate morphological reduplication in the word class nouns, verbs and ideophones in Zulu, and to describe them according to their formal and semantic features. An outline is given in chapter 1 of the status of the morpheme within the word morphology according to general linguistic principles, theories concerning the morpheme as well as the character or nature of morphological reduplication. According to the literature on this subject it appears that morphological reduplication performs widely, even universally. In chapter 2 attention is given to reduplication in the most important languages and dialects in the Nguni language group apart from Zulu. These languages and dialects include the following: Swati, Bhaca, Phuthi, Northen Transvaal Ndebele, Lala, Xhosa, Southern Transvaal Ndebele and Mpondo. It is found that all these languages and dialects present a common character with regard to morphological reduplication. Zulu, as the main concern of study in respect of morphological reduplication, is studied in detail in chapter 3. The word classes of Zulu are looked at according to Van Wyk's word class grouping, whilst special attention is given to nouns. It is found that morphological reduplication in Zulu nouns shows an extention of the semantic features represented in the single noun. The reduplicated forms have the semantic features of especially abundance, numerousness and completeness. The formal features of the reduplicated noun in Zulu are studied with special reference to the monosyllabic noun, the disyllabic noun and the polisyllabic noun. Their possible combination (in their reduplicated form) with a suffix as well as the formal features of the reduplicated suffix, are studied at length. In chapter 4 the morphological reduplication of verbs (in this instance also monosyllabic, disyllabic and polisyllabic stems) is discussed. The verb can be reduplicated as a whole or only partially with the semantic features of, inter alia, intensity or thoroughness. The verb can also be reduplicated in combination with a suffix with the result that the semantic feature of the suffix acts complementary to the semantic features of the reduplicated verb. In chapter 5 the morphological reduplication of ideophones is discussed. The semantic features of reduplication are characterised as intense, complete, purposeful and final. The formal features show that only disyllabic ideophones represent morphological reduplication that may be fully or only partially reduplicated.

In this thesis I discuss the problem of negative polarity items (NPls). NPis are items that have to be licensed by a certain group of expressions. In this group of expressions which can trigger NPIs we find, among other things: negations, adversative expressions, questions and conditionals. I show that there is an important problem for a grammatical approach to negative polarity: the group of expressions which can licence NPls can't be adequately defined in a grammatical way. There is, however, a semantic way of defining the group of expressions that can licence NPIs. In semantics the group is often referred to as the group of "triggers". It can be proven logically that the group of triggers can be divided into four subgroups: a group of downward-entailing expressions, antimultiplicative expressions, anti-additive expressions and antimorphic expressions. By carrying out a corpus study I find evidence for the hypothesis that the way in which NPIs are licenced by the triggers with different logical properties originates from the different grammatical classes of NPIs (negative polarity nouns, negative polarity adjectives and negative polarity verbs). Since there is evidence for this causal relation, I argue that a grammatical approach to NPI-triggering is necessary from a formal point of view. I give a Minimalist account of NPI-triggering. To make the Minimalist Program suitable for NPI-triggering I have to assume, however, that the semantic information about triggers is available in the lexicon of the MP.

Ph.D. / Please refer to full text to view abstract.

Prof. C.J. Conradie

This investigation was motivated by the growing dissatisfaction with the inconsistent use of empirical methodology in transformational generative phonology (TGP) and by the resulting limited value which TGP has for other scientific fields of study. The investigation is concerned with judging a particular experimental paradigm for its validity as a confirmation/disconfirmation procedure with the intention of consequently confirming or disconfirming the psychological reality of certain phonological rules. As revealed in the review of the relevant literature, one could justify the violation of TGP's ideal speaker-listener framework—which would result from testing some of TGP1s hypotheses—by using real speaker-listeners. Previous testing for the use of certain of Chomsky and Halle's (1968) phonological rules has raised doubts about the validity of claims concerning these rules' psychological reality. The method used in the present study consisted of requiring subjects to derive and pronounce novel words (without the use of pencil and paper) from existing English stem-words and suffixes aurally presented to them. One group of subjects was exposed to existing English derivations which exemplified sound patterns accounted for by Chomsky and Halle through the rules under investigation. This group was also exposed to example derivations which showed no phonetic change. A second group of subjects were exposed only to examples showing no phonetic change. Analysis of the results show, first (with respect to the present experiment's design), that the distribution of the number of predicted responses (i.e. the responses predicted by the rules under investigation) in each group of subjects is very similar. It is concluded that each group showed a similar ability in performing the novel derivation task and that the subjects were representative samples of the population under study. The greater occurrence of predicted sound patterns in the responses of the first group of subjects is attributed to that group's exposure to example derivations showing predicted phonetic changes. The overall production of predicted sound patterns in each group cannot be attributed to just a few subjects. A trend appears in which stem-suffix sets which were most often involved in given predicted phonetic changes were the same in both groups' responses. Conclusions are also drawn with respect to the validity of the experimental paradigm as a valid procedure for confirming or disconfirming the phonological rules in question. First, the logical argument which uses the positive consequences of an hypothesis, known as "the fallacy of affirming the consequent," is invalid. Thus, none of the various possible strategies of sound pattern production which were considered (in order to account for subjects' responses) could be affirmed. Secondly, a valid argument of the type modus tollens can be used when the consequences of an hypothesis are negative. The valid conclusion permitted by this argument is the disconfirmation of the hypothesis. Some of the problems encountered with this argument are discussed: (a) it is impossible to determine the exact number of times that an hypothesis is disconfirmed in a set of data in which some of the data consist of positive consequences; (b) the argument must be carefully quantified in order to permit valid conclusions to be drawn from data that is derived from real (i.e. non-idealized) conditions of the world; and (c) there exists no criterion frequency of (non-)use for the (dis)confirmation of the 'psychological reality of a phonological rule'. If it were possible to explicitly specify the extension of a rule's use, such a criterion frequency of a rule's (non-)use might be well motivated. In its absence, the psychological reality of phonological rules could not even be disconfirmed in this study. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Psychology, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES. / Bibliography: leaves 99-100. / by Barton Day Wright. / Ph.D.

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