A MICRO-VARIATION ANALYSIS OF THE WORD ORDER OF THE NOUN PHRASE BY MODIFICATION IN LUNGU AND NAMWANGA LANGUAGES
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Abstract
This paper presents a comparative analysis of the word of the noun phrase (henceforth, NP) by modification by accounting for similarities and micro-variations in Lungu and Namwanga languages. Lungu is spoken in Mpulungu district while Namwanga is spoken in Nakonde and Isoka districts in Zambia. Using the micro-variation linguistic theory and the comparative Bantu morpho-syntax theoretical locale, the paper identifies the modifiers which are prominent in Lungu and Namwanga languages and establishes the prevailing word orders in the NP by modification. The study used a qualitative approach backed by elicitation and comparative methods. The paper outlines that the two languages have similarities in the word order of the NP by the modification which suggests that the languages are genetically related. The analysis also shows that Lungu and Mambwe languages have more similarities than variations in their morphology of nouns which are used to form the NP which shows that they are mutually intelligible. On the other hand, the paper reveals that there are some morphological micro-variations in the two languages, though not wide enough to be considered to be mutually unintelligible. Therefore, the common word orders in the NP by modification in Lungu and Namwanga languages include; Poss. Pre-prefix +Adj, N+Adj (NAdj) and N+Dem (NDem).
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