Morphosyntactic Structure of Tonga (M64) Noun Deverbatives
Abstract
Motivated by the discussions from various authors on morphological patterns in different languages of the world, this study examines the morphosyntactic structure of deverbative nouns in Tonga (M64), a Bantu language spoken primarily in Zimbabwe and Zambia. In Zimbabwe, Tonga is one of understudied languages that employs a complex morphological patterns of norminal derivation, whereby affixes which are most common ways of Bantu languages in creating nouns using different adjuncts of a final vowels (FV) /-i /, /-e-/ and /-o/, clitics /-ma/ and /-nyina/ and optional prefixation of nominal class markers are added to the verbal base elements. Canonically, in word formation every language has a unique characteristics system of word creativity. Therefore, Tonga lexicon deverbatives are considered as syncretic unities that are built by the prefixation and suffixation or merging the grammatical features of both nouns and verbs. In this paper, researchers argue that in Tonga language; deverbatives categories are from those of infinite verbs and imperatives. Using Pustejovsky’s (1996), Generative Lexicon Theory (GLT), the analysis demonstrates how semantic roles and syntactic structure are encoded in the derived nominals, both inflectionally and derivationally in ChiTonga. Employing a qualitative descriptive approach, the research reveals that Tonga deverbatives function not only in their literal sense but also serve metaphorical extensions, enriching the language’s expressive capacity.
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