Abstract:
Generally, the possibility of Bantu languages having infixes has
been ignored or not given proper attention. Thus, the argument
that, ‘infix affixation rather than prefix and suffix is impossible
in Bantu languages is brought under scrutiny. Therefore, the
article examines infixation in the Kisukuma language, the area,
which has been ignored for a long time. The study on which the
paper is based specifically aimed at presenting infixes in
Kisukuma and analysing the roles of infixes. The study was
guided by the Cognitive Grammar theory. The theory treats the
derived lexemes’ meaning in both core and periphery sense
pragmatically. The approach used in this article was qualitative
and the case study was used as a design through which Sukuma
area was selected as a case study. Three informants were
purposively sampled, so were the native speakers.Documentary
review and focus group discussion techniques were used to
collect data for this study Leipzig Glossing Rule and morpheme by-morpheme correspondence was used as theframework of
data analysis. The findings show that Kisukuma has infixes in
their lexicon as in koja, which ‘dip in’ to kogéja ‘dip in for/with
steal each other’. Thus, the morph <gé> is an infix in this
language. The paper concludes that Kisukuma language has
infixes as opposed to scholars’ claim that Bantu languages’
infixes are uncommon. It is suggested that since infixation is non
concatinative, there is a need of testing nonlinear theory being
it Autosegmental Theory on the mannerin which it accounts for
infixes’ representation. In addition,
The study of infixes in Kisukuma language of Tanzania
Kivukoni Journal, ISSN 1821 - 6986 Vol. 8 No. 1, June, 2021 | 55
since Kisukuma has multiple semantics in its lexicon, there is a
need of carrying out morph semantics analysis of Kisukuma
derived verbs
