The study of infixes in Kisukuma language of Tanzania

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