Tense and Aspect in Samburu: a Minimalist Approch

Abstract

The aim of this study is to give a descriptive analysis of the Samburu verb. The main focus is on the verb morphology, and in particular, Tense and Aspect and how they operate in discourse. Linguistic theories, and in particular, the Minimalist Program has been used to analyze the verb in Samburu. Tense and Aspect are two distinct categories which are mainly grammatical and lexical as from the data analyzed in this paper.

Given that Samburu has a V -s-o word order, the Minimalist Program adequately accounts for it and through the feature checking theory within the Minimalist Program, the word order is

maintained. This is made possible through the checking of various morpho- syntactic elements of the verb that are moved from one position to another in the structure building process, thus maintaining the word order.

Chapter one is an introduction to the study. It highlights on the background of the language. It also explains the statement of the problem outlines the objectives and hypotheses, discusses the rationale, scope and limitation, the theoretical framework, literature review and the research methodology.

Chapter two deals with the Samburu verb morphology. It mainly focuses on the various affixations of the verb in Samburu which results in various morphemic elements of the verb that are necessary for this study. Some of these affixes are tense and aspect markers, person and number markers, the infinitive marker and the negation marker. It also discusses on the various

citations ofthe verb which includes; the verb root, verb classes, verb transitivity, subject, object and the nominative pronouns in Samburu.

Chapter three mainly analyzes tense. It describes the various tense distinctions in Samburu, that is, the past and non-past tense and the morphological markings. These are further discussed within the Minimalist Program.

.Chapter four examines aspect and mainly deals with the perfective and imperfective aspect. The imperfective mainly focuses on the progressive aspect and the habitual. Co-occurrence of aspect and tense are discussed. The feature checking theory in the Minimalist Program is employed in checking the aspectual features.

Chapter five is a summary of the study and recommendations for further research. It also gives an account of the theoretical implications on the study