Discourse connectivity:the case of Lubukusu

Abstract

Discourse connectivity, according to those who propose discourse and text grammars and leaning towards the code model (Harris 1952, Longacre 1983, Dooley and Levinsohn 2000), say it is a purely linguistic matter. However, discourse connectivity also relies on context, the context of the discourse itself, that of the speaker and that of the hearer. This later position is proposed in an inferential model (Sperber & Wilson 1986/95). This inferential model suggests that sentence structure alone determines only a fraction of what is communicated and context plays a crucial role in the determination of meaning hence to link individual sentences in creating a discourse requires linkages beyond a language code. It is these linkages over and above the code that connect with context and thereby allow for utterance comprehension. Blass 2006:7 argues that, intuitive judgements of well formedness and ill formedness of discourse depend upon the connectivity occurring between and within sentences of a language. The argument by Blass is that to create discourse harmony, it is inevitable to integrate both linguistic and non linguistic features to achieve discourse connectivity which enables utterance comprehension. This paper will examine discourse connectivity linkage as manifested in the particle nono and its allomorphic realization ne of the Lubukusu - a Bantu language spoken in western Kenya. The aim is to show the diversity of use for this particle while emphasizing its idiosyncratic usage that is specific to Lubukusu speakers.