Marten, Lutz and Gibson, Hannah (2025) Morphosyntactic borrowing in closely related varieties: “False cognates” in Swahili. In: Historical Linguistics 2022. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 369 . John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 184-197. ISBN 9789027246219. Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.369.12mar
Marten, Lutz and Gibson, Hannah (2025) Morphosyntactic borrowing in closely related varieties: “False cognates” in Swahili. In: Historical Linguistics 2022. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 369 . John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 184-197. ISBN 9789027246219. Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.369.12mar
Marten, Lutz and Gibson, Hannah (2025) Morphosyntactic borrowing in closely related varieties: “False cognates” in Swahili. In: Historical Linguistics 2022. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 369 . John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 184-197. ISBN 9789027246219. Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.369.12mar
Abstract
The paper examines contact-induced morphosyntactic change in Swahili, where material which had historically been lost is ‘reintroduced’ through contact with closely related languages which have retained the original feature. The paper discusses three examples of these morphosyntactic ‘false cognates’: diminutive marking, habitual marking and demonstrative forms, and shows that if it were not from the evidence from different diachronic stages and varieties of Swahili, these forms could well be analysed as inherited from Proto-Bantu. The paper contributes to our understanding of the historical development of Swahili, patterns of variation found in Swahili and Bantu languages more widely, as well as the importance of comparative evidence for the unravelling of historical and contemporary relations between closely related linguistic varieties.
Item Type: | Book Section |
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Additional Information: | Selected papers from the 25th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Oxford, 1–5 August 2022 |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | language contact, borrowing, cognates, Swahili |
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Language and Linguistics, Department of |
SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Date Deposited: | 04 Jul 2025 13:21 |
Last Modified: | 04 Jul 2025 13:22 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/38862 |
Available files
Filename: Marten_Gibson_2025_ICHL2022_Proc_False_cognates_in_Swahili_PrePubl.pdf
Embargo Date: 20 March 2026