A corpus-driven study of the expression of necessity in Luganda (Bantu, JE15)

Abstract

This article reports on the analysis of three major markers of necessity in Luganda, i.e. the modal auxiliaries -téekw- and -lina and the verbal prefix -andi-. On the basis a 4-million-word corpus it is argued that, overall, the auxiliary -téekw- is more established as a necessity marker, as it is involved in the expression of all necessity subcategories except participant-inherent dynamic necessity. The auxiliary -lina is less semantically diversified, expressing only participant-imposed, situational and deontic necessity, while the verbal prefix -andi- expresses only deontic necessity. A comparison of corpus data with data from older literature on Luganda further shows that the objective category of participant-inherent dynamic necessity, which is not associated with any of the three markers described, is perhaps expressed by less-grammaticalised forms. These forms are also, together with other grammaticalised forms that have increasingly become rare, assumed to be part of the devices that could have been responsible for expressing necessity in earlier stages of the language, given that the three markers described in this research have only begun to meaningfully express necessity since the second half of the 20th century.