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Part of
Anthropological Linguistics: Perspectives from Africa
Edited by Andrea Hollington, Alice Mitchell and Nico Nassenstein
[Culture and Language Use 23] 2024
► pp. 367–392

Chapter 14
Verbal lexicalization and cultural domains in Toposa

| University of Nairobi,
Toposa, an Eastern Nilotic language of South Sudan, packages a great deal of semantic information in verb roots. This chapter investigates whether lexicalization processes in the verb can be linked to the emergence of cultural “schemas”, “frames” or “scenarios” (Goddard & Wierzbicka, 2014). The chapter shows that Toposa has refined verbal lexicalization in cultural activities and scenarios in the lexical domains of mobility, sacrifices, rituals, carrying, cutting, herding, transportation of goods, and daily activities that at large reflect typical characteristics of the pastoralist cultures of East Africa and thus suggests a link between culture and language in the semantic domains of activity verbs.
Keywords: semantic domains, verb lexicalization, language and culture, cultural scenarios, cultural keywords
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Verbal lexicalization processes in the cultural domain of mobility
    • 2.1Verbs encoding path of motion
    • 2.2Temporal semantics in motion verbs
    • 2.3Manner of motion: Walking and running
    • 2.4Driving cattle
  • 3.Lexicalization processes in the domain of sacrifice
    • 3.1Nyajulot
    • 3.2Nyapukin
    • 3.3Nyakicak
    • 3.4Nyakilomun
    • 3.5Nyekideriet
    • 3.6Nyabuto
    • 3.7Nyakibel
    • 3.8Nyakigurokin
    • 3.9Nyalemar
    • 3.10Nyakiriwokin
    • 3.11Verbal lexicalization and slaughter activities
  • 4.Verbal lexicalization in rituals
    • 4.1Verb packaging in the cultural domain of marriage
  • 5.Verbal lexicalization in everyday activities
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 1 February 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/clu.23.14sch
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