Robert Botne
List of John Benjamins publications for which Robert Botne plays a role.
2004 Specificity in Lusaamia infinitives Studies in Language 28:1, pp. 137–164 | Article
Infinitives in Lusaamia (J.34, Kenya and Uganda) appear in two different forms, one having the reflex oxu- of the common Bantu class 15 verb prefix, and one having the prefix oo-. This paper describes and exemplifies the use of these two infinitival forms, proposing that the distinction represents… read more
2000 Language games, segment imposition, and the syllable Studies in Language 24:2, pp. 319–344 | Article
Language games in which the phonological forms of words are systematically altered have been well-studied from a typological perspective. The two most common types of language games entail the transposition of phonological constituents (usually syllables) and the addition of phonemes at one or more… read more
1998 The Evolution of Future Tenses from Serial 'Say' Constructions in Central Eastern Bantu Diachronica 15:2, pp. 207–230 | Article
SUMMARY Future tense markers have been shown to arise from a variety of verbal sources, among them motion verbs and volitional verbs. In a small number of central eastern Bantu languages, a verb 'say' has developed into a future marker, a phenomenon not previously noted in the literature. In this… read more
1997 Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality in Lega Studies in Language 21:3, pp. 509–532 | Article
Although encoding of evidential distinctions has been attested in most language areas of the world, relatively little has been written about evidentiality in sub-Saharan African languages. This paper describes the situation in Lega, a Bantu language spoken in eastern Zaire. The study considers… read more
1995 The Pronominal Origin of an Evidential Diachronica 12:2, pp. 201–221 | Article
SUMMARY Evidentials most commonly arise from reduced or reanalyzed verbs or tensed verb forms, particularly from performative verbs of saying or hearing. However, in a few seemingly rare examples, this is not the case. In this paper the author presents the case of two evidential particles —ambo… read more