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In:Advances in Contact Linguistics: In honour of Pieter Muysken
Edited by Norval Smith, Tonjes Veenstra and Enoch O. Aboh
[Contact Language Library 57] 2020
► pp. 217–234

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Transfer of Swahili ‘until’ in contact with East African languages

ORCiD logo with link | Leiden University
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/coll.57.07mou
Abstract
Swahili has transformed the noun mpaka ‘boundary, border’ into a function word ‘until’, which has successfully spread to many other East African languages with locative and temporal readings. The grammaticalisation originated in a N-N construction without an associative ‘of’ interpreted as limiting the action adverbially. The main function is in the time interpretation of ‘until’. I provide an overview of this transfer in East Africa by looking at a large number of languages and argue that parallel independent grammaticalisation is not what is at stake but rather transfer of the function word and the preposition-like function.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The grammaticalisation of ‘boundary’ to ‘until’
  • 3.The construction with mpaka ‘until’ in Swahili
  • 4.Borrowing mpaka in East Africa
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (68)
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Cited by (3)

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2025. The Oxford Guide to the Bantu Languages, DOI logo
Martinez, J. O.
2023. ‘Until’ clauses in typological perspective. Rhema :3 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
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2023. Temporal adverbial clauses: A cross-linguistic perspective. Lingua Posnaniensis 65:2 ► pp. 47 ff. DOI logo

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