Loanword Nativisation in Tshivenda: A Descriptive Analysis
This paper describes the process of loanword adaptation in Tshivenḓa. The description also foregrounds the factors that are often assumed to play a role in the alterations that adopted and adapted words in Tshivenḓa undergo. Aided by the intuitive method, the study adopted the qualitative approach and descriptive design to analyse its data which was a predetermined set of loanwords gathered from previous loanword research. The analysis was also developed by means of a Canonical Approach where loanwords in Tshivenḓa were classified according to whether they conform to various canonical patterns, and if not, according to the direction and extent of their derivation from these patterns. Clements and Keyser’s (1983) CV-Phonology and Chomsky and Halle’s (1968) Generative Phonology Model also fortified the description of loanword adaptation in Tshivenḓa. Affixation and other morpho-phonological changes were found to be significant processes operating in loanword adaptation in Tshivenḓa, which starts out with phonetic adaptation and ends with semantic adaptation. The paper concludes by endorsing loanword adaptation as a significant phenomenon that combats language death.
