Mwingiliano wa Vishazi Tegemezi na Vishazi Bebwa

Abstract

AbstractThis study explores the subordinate and embedded clause concepts followingtheir differences in usage among grammarians. There are grammarians withan approach that the terms have no difference content in description but onlyterminological difference. Also, it is further explained that the concept ofsubordinate clause has a background in traditional grammar; that is, it is moresemantic in describing syntactic issues. With that basis, in order to avoidrelying on semantics as well as reflecting syntactical flavour in terminologies;there is an approach purporting to use embedded clause instead of subordinateclause. The subordinate clause is synonymous to embedded clause because theyall make sense when attached to an independent clause. Therefore, thisapproach considers the terms synonyms and they can be used interchangeably.But there is another approach which does not take these concepts as synonyms.The only reason is that the terms are no how related and they cannot be usedinterchangeably since the opposite of embedded clause is unembedded clause,not subordinate clause. Due to such difference in approach, this study usesKiswahili data to find out the connection and difference existing between thesetwo terms, subordinate and embedded clauses. The data were gathered fromexamples used during lectures in a PhD (Kiswahili) class and variouspublications that had explored about clauses and sentences in Kiswahili.Moreover, those data were analysed based on the Extended Standard Theory.The findings revealed that subordinate clauses are characterised by two mainfeatures: the presence of reflexive affixes in a verb or the use of subordinatorswhich can be overt or covert. On the side of embedded clauses, the findingsshowed that it is contextually identified. Generally speaking an embeddedclause is a subordinate clause which cannot be omitted in a sentence withoutdistracting the predication of the verb or noun in the independent clause ofmatrix sentence. The semantic and syntactic features of the Kiswahili nounsand verbs dictate the embedment of the subordinate clauses. It is thusconcluded that these terms cannot be used synonymously. Nevertheless, theterms are related since the subordinateclause is one of the main types ofclauses while the embedded clause is one among the types of subordinateclauses. Simply put, depending on the structure of a sen