Typical Phrases For Shona Syntactic Subjecthood

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a qualitative research that focused on providing a comprehensive description of the Shona subject relation. Shona is a Bantu language spoken by around 75% of the over 13million people making up the Zimbabwean population plus the other speakers in neighbouring countries like Zambia, Botswana and South Africa. The paper reveals the types of phrases that typically perform the subject role in the language. The research concentrated mainly on the language as used by speakers of the dialect spoken by the Karanga people of Masvingo Province (the region around Great Zimbabwe) and the Zezuru dialect spoken by people of central and northern Zimbabwe (the area around Harare Province).