Academic literature on the topic 'Khasi'

The thesis, as the title suggests, is divided into two parts: a grammar section and a sociolinguistic section. The grammar section comprises chapters II, III and IV and the sociolinguistic section chapters V, VI and VII. Chapter I provides general information on the language and its people, the system of notation used to present the linguistic data, the issues that are raised in the thesis, the methodology employed and the criteria upon which the questionnaire and the fieldwork are based. Chapter VIII, the general conclusion, summarizes the findings of the grammar and sociolinguistic sections. The main issues that are raised in the grammar section are two. The first concerns the syntactic status of a set of clitics which all share the same property of encoding the categories of person, number and gender. In prenominal position acting as 'articles', they convey the gender and number of the noun, and as 'agreement markers' show the agreement of modifiers with the head in the noun phrase. In combination with the verb they either act as agreement markers showing grammatical agreement between the lexical subject NP and the verb or as pronominals, that is to say they are referential pronouns that fulfil argument functions. The other issue that is raised in this section is the functions and distribution of the independent pronouns by comparison with those of the pronominal clitics. Chapter II deals with these issues in the standard dialect, chapter III examines them in the five regional dialects and chapter IV deals with their comparison across the dialects. The two main differences that will be seen between the dialect groups concern: (a) the gender system as encoded in the prenominal clitics, the peripheral and the. transitional dialects having a basic three-gender system whereas the central dialects have a basic two-gender system (innovations on the part of the central dialects in developing a polite or honorific gender for pragmatic purposes and the influence of these dialects on the other groups are also considered); (b) in the central dialects the clitics have a wide range of functions in that they fulfil all argument functions whereas the independent pronouns fulfil purely discourse functions. In the peripheral dialects on the other hand, the clitics have a very restricted range of functions that of a subject in continued discourse and of possessor in a construction without preposition. This chapter also studies the forms of the pronouns, the clitics being shown to be clearly cognate across the dialects and the independent pronouns to have developed from the clitics independently in the individual dialects. The sociolinguistic section deals with the informants' reported use of the second person pronouns and third person constructions in addressing, and of the different articles with appropriate nominals in referring to, kin and non-kin members of the community. Chapter V presents some theoretical considerations regarding the Address variable and the Reference variable as part of the pronominal strategies adopted in various languages. The variants of the Address and the Reference variables that are reportedly used by speakers in the Khasi dialects selected for analysis are also dealt with here. Chapter VI presents an analysis of the informants' reponses to a questionnaire regarding their use of the variants of the Address and the Reference variables. Chapter VII compares the informants' reported use of Address and of Reference across the dialects. This chapter also looks at the diachronic development of the second person 'polite' pronoun which has led to changes in the pronominal paradigm in the central dialects. It also examines the development of the honorific article as part of the variants of Reference. Here too the claim is that the central dialects are responsible for the innovations that have taken place in the way the second person pronouns and the honorific article are used.

The thesis intends to describe the life and work of Khabi Mngoma, protagonist of black music education in South Africa (latter half of the twentieth century), with reference to historical, socio-political, anthropological, educational and musicological aspects. His musical development from a mere participator in musical activities of his environment to a dominantly influential initiator of cultural and musical activities and education programmes on a national scale, is investigated. The study is presented in thirteen chapters: the first three chapters explore the musical influences of Khabi Mngoma's childhood (in the township-, school-and rural environment respectively), and the musical influences of his early adulthood. Particular, reference is made to his first academic musical studies in Western classical music, and the arousing of his interest in the academic study and performance of African music. The following nine chapters describe Khabi Mngoma's cultural and music educational activities (1948 - 1990) and explore the growing recognition of him as a cultural and music educational leader in South Africa. This period of Khabi Mngoma's life and work is divided into five periods: his work in Orlando, Soweto and Johannesburg during the years of his association with the Orlando High School (1948 - 1952; the first period); the second period refers to Khabi Mngoma's Social and Cultural work for the National War Memorial Health Foundation (1953 - 1957); the third, fourth and fifth periods relate to Khabi Mngoma's cultural and educational activities associated with the periods of employment by the Johannesburg City Council (1957 - 1964; third period), Dorkay House (Union Artists) and Reckitt & Colman (1965 - 1975: simultaneous employment; fourth - period), and finally the University of Zululand (1975 - 1987; the fifth period). The fifth period continues into the years following his retirement in 1987, with his influence on a national scale continuing to be established through various significant involvements, discussed in this study. The decision to arrange Khabi Mngoma' s adult life and career into five periods needs explaining. I am aware that human endeavor can never be neatly compartmentalized, because so many aspects of such endeavour overlap. This format is not intended to imply a rigid delineation; it is derived from the chronological arrangement of my material, and is intended to guide the reader through this study.