"African Languages Lexical Project (ALLEX)"

Project ID: PRO 18 / 2002
Project period: 2002 - 2006
Provisional allocation (NoK): 7400000

3. mars 2005
10:17:53
85

SIGNATURES

The signatories confirm that the Nufu Annual Report 2004 has been jointly produced

  Place and Date: Signatures:
UiS Coordinator


..............................................


..............................................

UiS Head of Department


..............................................


.............................................

 
 

"African Languages Lexical Project (ALLEX)"

Project ID: PRO 18 / 2002
Project period: 2002 - 2006
Provisional allocation (NoK): 7400000

3. mars 2005
10:17:53
85

SIGNATURES

The signatories confirm that the Nufu Annual Report 2004 has been jointly produced
 

Place and Date:

Signatures:

UiN Coordinator


................................................


...............................................

UiN Head of Department


...............................................


...............................................

 
 

1. COORDINATORS PROGRESS REPORT 2004

1.1 STATEMENT OF PROGRESS

1.1.1 Give a brief description of scientific progress of the year.
1. Research tools: Ndebele Morphological parser on the web at UZ from March 2004. 2. Dictionaries: national consolidation of projects through additional field work and broad reference groups has led to large increase i manuscript quality and bulk (text production). 3 Corpora: New corpus administration tool created for use of ALRI staff, corpus development transferred to ALRI UZ, Small Nambya corpus created (first minority language to be documented). There is much text addition, due to staff depletion, cf point 1.1.2. 4. Publications: Dictiopnary of Biomedical terms pulished. One rare book (Fortune: Essays on Shona Dialects) printed. Another enhanced by 70 page scholarly introduction and ready for printing. 5. Expanded and professionalised ALLEX web page with internactive dictionaries ready to be placed on the web. 6. One Ph. D. candidate (Moreblessings Mawema) has completed her examinations at UZ (ALLEX and quota scholar 1999 - 2002). 7. Two Phase 3 Ph. D. Candidates started their researcher training at the Ph. D. programme of the Arts Faculty, UO (sandwich model), a third candidate had her proposal accepted and starts in 2005. 8. Integration of ALLEX results in other UZ units, cf cooperation with UZ Library and staff to ALL and department of Linguistics


1.1.2 Brief description of major challenges and outside factors affecting the project
UZ 2004:
- as last year, general, severe economic hardship in society affecting output and staff morale (searching and queuing for everyday commodities etc).
- extreme staff shortage, with three trained researchers out of five busy with Ph. D. scholarships
- extreme difficulty in retaining younger staff members in training positions
- one researcher trained through the ALLEX Project left for UK (the third Ndebele editor of the Ndebele dictionary of musical terms). Caroline Rioga, librarian for Special collections at the UZ library and an important contact for the ALLEX Project, died suddenly in april 2004. her function re the ALLEX Project has not been filled.
- much effort spent in maintaining Ndebele team and creating links to other institutions to compensate for ALRI staff losses
- no UZ funds for Student Research Assistants
- no assistance from the department of African Languages and Literature, who are themselves depleted and overburdened with teaching
- one material loss, i.e. a portable pc stolen during transport.
UO 2004:
Administrative changes (moving out of campus for the UiO Section for lexicography and dialectology, reorganisation of departments within Arts Faculty) increased administrative workload for UO team participants in securing position of ALLEX Projects within new framework. Advantage: All Norwegian ALLEX participants are now located in the same building.



1.1.3 Potential of research activities in relation to poverty reduction
Indirectly the ALLEX project has great potential in relation to poverty reduction, in that it facilitates a transition to the mother tongue as medium of instruction at all education levels. The education systems of Africa South of Sahara are characterised by poor learning output in relation to resources input, particularly in the countryside. Mastering English for examinations and learning by rote, instead of mastering topics, concepts systems and methods of school subjects, is unproductive. The ALLEX Project helps establish subject terminology, a prerequisite for creating good teaching materials in each subject. In addition to its research goals, the ALLEX Project is motivated by the conviction that a transition to mother tongues as media of instruction is essential in order to make a basis for independent insight, creativity, self confidence and enterprise within each language community of Zimbabwe. The project experience of 2004 is that this insight is shared by large sections of the education system. The subprojects of the ALLEX Projects are thus met with great good will and their success is viewed as a national concern.

1.1.4 Information about funding from other sources
Two Ph. D. Scholars, Mr Emmanuel Chabata and Mr Langa Khumalo, receive their main financing from a Norwegian Quota scholarship. (Mr Chabata from 1.1.2004, Mr Khumalo from 1.1.2005). Otherwise, none.

1.1.5 Any other factors which have influenced the implementation of the project
Several of the dictionary sub-projects of the ALLEX project in its third phase have to do with term creation and establishment (within linguistics, musicology and various school subjects). Such projects could be viewed as controversial because they break with tradition, in introducing Shona and Ndebele as potential languages of science and scholarship. Therefore, these projects must be anchored in their various professional sectors in order to secure national legitimacy. These dictionaries need to be approved by professional experts and within the tertiary education sector, in order to be be recommended for use by students when they are published. 2004 has been a break through year in Zimbabwe in establishing and developing contacts within the different professional sectors, creating reference groups and developing a dialogue with them on concept analysis and rendering in Shona and Ndebele terms, and in short building national consensus behind not only the idea of dictionaries of special language, but the actual manuscripts under production.

While creating and running these reference groups has taken up a great deal of time and effort, this has also been the only way in which the sub-projects could be completed (cf point 1.1.2 above), as the (voluntary and unpaid) input from key memebers of these groups has been essential to manuscript production.

1.1.6 Please make a summary of the workplan for the coming year, regarding: (max 200 words)
- Research
- Sub-project(s)
- Candidate(s)
- Development of courses and/ or programmes
- Planned meetings
- Dissemination activities
Research comprises research tools (corpora, oral collections) products (dictionaries, databases) and dissemination (interactive web page).
Corpora: The corpus work is now in the hands of the UZ team, as planned for this project period. Focus is on their ability to manage the system and upgrade it at need.
Oral collections: Make demo of digitised sound/text-files, plus description of procedure for future work. Strengthen link to UZ Library (contact person missing after death of Caroline Rioga)Dictionaries: The focus of the coming year is on ensuring completion of sub-projects, especially the terminological dictionaries. The bulk of the field work and description is done, but a great deal of work remains within checking details, verifying findings and filling minor gaps. An important area has to do finding good examples to illustrate new terminology.
Web page: get model implemented and abvailable on the web in 2005. The ALLEX web page probably needs o be publiashed both from UiO and from UZ, as the UZ (for the time being) suffers from insufficient power supply and a general shortage of capacity.
Candidates: Emmanuel Chabata and Langa Khumalo will spend 2005 doing field work and field work analysis from UZ. Nomalanga Mpofu has been accepted for the Ph.D.-course at the Arts Faculty, UO, and will spend her first year at UO, doing course work and drafting 3-4 chapters of her dissertation.
Planned meetings: Two ALRI staff members, Gift Mheta and Jesta Masuku, will spend 3 months (February - April) as guest researchers at UO, working on the Shona Musical Terms Dictionary and the revision of the General Ndebele Dictionary. Daniel Ridings and Øyvind Eide will go to UZ (Harare) for a research visit 26.5.-3.6.05. Oddrun Grønvik and Christian-Emil Ore, and possibly others, will go for a research and administration visit in September 2005. The ALLEX team at UZ had their own inhouse workshop in Fabruary 2005. They will also carry on working with reference groups and informants and arrange whatever workshops they need in connection with that.

 

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROGRESS AND/ OR DEVIATION IN THE PROJECT

1.2.1a Does progress in the implementation of the project deviate from the project description?
Yes:
Project changes affect research tools, but not to the point of affecting research output, except in relation to one sub-project.
Corpus expansion (up to 5 mill words pr corpus) is unlikely to reach the preset goals, owing to manpower shortage.
One sub-project has been redefined and down-scaled (the Advanced Ndebele Dictionary), the rest will be completed according to plan.
All terminology projects have grown in depth and scope, and therefore have extended deadlines (within the project period 2002-6). See point 1.2.1b.
Within dissemination activities, republishing important works like Doke's report, with a scholarly introduction, is something the ALLEX project will continue to do so far as it is able. This is especially important as part of the boosting of Shona and Ndebele as languages for scholarship.

1.2.1b Does progress in the implementation of the project deviate from the workplan?
Yes:
The terminological dictionaries have grown in size and complexity compared with the original plan. They will be published before the project ends in 2006, but not as early as originally planned.
The corpora will be smaller than originally planned, but adequate for a) creating a corpus maintenance system, b) using the morphological parsers for language researhc purposes.
The plan for the Advanced Ndebele dictionary is now downscaled to a plan for a revised and somewhat expanded General Ndebele Dictionary, to be published before the ALLEX project ends in 2006.


1.3. RESULTS DURING THE YEAR WHICH MAY EXPOSE THE UTILITY VALUE OF THE PROJECT
The recently published Dictionary of biomedical terms fulfils an urgent need in improving health services and facilitating communication about health issues in Shona.

The re-publication in 2004 of The Essays on Shona dialects (ed. Fortune) made it possible to run the UZ course on the same topic - as all the the existing copies of this text book in the UZ library were worn out, missing pages etc.

In general, the terminological projects have given greater impetus to teaching (African languages, musicology) not only at UZ but at all the institutions involved, because the reference group work generates reflection and inspires new thinking among the participating teachers and researchers.

The ALRI team has in 2004 been approached by junior academics from other subjects, f.i. physics, who want to contribute or to start similar terminological work within their own fields, because they are convinced that improved teaching will be the result.

1.4 SYNOPSIS
The objective of phase 3 is to make African Languages Research Institute(ALRI) at the University of Zimbabwe sustainable through competence building and co-operation with parallell academic institutions in the ALLEX Project and within the region, specifically by
· producing corpora, dictionaries, terminological glossaries and other ICT language products for Shona, Ndebele, and one other local language
· testing out models for monolingual lexicography on languages with differing structures
· developing software within lexicography and linguistics for analysis of languages with differing structures
· improving staff competence and research within lexicography, computational linguistics and mother tongue linguistics in all co-operating departments, through scholarships, workshops, guest researchers etc
· starting a Ph.D. level research training programme within linguistics at UZ
· ensuring presentations and publications by the ALLEX Project team through conference participation and seminars
· creating and maintaining viable professional environments for lexicography and computational linguistics at the partner institutions which make it possible for them to aim at a leading position within their fields.
· furthering North-South and South-South co-operation within lexicography, with a view to professional independence at UZ and co-operation on equal terms with parallel institutions within and outside the region
· starting work on creating a research tools base at UZ for the study of Zimbabwe's African Languages through conserving (through photography) former scholarly works on these languages
 

2. RESEARCHERS


First and middle name Oddrun
Last name Grønvik
Gender Female
E-mail oddrun.gronvik@iln.uio.no
Position Researcher
Degree Cand. Phil.
Home institution University of Oslo
Status Continuing

First and middle name Christian Emil
Last name Ore
Gender Male
E-mail c.e.s.ore@edd.uio.no
Position Reseacher, academic leader Enhet for Digital Dokumentasjon
Degree Dr. Scient.
Home institution University of Oslo
Status Continuing

First and middle name Lars Jørgen
Last name Tvedt
Gender Male
E-mail l.j.tvedt@edd.uio.no
Position Senior engineer
Degree Cand. Scient.
Home institution University of Oslo
Status Continuing

First and middle name Herbert
Last name Chimhundu
Gender Male
E-mail chimhundu@arts.uz.ac.zw
Position Director, Professor African Languages
Degree D. Phil.
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Continuing

First and middle name Esau
Last name Mangoya
Gender Male
E-mail emangoya@arts.uz.ac.zw
Position Research Fellow
Degree M.A
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Continuing

First and middle name Emmanuel
Last name Chabata
Gender Male
E-mail echabata@arts.uz.ac.zw
Position Research Fellow
Degree M.A
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Continuing

First and middle name Nomalanga
Last name Mpofu
Gender Female
E-mail nomalanga.mpofu@inl.uio.no
Position Research Fellow
Degree M.A
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Continuing

First and middle name Langa
Last name Khumalo
Gender Male
E-mail langa@arts.uz.ac.zw
Position Research Fellow
Degree MPhil
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Continuing

First and middle name Gift
Last name Mheta
Gender Male
E-mail gmheta@yahoo.com
Position Staff development fellow
Degree M.A. African Languages and Literature
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Continuing

First and middle name Nobuhle
Last name Moyo
Gender Female
E-mail noxy_auree20042002@yahoo.com
Position Research Assistant
Degree B. A. Hons African Languages and Literature
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Continuing

First and middle name Øyvind
Last name Eide
Gender Male
E-mail oyvind.eide@muspro.uio.no
Position Senior engineer
Degree Cand. Phil.
Home institution University of Oslo
Status Continuing

First and middle name Rolf
Last name Theil
Gender Male
E-mail rolf.theil@iln.uio.no
Position professor Department of Linguistic and Nordic Studies
Degree Ph.D.
Home institution University of Oslo
Status Continuing

First and middle name Kumbirai
Last name Mkanganwi
Gender Male
E-mail
Position Senior Lecturer
Degree Ph.D.
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Continuing

First and middle name Caroline
Last name Rioga
Gender Female
E-mail
Position Head of Section for Special Collections, University Lubrary
Degree MA
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Discontinued

First and middle name Peniah
Last name Mabaso
Gender Female
E-mail
Position Research Assistant
Degree BA
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Continuing

First and middle name William
Last name Zivenge
Gender Male
E-mail zivenge@arts.uz.ac.zw
Position Research Assistant
Degree BA Honours
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Continuing

First and middle name Deon
Last name Nkomo
Gender Male
E-mail deeof@yahoo.co.uk
Position Research Assistant
Degree BA Honours
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Status Continuing

First and middle name Daniel
Last name Ridings
Gender Male
E-mail daniel.ridings@edd.uio.no
Position Researcher
Degree Ph. D. Classical languages
Home institution University of Oslo
Status Continuing

 

3. RESEARCH SUB-PROJECTS


Title Linguistic and literary terms dictionary
Start July-2002
End December-2005
Description A Shona dictionary of linguistic and literary terms of ca 150-200 pages, 1500 headwords, with full and detailed definitions in Shona and glosses in English, for students and researchers.

The purpose is to facilitate the transition to Shona as a medium of instruction in tertiary studies of African languages in Zimbabwe.
The number of current headwords: 1378 (200 added). Definitions: 1146 (700 added). Manuscript in pages: 81 (50 pages added in 2004).

During 2004 the work of consolidating this dictionary by cooperating closely with reference groups at tertiary education colleges in UZ, who are also anxious to contribute has continued, and it is now seen as an important natinal project that all important institutions have a share in.
Database designed by C. E. S. Ore, UO.
Editors and SRAs will continue work with a view to finishing the maunscript before the July 2005, and processing for publication will take place in the autumn of 2005.
Responsible: H. Chimhundu, UZ; Oddrun Grønvik, UO.
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

Yes:
No.


Title Duramazwi reChiShona (revised edition)
Start January-2002
End June-2006
Description The Duramazwi reChiShona was first published in 1996 and has been printed twice in a total of 7500 copies. As it is still not out of print, the revised edition is postponed to 2006, and comes second in priority to the Dictionary of linguistic and literary terms, cf sub project xxx

Responsible: H. Chimhundu, UZ, C. E. S. Ore UO.
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

No


Title Musical terms dictionaries
Start January-2002
End June-2005
Description The aim is to produce two parallel volumes of roughly 100 pages each (one for Shona and one for Ndebele), for the use of students and teachers at colleges and secondary schools, and for the general user. English will be integrated through indices.
The Shona Musical Terms Dictionary for has in 2004 been edited by Gift Mheta.
The Ndebele Musical Terms Dictionary for was edited by Cornelias Ncube until August 2004, when he left the ALLEX project at very short notice, cf point 1.1.2 above. The Ndebele MTD is now handled by Research Assistant (and M. Phil scholar) Dion Nkomo at ALRI, with the support of coeditors Mr N.N.Sibanda and Mr G. Mpofu, both at Joshua Mqabuko MKomo Polytechnic, Gwanda.
At the ALLEX workshop in March 2004, an initiative was strengthen ties to a professional reference group for the work on the musical terms dicionaries, and contact with the Music academi of Zimbabwe was established. This reference group is large and has been very active. Thanks to their efforts and that of the editor the Shona MTD will be ready for publication in 2005.
The definition formats were standardised in 2004, with detailed check lists for each term group to ensure consistency in the content description of each term.
Work on the MTDs has overall gone very well in 2004, and the Shona MTD is approaching the stage of final revision.
The Shona MTD editor will come to UO for a three month stay early in 2005 to finalise the manuscript for publication.
Shona MTD: 1492 headwords (250 added), 1071 defined (320 added). 68 pages of text encoded.
Ndebele MTD: 1227 headwords (380 added), 1209 defined (656 added). ca 76 pages of text encoded.

The illustrations for the dictionary are done, cf sub project Image Corpus.
Responsible: Database design and follow up by C. E. S. Ore, UO. Terminological issues, Oddrun Grønvik, UO. Shona MTD: Gift Mheta, UZ. Ndebele MTD: , UZ.
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

Yes:
No


Title General Ndebele dictionary (revised and expanded)(formerly Advanced Ndebele Dictionary)
Start January-2003
End December-2006
Description The AND Style Manual was finished in January 2003, but is now being revised in view of the changed aim, see above. The General Ndebele dictionary (revised and expanded) now has 22718 headwords (300 added in 2004)(target: 25 000) and 21544 definitions. This will mean adding 2-5 000 new entries. Roughly 3000 empty entries are left over from the first edition. they are mostly old words that are known, but not properly documented, and may finally be omitted. The planned expansion is directed towards fulfilling school needs in particular.

The revised and expanded GND will be ready for publication by the end of 2006. Jesta Masuku, who was on the staff for the GND first edition, has undertaken the editorial work in cooperation with the remaining Ndebele team. Jesta Masuku, formerly of the Department of african Languages, UZ, is now a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at ALRI.

Responsible: Jesta Masuku (standing in for L. Khumalo); database design and follow up by C. E. S. Ore.
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

Yes:
in 2004 it was decided to abandon the large AND owing to staffing difficulties, cf point xx, and last year's Annual report. It is viewed as extremely important that all sub-projects are properly finished by the end of 2006. Therefore, instead of leaving a larger AND unfinished, the GND will be revised and expanded and be ready for publication before the end of 2006.


Title Image corpus for the African languages of Zimbabwe
Start January-2002
End December-2006
Description The Zimbabwean artist, Mr. A. Chikwenya, has made 15 full page illustrations for the Biomedical terms dicionary, and finalised illustrations for the Musical Terms dictionaries.

Responsible: Shona and Ndebele team leaders at ALRI, Øyvind Eide, UO.
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

No


Title The Shona and Ndebele Bible
Start June-2002
End June-2004
Description The Shona Bible is available for inclusion in the corpus. The Ndebele Bible is not yet ready, for capacity reasons.
Including the Shona and Ndebele Bibles is the corpus will give the ALLEX Project a parallell corpus, which is a good starting point for bilingual lexicography.
Responsible: Ndebele team leader at UZ, Daniel Ridings, UO
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

Yes:
No.


Title Expanding and polishing the Shona and Ndebele corpora
Start January-2002
End December-2006
Description Owing to staff shortage (cf 1.1.2), very little new text has been added in 2004.

Ndebele corpus: Some additional materials collected in 2003 have been transcribed.


Responsible: Shona and Ndebele team leaders, UZ, Daniel Ridings and Oddrun Grønvik, UO
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

Yes:
If plans for the Advanced Ndebele Dictionary had gone forward as originally planned, there would have been an acute need for corpus expansion for Ndebele. As the AND plans have been shelved in favour of a revised GND, the need for corpus expansion is less pressing. For Shona, a large corpus is less important at this stage, where the focus is on special language. For general research purposes, a larger corpus is needed.


Title Oral collections database
Start January-2002
End June-2004
Description 1. Oral Collections registry database.
The collections fall into to parts, materials collected in phase 1 and 2 (audio tapes, paper transcripts) and collections from 2003 onwards (digital sound recording, trancript into electronic file)

Some of the missing items were digitized in 2004, but there are still
some finalization left in order to have a complete record of all
digitized versions and a list of which recordings are missing or
damaged in analog (cassette) form so that no digital version have been
created.

A complete version of the database of the recordings are made
availible on-site at ALRI premises for emplyees and visitors to
use. It is installed on the server and gives access to the records of
the tapes as well as the actual sound files at all of the PCs at the institute network.

Maintaining research tools like the oral collections database is a longterm, routine task to be performed by highly qualified staff, which is essential to success for product-oriented sub-projects and to ALRIs agenda outside the ALLEX Project.
Responsible: Mai Timbe, UZ, Øyvind Eide and C. E. S. Ore, UO.
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

No


Title Shona and Ndebele grammatical parsers
Start January-2002
End June-2004
Description Work on the Shona and Ndebele morphological parser was started by Dr Ridings, and has been carried on in with assistance from ALRI staff members from both teams. Work on the Ndebele morphological parser started in 2001.
The Shona morphological parser was put on the web in 2003 (http://folk.uio.no/danielr/shona-morphology.html). The Ndebele parser was put on the web at ALRI in March 2004, and will shortly be made generally accessible from UiO.

Responsible: Shona and Ndebele team leaders, UZ; Daniel Ridings, UO.
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

No


Title Encoding the remaining oral materials (1993-97)
Start January-2002
End December-2003
Description For Ndebele, the remaining oral materials collected in phase 2 are now encoded and are being tagged at ALRI. 78 files have been added in 2003. Some major historical works and the Ndebele Bible are being scanned for corpus inclusion.
For Shona, the remaining oral materials have been encoded, but proofreading and tagging remain (labour consuming) stumbling blocks.
68 files have been added in 2003. The Shona Bible has also been added to the corpus.
Responsible: Nomalanga Mpofu, UZ, Daniel Ridings, UO.
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

No


Title ALLEX web page
Start June-2003
End December-2004
Description In 2003, the ALLEX Project started planning how to organise its publications, collections and research tools for presentation through an interactive web page (located at UZ and UO and run internationally from UO for the time being).
Rationale:
The ALLEX Project now has produced three finished dictionaries from phase 1-2, two corpora and two morphological parsers. The oral materials have been digitised and samples can be made accessible.
In addition ALRI has published its first terminological dictionary (outside the ALLEX Project) A Dictionary of Medical terms.
The ALLEX Project has also photographed (and prepared photographic reprints) of three important works of Shona philology, i.e. C.M.Doke, (1931): "Report on the Unification of Shona Dialects"; Fortune et al, ca 1970) "Essays on Shona Dialects", and H. Chimhundu (manuscript 1983; photographic reprint 2002): "Adoption and Adaptation in Shona". All of these extremely rare books can be made available on the web.
Information on the project, publications etc will also be presented through this web page.
This sub project is inspired by the cooperation between the UZ University Library and ALRI.
Responsible: Gift Mheta and Justice Chikomwe, ALRI; Mrs Caroline Rioga, UZ Library (until April 2004); Øyvind Eide, UO.
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

No


Title African Linguistics Research Conservation
Start June-2002
End December-2006
Description In 2004, The following got done:
Essays on Shona Dialects (ed. G. Fortune) was reissued in a reprint of 100 facsimile copies.

Doke's Report on the unification of Shona has been prepared for publication, and a full Introduction with a Shona summary (75 pages) written by professor Chimhundu.

Samukele Hadebe has handed in his dissertation for publication with a five page Ndebele summary.

Caroline Rioga sadly passed away in the spring of 2004 and has not been replaced.

Responsible: H. Chimhundu (ALRI); Oddrun Grønvik (UO).
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

No


Title Researcher training
Start January-2003
End December-2006
Description The purpose of this sub-project is to ensure that ALRI UZ has the necessary competence in computational linguistics after 2006 to carry on without outside support.
In 2002, The ALLEX Project invited applications from all interested and qualified candidates for three Ph. D. scholarships in computational linguistics, with topics from Zimbabwe's African languages. The applicants had to be prepared to do preliminary training in order to qualify for Ph. D. studies at UO (sandwich programme). Applicants were assessed and ranked by a UZ committee with members from outside ALRI. The three candidates who ranked the highest were all ALRI staff members, cf candidates' list. The three selected candidates applied for places in UO Arts Faculty Ph. D. Programme in the spring of 2003. Two were accepted (June 2003), one was turned down but encouraged to work more on the project description.
Emmanuel Chabata and Langa Khumalo took up their places at UiO in January 2004, and went hom for their middle year at UZ in December 2004.
Emmanuel Chabata got a Norwegian quota scholarship from January 2004. Books, field work, conferences etc are financed by the ALLEX Project. Langa Khumalo was financed by the project from January 2004, but was informed before the end of the year that he has a quota sacholarship from January 2005 onwards. Books, field work, conferences etc will continue to be financed by the ALLEX Project.
While at UiO, both completed the coursework required by UiO and gained the 20 points they needed.
Emmanuel Chabata has worked closely with his UiO supervisors Dr Ridings and Professor Theil, and has drafted five chapters of his dissertation. He has started preparations for his field work, i.e. has his Nambya materials organised in a small corpus and started preparing questionnaires for field work.
Langa Khumalo has worked closely with his UiO supervisors Dr Ridings and Professor Theil, and has drafted four chapters of his dissertation. He has planned his field work for the middle year at UZ and made some further preparations.
Nomalanga Mpofu submitted a reworked application in february 2004. She was accepted as a participant in the UiO Arts Faculty Ph.D. progamme and will come to Norway to take up her place in January 2005. She will be financed by the ALLEX Project, but will renew her Quota Programme application for 2005.
Joint supervisors for all three are Dr Kumbirai Mkanganwi (UZ); professor Rolf Theil and Dr Daniel Ridings (UO). Contact person UO, Oddrun Grønvik.
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

No


Title Shona Children's Dictionary (SCD)
Start January-2004
End June-2006
Description The Shona Children's Dictionary (working title: SCD) is the last of the three general Shona dictrionaries under the ALLEX Project, the previous being thew Duramazwi rechishona (1996) and the Diramazwi Guru ReChishona (2001).

The SCD will be a dictionary for children aged 10 to 14, containing not more than 15000 headwords, and adapted for the age group. There will be less formal detail, less cross referencing, rendering of grammatical information in full, more focus on definitions and usage examples, presented for the age group in question. This dictionary will specifically aim at assisting in school work, and this will show in the headword selection. A certain amount of term creation in cooperation with teachers is necessary. Reference groups of teachers and personell at Zimbabwean teacher training colleges are particularly important for the success of this dictionary.

The style Manual is based on the Style Manuals for the former Shona general dictionaries, with necessary emendations for the target group. At the end of 2004, the SCD had 14700 headwords, 5220 entries defined and the manuscript ran to 266 pages.

The UZ editorial staff worked at UO as guest researchers 15.9. - 12.12.2004, and essential progress on the SCD was made in this period.

Responsible: Editor UZ Esau Mangoya. Editorial assistant UZ Peniah Mabaso. UO: Oddrun Grønvik. Database: Christian-Emil Ore, UO.
Status Continuing

Does progress in the development and implementation of the research sub-project deviate from the project
description in the NUFU Project Document?

No



 
4. CANDIDATES

candidate

First and middle name Nomalanga
Last name Mpofu
Gender Female
E-mail nomalanga.mpofu@inl.uio.no
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Connection to home institution Permanent
Degree to be pursued Ph.D
Degree to be awarded by University of Oslo
Study period 2005 - 2006
Training model Sandwich
Status Enrolled
Finance NUFU
Main discipline area Humanities
Sub discipline area 010 Linguistics and Languages
Thesis A COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE SHONA NOUN PHRASE
Executive summary of thesis work The proposed project will look at adjective in Shona. An adjective has been defined as a word that modifies of qualifies a noun. Definitions of the adjective in Shona have been from the structural angle and as such not many adjectives have been identified for Shona. The study will show that there are other word categories that can function adjectivally though they may not be true adjectives in form. The study’s contribution to knowledge will be its redefinition of the adjective in Shona. The study will also define word class categorization versus grammatical function. The project will be corpus-driven and it will make use of the ALLEX-ALRI Shona corpus for its raw data. The study will use of the Cognitive Grammar theoretical framework. Cognitive grammar takes categorisation as its central principle. Cognitive models such as prototypicality, family resemblances and markedness will inform this study.
Student report Nomalanga Mpofu submitted a reworked application to the Ph.D. Programme for Linguistics at the Arts Faculty UiO in february 2004. She was accepted as a participant in the UiO Arts Faculty Ph.D. Progamme in June 2004, and will come to Norway to take up her place in January 2005. She will be financed by the ALLEX Project, but will renew her Quota Programme application for 2005.
Nomalanga Mpofus three-year course will take her up to the end of 2007.
Supervisor UiS Senior Lecturer Mr Kumbirai Mkanganwi, Department of Linguistics, University of Zimbabwe
Supervisor UiN 1 Professor Rolf Theil Endresen, Department of Linguistics, University of Oslo 2 Dr. Daniel Ridings, DOK, Arts Faculty, University of Oslo

candidate

First and middle name Emmanuel
Last name Chabata
Gender Male
E-mail echabata@arts.uz.ac.zw
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Connection to home institution Permanent
Degree to be pursued Ph.D
Degree to be awarded by University of Oslo
Study period 2004 - 2006
Training model Sandwich
Status Enrolled
Finance Quota programme
Main discipline area Humanities
Sub discipline area 010 Linguistics and Languages
Thesis DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY OF THE NAMBYA VERB
Executive summary of thesis work The proposed study is in the area of morphology. Specifically, the study focuses on the derivational morphology of the verb in Nambya, one of the indigenous ‘minority’ languages spoken in Zimbabwe. Nambya is closely related to Shona (the researcher’s mother tongue) in a number of ways, such that, at one point, Doke (1931) treated it as an ‘unimportant’ dialect of Shona. According to Hachipola (1998:66), over fifty thousand people who are physically located in Hwange district in Matebeleland North (north-western Zimbabwe) province speak Nambya. The proposed study seeks to discover ways in which Nambya verbs are built and/or structured. It will explore and expose the internal structure of the Nambya verb and will show how derivational processes relevant to the verb work in this language. The research will also explore and expose semantic and/or syntactic changes that are caused by respective derivational operations on the Nambya verb. Examples of the sort of questions to be addressed on the nature of the verb stem in Nambya include: (a) where does each derivational affix occur in the stem and with which functions? and (b) which suffixes co-occur and in which orders? In addressing such questions, the researcher will use an approach that takes into consideration morphological, semantic as well as syntactic factors. The assumption adopted here is that in Nambya, like in many other Bantu languages with complex morphologies, affixes may not be combined freely, but rather are subject to different kinds of sequential constraints.
Student report Emmanuel Chabata took up his place at UiO in January 2004, and went home for their middle year at UZ in December 2004.
He got a Norwegian Quota scholarship from January 2004. Books, field work, conferences etc will continue to be financed by the ALLEX Project.
While at UiO, Emmanuel Chabata completed the coursework required by UiO and gained the 20 points he needed.
Emmanuel Chabata has worked closely with his UiO supervisors Dr Daniel Ridings and Professor Rolf Theil, and has drafted five chapters of his dissertation. He has started preparations for his field work, i.e. has his Nambya materials organised in a small corpus which is on the web (http://folk.uio.no/danielr/africanlang.html) and started preparing questionnaires for field work.
Supervisor UiS Senior Lecturer Mr Kumbirai Mkanganwi, Department of Linguistics, University of Zimbabwe
Supervisor UiN 1 Professor Rolf Theil, Department of Linguistics, University of Oslo 2 Dr. Daniel Ridings, DOK, Arts Faculty, University of Oslo

candidate

First and middle name Langa
Last name Khumalo
Gender Male
E-mail langa@arts.uz.ac.zw
Home institution University of Zimbabwe
Connection to home institution Permanent
Degree to be pursued Ph.D
Degree to be awarded by University of Oslo
Study period 2004 - 2006
Training model Sandwich
Status Enrolled
Finance NUFU
Quota programme
Main discipline area Humanities
Sub discipline area 010 Linguistics and Languages
Thesis A COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF NDEBELE MORPHOLOGY
Executive summary of thesis work The proposed study is in the area of morphology in general, which is viewed by Crystal (1991) as the branch of grammar, which studies the structure, or forms of words, primarily through the morpheme construct. The study specifically focuses on morphology which deals with the processing of words and word forms, in both their graphemic, that is, written form, and their phonemic, that is, spoken form. It has a wide range of practical applications. Natural languages have intricate systems to create words and word forms from smaller units in a systematic way. The study particularly focuses on two very productive morphological processes, which is Ndebele derivational and inflectional morphology.
Student report Langa Khumalo took up his place at UiO in January 2004, and went home for his middle year at UZ in December 2004.
Langa Khumalo was financed by the project from January 2004, but was informed before the end of the year that he has been granted a Norwegian Quota scholarship from January 2005 onwards. Books, field work, conferences etc will continue to be financed by the ALLEX Project.
While at UiO, he has completed the coursework required by UiO and gained the 20 points he needed.

Langa Khumalo has worked closely with his UiO supervisors Dr Daniel Ridings and Professor Rolf Theil, and has drafted four chapters of his dissertation. He has planned his field work for the middle year at UZ and made som further preparations.
Supervisor UiS Senior Lecturer Mr Kumbirai Mkanganwi, Department of Linguistics, University of Zimbabwe
Supervisor UiN 1 Professor Rolf Theil Endresen, Department of Linguistics, University of Oslo 2 Dr. Daniel Ridings, DOK, Arts Faculty, University of Oslo



 

5. TECHNICAL/ ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF




 

6. COURSES AND PROGRAMMES



 
7. PUBLICATIONS AND DISSEMINATIONS







 
Category: Article - Scholarly article
Author(s) Khumalo, Langa
Title: Language contact and Lexical Change: A terminological Interfacce in Zimbabwean Ndebele
Original title:
Original language:
Journal: Lexicos
Publishing year: 2004
Status: Published

 
Category: Article - Scholarly article
Author(s) Mpofu, Nomalanga
Title: Experiences and Challenges in the Compilation of a Shona-English Biomedical Terms Dictionary
Original title:
Original language:
Journal: LEXIKOS
Publishing year: 2004
Status: Not published

 
Category: Article - Scholarly article
Author(s) Mpofu, Nomalanga
Title: The Lemmatisation of Multi-word Lexical Units in Duramazwi Guru reChiShona
Original title:
Original language:
Journal: Jalex
Publishing year: 2005
Status: Not published

 
Category: Article - Scholarly article
Author(s) Hadebe, Samukele
Title: The Ndebele Language Corpus: A Review of Some Factors Influencing the Content of the Corpus
Original title:
Original language:
Journal: Lexicos
Publishing year: 2002
Status: Published

 
Category: Article - Scholarly article
Author(s) Chimhundu,
Herbert,
Title: Handling Concerpts and Precision in Terminological Dictionaries
Original title:
Original language:
Journal: South African Journal of African Languages
Publishing year: 2004
Status: Not published

 
Category: Article - Scholarly article
Author(s) Chimhundu,
Herbert,
Title: "Language Medium and Ethinobased Leraning: Ideal Reality and Compromise"
Original title:
Original language:
Status: Not published

 
Category: Article - Popular science article
Author(s) Mangoya ,
Esau,
Title: Diglosic Principles in Shona Lexicography
Original title:
Original language:
Journal: Southern African Apllied Linguistics Association
Publishing year: 2004
Status: Not published

 
Category: Article - Scholarly article
Author(s) Mangoya ,
Esau,
Title:
Original title:
Original language:
Journal: Southern African Applied Linguistics Association
Publishing year: 2004
Status: Not published


Category: Book - Reference book
Author(s): Mpofu, Nomalanga
Chimhundu, Herbert
Mangoya, Esau
Chabata, Emmanuel
Title: Duramazwi Reurapi Neutano
Original title:
Original language:
Publisher: Mambo Press & the ALLEX Project, African Languages Research Institute
Publishing place : Gweru, Zimbabwe
Publishing year : 2004
ISBN: 0 86922 784 X
Summary: The dictionary of biomedical terms has ca 800 terms from both modern and traditional medical practices. The dictionary has a first section with Shona headwords and English equivalents with definitions. The second section is a reverse index in English. The aim of the dictionary is to provide a communication tool between the younger Zimbabwean doctor and his/her patient. There is a need for doctors and patients to communicate better so that patient expectations are better fulfilled in consultation. At present, Zimbabwean doctors train in English, while their patients use indigenous languages. A majority uses Shona. Quite often, there is also an age gap between doctor and patient, since some of the doctors would be young and fresh from medical school, while the majority of patients are older and have a country background. Therefore, cultural nuances in speaking of illness are often missed by the younger generation of doctors.

The purpose of this dictionary is to address the communication differences described above. The dictionary will also contribute to standardising biomedical terminology in Shona, and facilitate discussion of health issues in Shona. The targeted users of the dictionary are both health professionals and the general public.
Status: Published

Category: Book - Collection of articles
Author(s): Fortune, George
Mkanganwi, Kumbirai G.
Dembetembe, Norris C.
Knappert, Jan
Title: Essays on Shona Dialects
Original title:
Original language:
Publisher: The ALLEX Project - ALRI, UZ - Department of Scandinavian Studies and General Literature, UO
Publishing place : Oslo
Publishing year : 2004
ISBN: 82 90954 26 3
Summary: This volume is a collection of essays that describe and compare features of the Shona dialects.
The essays were written during the 1970s as course notes for students by staff in the Department of African Languages and Literature at the University of Zimbabwe. The original pages are reproduced as a photographic reprint in book form.

These essays are still in use as teaching materials, the primary user group being students of African languages at university level. It is hoped that a wider circulation of this book will inspire Zimbabwean linguists to go back and attack the study of Shona dialects again, and in their turn present fuller descriptions that do justice to the richness of each dialect in terms of vocabulary, phonology, morphology and syntax.
Status: Published

Category: Lecture - Popular scientific speech
Author(s): Grønvik, Oddrun
Chimhundu, Herbert
Title: Lexicography in Zimbabwe
Original title:
Original language:
Arrangement: Sharing Experiences and Visions. Planning for a new NUFU phase
Type of arrangement : NUFU Seminar
Publishing place : Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
Date : 8-10,11.2004
Published : No
Referee : No

Category: Lecture - Scholarly lecture
Author(s): Masuku, Jesta
Title: COMPILING A BIOMEDICAL TERMS LEXICON IN AFRICAN LANGUAGES:A TRANSLATOR'S
Original title:
Original language:
Arrangement: THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PRESERVING AFRICAN LANGUAGES
Type of arrangement : Linguistics conference
Publishing place : THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND EASTERN SHORE
Date : 4.-7.11.2004
Published : No
Referee : Yes

Category: Lecture - Scholarly lecture
Author(s): Mheta, Gift
Title: Problems and challlenges Encountered by the African Languages Research Institute in the Compilation of a Trilingual Dictionary of Musical Terms
Original title:
Original language:
Arrangement: Interim Conference of the African Languages 2004
Type of arrangement : Linguistics conference
Publishing place : National University of Lesotho
Date : July 2004
Published : No
Referee : Yes

Category: Lecture - Scholarly lecture
Author(s): Mabaso ,
Peniah,
Title:
Original title:
Original language:
Publishing place : National University of Lesotho
Published : No
Referee : Yes

Category: Lecture -
Author(s): Chimhundu,
Herbert,
Title: The Handiling of Idiomatic Senses and Expressions: Problems and Solutions
Original title:
Original language:

Category: Product - Software
Author(s): Ridings, Daniel
Title: Shona Morphology
Original title:
Original language:
Publisher ALLEX Project UO
Publishing year : 2004
Summary : At the end of Phase 2 initial work for creating parsers was completed, in tagging in detail a model corpus of 100 000 running words for Shona. The parser will in Phase 3 be expanded with rulebased grammar and disambiguated, and testing out will be finished. The aim is to create a tool for
a) identifying word forms in the language in question,
b) through this, documenting the grammar of the language more thoroughly than what has till now been possible,
c) preparing the ground for automatic spellcheckers etc.
The parser is meant to function as a grammatical model for other Zimbabwean languages to be documented.

Category: Product - Software
Author(s): Ridings, Daniel
Title: Ndebele Morphology
Original title:
Original language:
Publisher The ALLEX Project
Publishing year : 2004
Summary : At the end of Phase 2 initial work for creating parsers was completed, in tagging in detail a model corpus of 100 000 running words for Ndebele. The parser will in Phase 3 be expanded with rulebased grammar, and testing out will be finished. The aim is to create a tool for
a) identifying word forms in the language in question,
b) through this, documenting the grammar of the language more thoroughly than what has till now been possible,
c) preparing the ground for automatic spellcheckers etc.
The Ndebele parser is meant to function as a grammatical model for other Zimbabwean languages to be documented.
 

8. FULL FINANCIAL REPORT/ STATEMENT OF ACCOUNT

8.1 Statement of accounts
Amounts in NoK ( 1000 = 1000) .

The total accounts UiS+ UiN can not exceed total budget for the year
  Total budget
UiS+UiN
2004		 Total accounts
UiS
2004		 Total accounts
UiN
2004		 Total accounts
UiS + UiN
2004
Research 1226580 732000 674445 1406445
Ph.D Fellowship 280000 261748 261748
Development of new courses/ programmes
Sum Ph.D Activities 280000 261748 261748
Master scholarship 0
Development of new courses/ programmes 0
Sum Master activies 0
Training of technical/ admin staff 6643 40000 46643
Publication and dissemination 30000
Other collaborative activities 30000
Project management UiS 1744    
Project management UiN 120000   60000 61744
Sub-total project costs 1686580 740387 1036193 1776580
Project adm. costs UiS 80000    
Project adm. costs UiN 80000   70000 70000
Total budget/ accounts 1846580 740387 1106193 1846580


8.2 Balance
Balance transferred from last year 203494 352508 556002
Allocation from NUFU( 2004)   1290578  
Transferred from UiN to UiS 766345 766345  
Total available amount 969839 876741  
Total Accounts UiS / UiN 740387 1106193  
Balance 31.12 229452 -229452  
Total Balance UiS + UiN 0
Return to Nufu 0
Balance 0

 
*Total balance UiS + UiN will be transferred to the next years budget by filling in 0 in the column "Return to NUFU"

Revised budget
  Accounts
2002		 Accounts
2003		 Accounts
2004		 Budget
2005		 Budget
2006		 Budget
 Total
Research 934144 987113 1406445 1140000 750000
Ph.D Fellowship 90433 7809 261748 275000 185977
Ph.D Development of new courses
/programmes		 16145
Sum Ph.D Activities 106578 7809 261748 275000 185977
Master Scholarship 0 0
Master Development of new courses
/programmes		 0 0
Sum Master Activities 0 0
Training of technical/ adm. staff 12253 2884 46643
Publication and Dissemination 30920 200000 30000
Other collaborative activities 30000
Project management UIS 24889 1744 60000 60000
Project management UIN 23661 83000 60000 60000 60000
Sub- Total project costs 1132445 1080806 1776580 1735000 1115977
Project adm. costs UIS 49192 70000 75000
Project adm. costs UIN 70000 80000 70000 70000 75000
Sum Admin. costs 70000 129192 70000 140000 150000
Total 1202445 1209998 1846580 1875000 1265977 7400000

Comments to the budget and/ or accounts.

Budget is divided equally between UZ and UO, except for the cost of Ph.D.-scholarships, NOK 275 000, which is carried by UiN alone.

Please specify next year budget for UIS:
800000

Please specify next year budget for UIN:
1075000

Signatures:

The UiN responsible co-ordinator and the UiN responsible central adm. unit confirm
via signatures that total accounts UiS is in correspondance with signed financial
report/ statement of accounts received from UiS.

The UiN responsible co-ordinator and the Finance Department/ Bursars Office
confirms via signature that total accounts UiN is in correspondance with
the official project account at UiN.

Date..........................UiN Co-ordinator...................................................................................

Date..........................UiN Responsible central administrative unit...........................................................

Date..........................UiN Financial Dept. / Burser's Office...................................................................................


 
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