LANGUAGE CONTACT IN TOGO: WHY THE BORROWING OF FRENCH CONNECTORS AND DISCOURSE MARKERS INTO KABƖYƐ?

Abstract

Abstract: This paper investigated on whether the connectors and discourses markers borrowed from French into Kabɩyɛ (A. Haloubiyou & E. AWIZOBA, 2024) have their equivalents in Kabɩyɛ or not; and if they do, what are the morphology and syntactic use of the Kabɩyɛ equivalents? What accounts for borrowing their French counterparts? The research relies on theorising by J Dubois (20212) and H. C. Hope (2016) about loanwords. Data analysis allowed us to identify the Kabɩyɛ equivalents of the said loanwords. Their morphological and syntactic analysis has shown that they have different internal structure; that these connectors link two independent clauses or an independent clause and a subordinate clause, while some of the discourse markers occur at the beginning of sentence and other at the end of sentence. The work has also revealed that the reasons for borrowing French connectors and discourse markers into Kabɩyɛ include the prestige of the French language as the colonial masters’ and official language in Togo, the non-mastering of Kabɩyɛ language by the younger generation of its speakers, and French-Kabɩyɛ code switching in the situation of bilingualism created by the contact of both languages. Keywords: borrowing, connectors and discourse markers, French, reasons, Kabɩyɛ equivalents