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Sense Relations in Dholuo: A Lexical Pragmatic Approach
Subject area: Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities · Area of research: Literature in English
DOI: 10.64388/IREV10I4-1724145
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to describe the sense relations obtaining in Dholuo using a lexical pragmatic approach. Drawing on linguistic evidence from native speakers, the paper provides a descriptive analysis of sense relations in a Western Nilotic language. The research was guided by lexical pragmatic theory and adopted a descriptive research design appropriate to the interpretation of qualitative data. Informants were identified through stratified random sampling in Siaya, Kisumu and Migori counties, and the data for analysis were drawn from the open class categories of words and elicited by questionnaire. Lexical items are interconnected through semantically motivated relationships that reveal how meaning is structured within the lexicon, and these relationships provide insight into patterns of collocation, formality, dialectal variation and borrowing, illustrating how words interact with one another and with grammatical structures in actual use. The study establishes three sense relations in Dholuo: synonymy, homonymy and polysemy. It finds that borrowed lexemes come closest to absolute synonymy, that collocational restriction is the principal factor differentiating otherwise equivalent synonyms, and that the interpretation of polysemous items depends on pragmatic narrowing conditioned by complement type and register. The findings are of use to students and professionals in linguistics, particularly those working on Nilotic languages, and to lexicographers of Dholuo.
Keywords
collocation; Dholuo; lexical pragmatics; lexicon; Nilotic languages; sense relations
How to cite this paper
@article{1724145,
author = {Nancy Achieng’ Anyim, Christine Namayi},
title = {Sense Relations in Dholuo: A Lexical Pragmatic Approach},
journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
year = {2026},
volume = {10},
number = {4},
pages = {3105-3114},
issn = {2456-8880},
url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1724145.pdf},
abstract = {The aim of this paper is to describe the sense relations obtaining in Dholuo using a lexical pragmatic approach. Drawing on linguistic evidence from native speakers, the paper provides a descriptive analysis of sense relations in a Western Nilotic language. The research was guided by lexical pragmatic theory and adopted a descriptive research design appropriate to the interpretation of qualitative data. Informants were identified through stratified random sampling in Siaya, Kisumu and Migori counties, and the data for analysis were drawn from the open class categories of words and elicited by questionnaire. Lexical items are interconnected through semantically motivated relationships that reveal how meaning is structured within the lexicon, and these relationships provide insight into patterns of collocation, formality, dialectal variation and borrowing, illustrating how words interact with one another and with grammatical structures in actual use. The study establishes three sense relations in Dholuo: synonymy, homonymy and polysemy. It finds that borrowed lexemes come closest to absolute synonymy, that collocational restriction is the principal factor differentiating otherwise equivalent synonyms, and that the interpretation of polysemous items depends on pragmatic narrowing conditioned by complement type and register. The findings are of use to students and professionals in linguistics, particularly those working on Nilotic languages, and to lexicographers of Dholuo.},
keywords = {collocation; Dholuo; lexical pragmatics; lexicon; Nilotic languages; sense relations},
month = {October},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV10I4-1724145}
}