Awareness of an autonomous “Ikinyanshinga” in Kinyarwanda

Abstract

An autonomous “ikinyanshinga” has been revealed before by some researchers, and it is among the word categories in the Kinyarwanda language grammar. Scholars have described language patterns in Kinyarwanda, however, they still have not explored much more about the confusion that mostly arises between autonomous and some other parts of speech. this marks the objective of this study. To tie this break, this study applies Saussure's structuralism theory to identify the criteria based on when classifying words in Kinyarwanda. A purposive sampling technique was adopted, and convenience sampling was used for the online questionnaire. By using a comparative analysis with diverse reading materials and findings from respondents, this study exposes deep insights into autonomous misunderstanding and confusion with a conjugated verb. Accordingly, this study made us take time and discover all about this word class in Kinyarwanda, while addressing the question of word class formation in Kinyarwanda grammar, and determining the conditions that allow a given word to be put in any word class or part of speech. Recommendations were given to the language development and language planification, for the purpose of facilitating a holistic understanding of the Kinyarwanda language to fill a critical space in Kinyarwanda grammar analysis.