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language. Also, code switching is not limited to major grammatical categories, but<br />

occasionally occurs with grammatical function words as well. Two examples which are<br />

common include <strong>the</strong> French word mais ‘but’ <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> Lingala word te ‘not’.<br />

1.5 Dialects<br />

Dialectal variation is <strong>of</strong>ten reflected in geographical dispersion, <strong>and</strong> amongst <strong>the</strong><br />

Mono people, this is indeed <strong>the</strong> case. One example <strong>of</strong> phonological variation occurs<br />

between <strong>the</strong> Bili <strong>and</strong> Bub<strong>and</strong>a dialects. Often (but not in all cases), a word containing in<br />

<strong>the</strong> Bili dialect has a corresponding i <strong>the</strong> <strong>the</strong> Bub<strong>and</strong>a dialect, e.g. @ @ @ @ vs. @ @ @ @ <br />

<br />

‘field’,<br />

(@ (@ (@ (@ vs. (@ (@ (@ (@ <br />

<br />

‘to read’, C C C C vs. C CC C <br />

<br />

‘neck’. Occasionally lexical items will be borrowed<br />

from a language which is in geographic proximity. For example, <strong>the</strong> Galaba dialect <strong>of</strong><br />

Mono has borrowed <strong>the</strong> words J=>A J=>A J=>A J=>A ‘rock’ <strong>and</strong> == == == == ‘dry season’ from <strong>the</strong> nearby<br />

language Ngbaka-Ma’bo.<br />

Sociological factors may cause dialectal variation within a given geographical<br />

region. In <strong>the</strong> Bili region, <strong>the</strong> most salient <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se appears to be age. Many speakers <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>the</strong> Bili dialect differentiate between <strong>the</strong> speech <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> older <strong>and</strong> younger generations, but<br />

this appears to be more <strong>of</strong> a gradient ra<strong>the</strong>r than polar opposition, with <strong>the</strong> youngest<br />

generation being influenced <strong>the</strong> most by <strong>the</strong> influx <strong>of</strong> Lingala. For example, my 35-year-<br />

old language resource person would occasionally go to <strong>the</strong> elderly people to find out <strong>the</strong><br />

“real” Mono word for something, because he was accustomed to using a Lingala word<br />

instead. At <strong>the</strong> same time, he would bemoan <strong>the</strong> fact that <strong>the</strong> school children would mix<br />

Lingala in with <strong>the</strong>ir Mono.<br />

As mentioned before, <strong>the</strong> Bili dialect is <strong>the</strong> object <strong>of</strong> study in this dissertation. But<br />

more precisely, <strong>the</strong> four language resource persons with whom I worked most closely<br />

were all male speakers in <strong>the</strong>ir 30’s, residents <strong>of</strong> Bili, with at least a high school level <strong>of</strong><br />

education. In addition, all had traveled or lived to some extent outside <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Mono<br />

region.<br />

18

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