Strategies for Lexical Expansion in Naro

Abstract

Most of the minority languages in Botswana are gradually shifting to the dominant ones due to extensive borrowing, as their lexicons are heavily inundated by words from the dominant languages. This paper discusses lexical expansion and semantic extension in Naro (a Central Khoesan language spoken around Ghanzi area in Botswana).Through external lexical expansion, Naro has borrowed extensively from Setswana, Sekgalagadi, Afrikaans, and English and domesticated the words borrowed from these languages. It is also noted that Naro has enriched its vocabulary through semantic narrowing, semantic expansion and semantic shift. In general, the data shows that borrowing constitutes 70% of the lexical resources of the language, while compounding and semantic expansion constitute 19% and 11% respectively. Furthermore, it shows that borrowing in Naro is very prominent in domestic and technology domains.