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South Africa is a former British colony. The British colonial influence expanded over a multitude of facets of a diverse South African community. Initially the English language as a vehicle of education was one of the major contributors to the idealised assimilation of the colonised people. After the Second Anglo-Boer war Lord Alfred Milner, British High Commissioner in South Africa, proclaimed in a letter to the Natal governor that it had been his policy "to make English indispensable in the future, and to prepare the rising generation for that state of affairs by practically compelling them to learn it, but to admit Dutch until the Anglicising process is consummated" (cf. Steyn, 2014:52). In 1961 the Union of South Africa was decolonised and became the Republic of South Africa. Decolonialisation of certain aspects of the South African society took place as a natural outcome. In 1994 an ANC government took over the rule of the country. For the first few years after 1994 changes concerning the South African society, according to the new constitution, took a natural cause. Round about 2016 emotions within specific sections of the community erupted because expectations for a new South Africa (that they imagined) had not been achieved. These beliefs related to the fact that the new South Africa was not as Afrocentric as they wished it to be. Skirmishes took place and slogans like #ScienceMustFall, #FeesMustFall, and #AfrikaansMustFall were often heard. All these slogans accumulated in the slogan #WhitenessMustFall. And the #WhitenessMustFall slogan linked intimately with the demand that South Africa had to be decolonialised because whiteness was associated with former colonists and colonialisation. In almost all the instances of the demands for decolonialisation the verb used was decolonise -- as if there were no difference between the meanings of the verbs decolonise and decolonialise. The point of view taken in this article is that there exists a definite difference between the meanings of the two verbs. The difference in the meanings of the two verbs is investigated against the background of theoretical linguistic findings. Firstly, lexical definitions from different dictionaries (Afrikaans, Dutch, German and English) of the relevant verbs and their derivates are scrutinised. It reveals that most of the dictionaries do not make a clear distinction between the different meanings. In some instances, a difference in meanings is only implicitly defined. It results in some confusion. To look for further clarification, a linguistic theoretical approach comes to the fore. Taylor (2002) distinguishes three general approaches to the study of meaning, namely the language-world approach, in which meaning is studied as the relationship between linguistic expressions and states of affairs in the world. Secondly, the language-internal approach, in which meaning is studied in terms of relations between expressions within a language, and thirdly, a conceptualist approach, in which the meaning of an expression is equated with a conceptualisation in the mind of a language user. The language-world approach is not applicable for the examination of the meaning of the relevant verbs; consequently, the scrutinisation is done from the perspective of the languageinternal approach and the conceptualist approach. Two linguistic phenomena, namely the grammatical category "aspect" and "conceptual blending" (or integration) are taken into consideration. According to Handke (2014) the "term aspect refers to a grammatical category which reflects the way in which the action denoted by the verb is regarded or experienced with respect to time." Lyons (1968:313) postulates that aspect refers to the distinction of "perfective" and "imperfective", within the meaning of the relevant verb, not with regard to the time of utterance. The analysis of the relevant verbs reveals that colonise and decolonise should be regarded to have perfect aspect, while colonialise and decolonialise exhibit imperfect (durative) aspect. Intricately linked to aspect, the conceptualist approach reveals that the meanings of the verbs colonise and colonialise blend with each other, the former referring to a process that comes to an end and the latter to the continuation of the instigated process referred to by using the verb colonise. In the remainder of the article conceptual differences in different languages are outlined. If one takes the claims of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) seriously, namely that "our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people" and "our conceptual system ... plays a central role in defining our everyday realities", then the question arises whether it is possible to decolonialise a country with eleven official languages (implicating different conceptual structures) if one of the languages (the colonial language English) is forced upon the peoples of the country -- in an effort to decolonialise. Therefore, the question arises whether genuine decolonialisation is only a myth? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Afrikaans verb system distinguishes between past, present and future tense, but is ambiguous with regard to aspectual interpretation. Whereas English has different formal ways to specify aspectual meaning (for example the differences between the past situations indicated by drank, has drunk, had drunk and was drinking) the het ge past tense can be used in Afrikaans for all four these aspectual past tense meanings (namely het gedrink). Afrikaans is therefore regarded as a non-aspectual language (cf. Bylund et al. 2013:932). The aspectually ambiguous nature of the Afrikaans verb system has a far-reaching effect on the manner in which the Afrikaans grammar in the Afrikaans academic literature is described or understood. Firstly, there is a view that the verbal form of Afrikaans is inadequate to express certain aspectual nuances and meanings in the same way as, for instance, English (cf. Brink 1976:93; De Villiers 1962:250; Du Toit 1940:250; Meyer 2010; Paul 2010; Visser 2012; Wybenga 1983:1). Secondly, expressions such as "easy", "simplified", "lacking a real system" and "problematic" have been used to describe temporal expression in Afrikaans (cf. Anon 2010; Britz 2002; De Villiers 1962:59). Some scholars even assume that Afrikaans "has no aspect" (cf. Van der Merwe 1968a:281). However, these statements are contentious as it is indeed possible to distinguish between different aspectual meanings in Afrikaans. Although verb inflection is not really used to make these distinctions, other linguistic strategies such as phrasal and lexical constructions can be employed. A possible reason for the above-mentioned views is the fact that Afrikaans aspectual expressions have not yet been researched or described adequately. In fact, since 1940, only ten Afrikaans publications on aspect have been published (cf. Breed 2012:7-14). However, in my opinion, these publications do not offer a good explanation of the different ways in which aspect can be expressed in Afrikaans, and therefore fail to contribute to a better understanding of aspectual expressions in Afrikaans. This article endeavours to fill the dual void by offering a general theoretical description of aspect in Afrikaans, and secondly by systematically presenting the different linguistic strategies that are used in Afrikaans to express aspectual meaning. By means of a search on the "Digitale Bibliografie van die Afrikaanse Taalkunde (DBAT)", ten Afrikaans publications were found that offer a theoretical description or definitions of aspect, i.e. Broos (1960), De Villiers (1942, 1948, 1951, 1962, 1968), Labuschagne (1968), Louw (1987), Potgieter (1982), Scholtz (1940), Van der Merwe (1968b), Van Niekerk (1997) Visser (1968) and Wybenga (1983). This literature is useful to form an overall conceptual framework of aspect in Afrikaans, and also to identify some aspectual expressions in Afrikaans. However, it is inadequate to serve as theoretical framework for the description of aspect in Afrikaans for the following reasons: The publications on Afrikaans aspect do not seem to have taken cognisance of contemporary international research findings on aspect in general. It is difficult to understand and distinguish the definitions and classifications of aspectual meanings made in the Afrikaans literature. There is little agreement between the definitions or classifications given in the different publications for the various aspectual meanings (e.g. the conative, causative, iterative, momental, punctual, ingressive and inchoative), and the description and classification of the perfective and imperfective meanings given in the relevant publications do not agree with contemporary international views on aspect (for example those of Binnick 1991; Bybee et al. 1994; Bybee 2003, Comrie 1976, 1985; Dahl 1985; Langacker 1991; McCawley 1971). I consider the classification and definitions offered in the literature for aspectual meanings in Afrikaans unclear, incongruous and mostly incompatible. Apart from some references to Lyons (1977) and Jespersen (1965), non-South African sources on aspect are seldom referred to. It is still not clear which constructs or methods are being used by Afrikaans speakers to express aspectual meaning. According to the received linguistic view of grammatical aspect, it has to do with the point of view from which a situation is perceived. A situation can be viewed from two perspectives. Firstly, it can be viewed as a whole, with the boundaries of the situation included, for example The dog drank the water. This approach is called the perfective aspect. Secondly, a situation can be viewed with a focus on the internal temporal structure of the situation, for example The dog is drinking the water. This approach is called the imperfective aspect. All other aspectual meanings, (for example the habitual aspect such as Elephants eat leaves or the frequentative aspect such as He visits her often) can be regarded as a subtype of one of these two aspectual distinctions. A further distinguishable temporal-aspectual construction, namely the perfect or the anterior, is also relevant to this discussion. The anterior does not stand as a structure in opposition to the perfective or imperfective, but involves multiple points in time and should therefore be dealt with slightly differently than simply to be categorised as grammatical aspect. The two terminologies, namely the perfective and the perfect are often confused with each other or treated as synonyms, but are inherently different. In some traditions, the perfect is rather regarded as a tense category (cf. Comrie 1976:52). The anterior specifies that a process in the past has an effect on a subsequent situation, as it results in a state situation. The expression does not reveal anything about the situation itself, but places the situation in a particular context. Further descriptions and classifications of subtypes are addressed in the article. Although Afrikaans does not use verb inflection to distinguish aspectual meaning as in English, five linguistic strategies are used to specify aspectual meaning, namely i) lexical constructions such as adverbs and conjunction; ii) affixation; iii) reduplication; iv). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Progressive aspect is a grammatical category which signifies that an event is continuing or taking place (Comrie 1976:33-36; Bybee et al. 1994:126). In two articles, this article and (Breed & Van Huyssteen 2014), we investigate the manner in which two periphrastic constructions, namely the VCOP besig om te V and the VCOP aan die V constructions, are used to express progressive meaning in Afrikaans. The discussions are based on a corpus investigation in which the three Afrikaans periphrastic progressive constructions (the two already mentioned) and the VPOS en V constructions are compared to each other (Breed 2012; Breed & Brisard 2015). Dutch has three similar constructions, and for this reason the constructions were also compared to the Dutch ones where relevant. Breed and Brisard (2015) explains how the VPOS en construction is used to express progressive meaning. In this article and in Breed and Van Huyssteen (2014) the focus is therefore on the specific manner in which the besig and aan die constructions are used as progressive markers. Grammaticalisation theory offers insight into the manner in which grammatical constructions develop. For this reason the origin, development and use of the two relevant periphrastic constructions were investigated from this perspective. Grammaticalisation can be described as the process of language change during which lexical constructions develop systematically into constructions with grammatical meaning. This process of language change is characterised by specific mechanisms or characteristics, for instance universal routes, unidirectional change, lexical origin, semantic generalisation, an increase in frequency and re-analysis (cf. Bybee et al. 1994:4-5; Croft 1990:257; Heine & Reh 1984:11-12; Hopper & Traugott 2003:1; Lehmann 1995:3). Breed and Van Huyssteen (2014) firstly explains the theory of grammaticalisation. The grammaticalisation of the Afrikaans auxiliary het is given as an example to illustrate specific relevant aspects of grammaticalisation, namely universal routes, unidirectionality, lexical source, semantic bleaching, frequency and reanalysis. Secondly this article explains how the aan die and besig periphrastic constructions originate and develop. One of the most general lexical origins for progressive constructions is constructions with locative meaning (Bybee et al. 1994:129). The motivation behind the development of a progressive from locative constructions is probably due to the connotation of “be in the place of VERBing” or “be at VERBing” (Bybee et al. 1994:129-130). The hypothesis offered by Bybee et al. (1994:131) is that, apart from a few exceptions, all progressive constructions develop from locative meaning. The aan die progressive is a construction of locative origin. The structure of the periphrastic construction can be divided into three parts: firstly, the introductory copulative verb, secondly the locative aan preposition and thirdly the nominalised verb which is preceded by the definite article die. [aan + die] has received unit status and forms the analysed construction of the periphrasis. The aan die progressive therefore supports the hypothesis that progressive constructions develop from locative meanings. The besig progressive’s lexical origin differs from that of the aan die progressive, as well as from the VPOS en progressive (consult Breed 2012; Breed & Brisard 2015), due to the fact that this progressive construction does not have a locative origin. The word “besig” has a lexical meaning which implies that a subject is involved by means of a process which is continuing, and the development of this progressive construction is, therefore, lexically motivated. In this article, we investigate the frequency of these two constructions, as well as the verbs with which each of the constructions prototypically combine. The frequency of the two constructions was investigated in order to determine to what extent the constructions have been generalised. The aan die progressive (approximately 4,900 results in a corpus of circa 60 million words) appears significantly less frequently than the besig progressive (approximately 8,000 results). For the aan die construction a variant construction was also apparent, namely the aan ’t progressive. This construction is, however, very scarce (only 330 results) and is seemingly archaic. Furthermore, it seems as though besig has been generalised to such an extent that the progressive use of this word (62%) in Afrikaans, is more frequent than the lexical use (38%). It seems as though the aan die construction forms strong collocations and has a few specialised uses, amongst others, to be combined with i) inchoative verbs (such as toeneem, afneem, taan and opbou); ii) idiomatic expressions such as aan die brand, aan die slaap and aan die rol; iii) process nouns such as aan die gang and aan die stuur, and iii) activity verbs. The aan ’t progressive seems to be less specialised than the aan die progressive, although this construction is combined mainly with activity verbs. This construction is also generally found in contexts where a feeling of being “old-fashioned” or nostalgic is being conveyed, for example historical novels. The besig progressive combines with a great variety of verb types (i.e. activities, accomplishments and achievements). The frequency of transitive verbs with the besig progressive is also high in comparison to the other Afrikaans periphrastic progressive constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Progressive aspect is a grammatical category which signifies that an event is continuing or taking place (Comrie 1976:33-36; Bybee et al. 1994:126). In two articles, this article and Breed and Van Huyssteen (submitted), we investigate the manner in which two periphrastic constructions, namely the VCOP besig om te V and the VCOP aan die V constructions, are used to express progressive meaning in Afrikaans. The discussions are based on a corpus investigation in which the three Afrikaans periphrastic progressive constructions (the two already mentioned) and the VPOS en V constructions are compared to each other (Breed 2012; Breed & Brisard submitted). Dutch has three similar constructions, and for this reason the constructions were also compared to the Dutch ones where relevant. Breed and Brisard (submitted) explain how the VPOS en construction is used to express progressive meaning. In this article and in Breed and Van Huyssteen (submitted) the focus is therefore on the specific manner in which the besig and aan die constructions are used as progressive markers. The main objective of this first article is to show the origin and development of the two constructions, while the focus of the second article is to demonstrate -- on the basis of the results of the corpus investigation -- the specific ways in which the constructions are used. The grammaticalisation theory offers insight into the manner in which grammatical constructions develop. For this reason, the origin, development and use of the two relevant periphrastic constructions were investigated from this perspective. Grammaticalisation can be described as the process of language change during which lexical constructions develop systematically into constructions with grammatical meaning (Bybee et al. 1994; Hopper & Traugott 2003; Lehmann 1995). This process of language change is characterised by specific mechanisms or characteristics, for instance universal routes, unidirectional change, lexical origin, semantic generalisation, an increase in frequency and re-analysis. This first article firstly explains the theory of grammaticalisation. The grammaticalisation of the Afrikaans auxiliary het is given as an example to illustrate specific relevant aspects of grammaticalisation. Secondly, it explains how the aan die and besig periphrastic constructions originate and develop. One of the most general lexical origins of progressives is constructions with locative meaning (Bybee et al. 1994:129). The motivation behind the development of a progressive from locative constructions is probably the connotation of "be in the place of VERBing" or "be at VERBing" (Bybee et al. 1994:129-130). The hypothesis offered by Bybee et al. (1994:131) is that, apart from a few exceptions, all progressive constructions develop from locative meaning. The aan die progressive is a construction of locative origin. The structure of the periphrastic construction can be divided into three parts: firstly, the introductory copulative verb; secondly, the locative aan preposition; and thirdly, the nominalised verb which is preceded by the definite article die [aan + die] has received unit status and forms the analysed construction of the periphrase. The aan die progressive therefore supports the hypothesis that progressive constructions develop from locative meanings. The besig progressive's lexical origin differs from that of the aan die progressive, as well as from the VPOS en progressive (consult Breed 2012; Breed & Brisard submitted), due to the fact that this progressive construction does not have a locative origin. The word besig has a lexical meaning which implies that a subject is involved in a process which is continuing, and the development of this progressive construction is, therefore, lexically motivated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]