Abstract:
The paper sets out the valency changes in the South Pare dialect spoken in Mwamba Vunta and Chome Suji divisions of the same
district, following the fact that the language is understudied on the topic under discussion. Two theories were used for data
analysis, namely: Item - and - Arrangement theory and Theta (Ɵ-role) theory. The former assumes that morphological forms
<morphemes> are linearly arranged and that when attached to the verbs, they change the semantics of the word apart from the
original and the latter shows the function and the roles of the noun phrase in a given syntactic structure, as in external & internal
theta. In arriving at answers, an unstructured interview was used by bilingual South Pare native speakers aged 46 and 50
respectively. One of the two is a trilingual speaker as he speaks English, Kigweno and Kiswahili languages, the rest is a bilingual
speaker of Kigweno and Kiswahili. The Leipzig Glossing Rule was used for data analysis. It was found that applicative morphs in
Kipare are: -i- and -ir-, causative morphs: -sh-, -ɪsh-, -esh- and-ɪz-, passive morphs: -w- and -iw-, stative: -ik- and -an-reciprocal in
Kipare. It was also observed that: i- and -ir-, -sh-, -ɪsh-, -esh- and-ɪz- are valency increasing and -w-, -iw-, -ik- and -an-reciprocal
are valency decreasing augments in Pare language. It is recommended that Pare language has other areas which need
investigation: inversive, repetitive and idiophonic, as well as affixed ordering of verb extensions. These need to be investigated to
see their characteristics pertinent to valency changes
