3. Locating the Bantu conjoint/disjoint alternation in a typology of focus marking

Gibson, Hannah; Koumbarou, Andriana; Marten, Lutz; Wal, Jenneke van der

doi:10.1515/9783110490831-003

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(26 reference statements)

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“…It therefore seems most likely that a predecessor of Bantu featured a postverbal focus domain, even if this was not the only position for focus. We have not seen any clear correlation so far between the location of the focus position (IAV, IBV, final) and other parameter settings in the languages, but an interesting follow-up research question would be to investigate what in a language determines where a focus position develops (see also Gibson et al 2017 for correlations with morphological focus marking).…”

Section: Variation In Dedicated Focus Positionsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Bantu word order between discourse and syntactic relations

Asiimwe¹,

Kanampiu²,

Kerr³

et al. 2023

lla

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Discourse function has often been noticed to be a strong factor in conditioning Bantu word order. The importance of discourse function for determining the word order of Bantu languages is visible for example in locative inversion and dedicated focus positions. As a result of such phenomena, it has been proposed that Bantu word order is best captured by reference to discourse roles, e.g. Topic-Verb Nontopic. Nevertheless, we typically see statements describing Bantu word order in relation to grammatical roles (e.g. "SVO"), and the notions "subject" and "object" remain core in analyses of Bantu. In this paper we present the result of a study reconsidering Bantu word order from a discourseconfigurational perspective, asking how far we can get without reference to grammatical roles. We use a parametric approach to investigate this syntactic variation, presenting new discourse-oriented field data collected on 9 Bantu languages. We show how these parameters highlight variation within the family, with each language sitting at a different point on a continuum between grammatical role-oriented and discourse role-oriented. We therefore argue against a one-size-fits-all account of Bantu word order and advocate for approaches that include both grammatical and discourse roles.

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Section: Variation In Dedicated Focus Positionsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Bantu word order between discourse and syntactic relations

Asiimwe¹,

Kanampiu²,

Kerr³

et al. 2023

lla

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In contrast, in Rwanda and Rundi, the syntactic position associated with focus is the clause-final position (cf. Ndayiragije 1999;Ngoboka 2016;Gibson et al 2017). The apparently exceptional compatibility with PI may be relevant to this kind of subcategorisation.…”

Section: Interplay Between Focus and Inversion Constructionsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…However, it should also be noted that there is a considerable range of variation observed in terms of syntactic focus marking across Bantu languages. Besides the most typical IAV position, the following are also attested as a locus of a constituent focus, namely the immediately before the verb (IBV) position, as illustrated in (11), the clause-initial position in (12), and the clause-final position in (13) (see also Gibson et al 2017 for a typological overview of syntactic focus position in Bantu). Their geographical distribution is plotted on Map 4.…”

Section: Syntactic Focus Positionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A micro-parametric survey on typological covariation related to focus marking strategies, based on the Bantu Morphosyntactic Variation database

Shinagawa¹,

Marten²

2023

lla

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“…These are exemplified in (52), where the focused referent is underlined and a morphological marker of focus is in boldface. In Kîîtharaka (52), we see the focus marker ni marking a clause-initial focused referent (see Abels & Muriundi 2008); Aghem (53) is famous for its Immediate After Verb focus position (but note that it is not just the Immediate After Verb position that indicates focus, but the shape of the noun too: kí-bɛ ́ vs. bɛ ́-kó); in Kituba (54) the focus marker (derived from the word for 'person') follows a clause-initial focused referent (see also the overview of focus positions and morphological marking in Gibson et al 2017). These are only some examples of the wide variety of strategies to express focus in the Bantu languages (see also e.g.…”

Section: Marking Exhaustivity On the Nounmentioning

confidence: 99%

The V and CV augment and exhaustivity in Kinyakyusa

Wal

Lusekelo²

2023

sal

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In addition to the stem and noun class prefix, the structure of nouns in Bantu languages may contain an augment. This augment typically is a vowel, but some languages show a CV augment. Interestingly, the Bantu language Kinyakyusa shows nouns with a V as well as with a CV prefix, both of which have been analysed as augments (De Blois 1970). In this short paper we clarify the formal and functional properties of the ‘CV augment’ in Kinyakyusa. First we show that it does not behave like the V augment, but is a separate marker that is attached to the noun phrase. Second, we narrow down the previous analyses of the CV marker that describe it as ‘emphatic’ (De Blois 1970, Persohn 2020): On the basis of a range of focus tests, we argue that the CV marker functions as a marker of exhaustivity. This is remarkable, as exhaustive focus is in Bantu languages typically associated with marking in the clause and not on the noun itself.

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3. Locating the Bantu conjoint/disjoint alternation in a typology of focus marking

Cited by 3 publications

References 20 publications

Bantu word order between discourse and syntactic relations

Bantu word order between discourse and syntactic relations

A micro-parametric survey on typological covariation related to focus marking strategies, based on the Bantu Morphosyntactic Variation database

The V and CV augment and exhaustivity in Kinyakyusa

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