Zulu conjoint/disjoint verb alternation: focus or constituency?

Abstract

Zulu shows an alternation of conjoint and disjoint (conjunctive/disjunctive, short/long) verb forms. Certain contexts suggest that the distribution of these forms is related to focus. For example, certain adverbial expressions receive a focal interpretation when preceded by a conjoint form but not when preceded by a disjoint form. Similarly, a wh-phrase must be preceded by a conjoint form. This has led some researchers to argue or suggest that the alternation encodes focus directly. This paper examines two different focal hypotheses, one in which a disjoint form encodes focus on the verb and another in which the conjoint form encodes focus on the element following the verb. It is shown that both of these hypotheses are inadequate because certain contexts requiring the conjoint form do not display the predicted focal interpretation. Relativization morphology is argued to also support an analysis independent of focus. It is proposed that the alternation is regulated entirely by the position of the verb within the surface constituencies first proposed in Van der Spuy (1993) and that the associated focal interpretations are the result of a range of interpretations permitted within the different constituencies. Elements remaining within the relevant constituent are nontopical, and focus is one of a range of interpretations they can receive.

Where's the topic in Zulu?

“…( Note that we find an obligatory object marker (OM) referring to an Indirect Object or Direct Object which is not in its canonical position, whether it occurs preverbally or following the wh-morpheme or answer in IAV position. Work like Buell (2005Buell ( , 2006 and van der Spuy (1993) demonstrates that in Zulu the presence of an object marker is associated with syntactic dislocation. Strikingly, as the question-answer pair in (5) shows, an object marker on the verb referring to an object DP following a focused IAV element is obligatory, even when the postverbal complements are in the canonical order (IO DO): ízí-vakâ:sh') 8-visitor ín-ku:khu).…”

When factivity meets the conjoint/disjoint alternation

“…It should be noted that discussions concerning the conjoint/disjoint alternation are often also related to focus (see Van der Wal and Hyman 2016 for a cross-Bantu discussion). For Zulu, Halpert (2016) supports Buell's (2006) view that the correlation between conjoint/disjoint alternation and focus is a side effect of syntactic structure: material inside the vP can be focused, while right-dislocated elements belong to old information. Halpert (2016) shows that with adjuncts such as kakhulu 'a lot', either the conjoint or the disjoint form can be used, though with the conjoint form (4a), the adverb tends to be interpreted as focused or as new information, while with the disjoint form (4b), the adverb tends to be interpreted as old information.…”

“…The conjoint verb form in (1a) is followed by a direct object, whereas the disjoint form is needed when the verb is the only element in the vP (compare (1b) and ( 1c)). Previous research by Van der Spuy (1993) and Buell (2006), among others, has shown that if the object following the verb is dislocated (i.e., with an object marker on the verb agreeing with the dislocated object), the object is outside of the vP, leading to the disjoint form on the verb, as in (2).…”

The problems of adverbs in Zulu

“…In contrast, the conjoint form cannot appear clause nally, as shown in (4b) and (5b). (See Van der Spuy, 1993;Buell, 2006;data Relative clauses (Cheng & Downing, 2007) Further evidence for the syntactic factors that determine prosodic phrasing comes from comparing restrictive and appositive relative clauses. As we can see in the examples below, the right edge of a restrictive relative clause determines a prosodic break, while the le edge does not:…”