| Description |
1 online resource (337 pages) |
| Contents |
Intro -- cover -- seriespage -- titlepage -- copyright -- dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- List of abbreviations and symbols -- 1 Introduction: Agreement, variation, and features -- 1.1 About the book -- 1.2 Agree(ment) -- 1.3 Defective goals between agreement and incorporation -- 1.4 Variation in features -- 1.4.1 Emergent features and parameters -- 1.4.2 Licensing/Case -- 1.4.3 Salience: Animacy and information structure -- 1.5 Bantu languages and their features -- 1.5.1 Bantu basics -- 1.5.2 Bantu word order and agreement -- expressing information structure |
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1.5.3 The Bantu challenges and the proposals -- 1.6 Scope of the book -- 2 Object marking defective goals -- 2.1 Bantu verbal morphosyntax -- 2.2 The defective goal approach in Bembe -- 2.3 Doubling -- 2.4 Differential object marking -- 2.4.1 Variation in differential object marking -- 2.4.2 Salience of [Person] -- 2.4.3 Cut-off points on the hierarchies -- 2.5 Extending the analysis -- 2.5.1 Reanalyzed Person -- 2.5.2 Personal predictions -- 2.5.3 Unagreement -- 2.6 Absence of object marking -- 2.7 Summary -- 3 Object marking in ditransitives -- 3.1 Introduction and overview of the chapter |
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3.2 The structure of ditransitives -- 3.3 Asymmetric object marking -- 3.3.1 Agree with the highest goal -- 3.3.2 Case is independent of agreement -- 3.3.3 Agree with the Theme in an asymmetric language -- 3.4 Symmetric objects and object marking -- 3.4.1 Word order -- 3.4.2 Passive -- 3.4.3 Object marking -- 3.4.4 Reciprocal -- 3.4.5 Extraction -- 3.4.6 Unspecified object deletion -- 3.4.7 Mismatches in symmetry properties -- 3.4.8 Hidden symmetry -- 3.5 Circumventing the locality restriction in symmetry -- 3.5.1 Equidistance -- 3.5.2 Movement of the Theme -- 3.5.3 Relativized probing by v |
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3.5.4 Flexible licensing -- 3.6 Flexible licensing through animacy and topicality -- 3.6.1 Animacy -- 3.6.2 Topicality -- 3.6.3 Case checking and Agree -- 3.6.4 Summary flexible licensing -- 3.7 Partial symmetry -- 3.7.1 Different types of ditransitives: Lexical, applicative, causative -- 3.7.2 Type 1: Fully symmetric -- 3.7.3 Type 2: Only lexical and applicative symmetric -- 3.7.4 Type 3: Only lexical symmetric -- 3.7.5 Type 4: Fully asymmetric -- 3.7.6 Accounting for partial symmetry -- 3.8 Multiple object markers -- 3.9 The phoenix probe -- 3.9.1 Type A: 1+ with 1sg |
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3.9.2 Type B: 1+ with 1sg and animate -- 3.9.3 Phoenix parameter -- 3.9.4 Type C: 1+ with reflexive -- 3.9.5 Type D: 1+ for reflexive and 1sg -- 3.10 Summary and further research -- 4 Subject marking and inversion -- 4.1 Introduction: Extending flexible licensing -- 4.2 Subject inversion constructions -- 4.2.1 Postverbal subject is in situ -- 4.2.2 Preverbal DP as subject -- 4.2.3 Research questions for subject marking and inversion -- 4.3 Circumventing the locality restriction in inversion -- 4.3.1 Equidistance -- 4.3.2 Movement of the Locative -- 4.3.3 Movement of the external argument -- 4.3.4 Locative originates higher |
| Summary |
"The Bantu languages are in some sense remarkably uniform (subject, verb, order (SVO) basic word order, noun classes, verbal morphology), but this extensive language family also show a wealth of morphosyntactic variation. Two core areas in which such variation is attested are subject and object agreement. The book explores the variation in Bantu subject and object marking on the basis of data from 75 Bantu languages, discovering striking patterns (the Relation between Asymmetry and Non-Doubling Object Marking (RANDOM), and the Asymmetry Wants Single Object Marking (AWSOM) correlation), and providing a novel syntactic analysis. This analysis takes into account not just phi agreement, but also nominal licensing and information structure. A Person feature, associated with animacy, definiteness, or givenness, is shown to be responsible for differential object agreement, while at the same time accounting for doubling vs. non-doubling object marking--a hybrid solution to an age-old debate in Bantu comparative morphosyntax. It is furthermore proposed that low functional heads can Case-license flexibly downwards or upwards, depending on the relative topicality of the two arguments involved. This accounts for the properties of symmetric object marking in ditransitives (for Appl), and subject inversion constructions (for v). By keeping Agree constant and systematically determining which featural parameters are responsible for the attested variation, the proposed analysis argues for an emergentist view of features and parameters (following Biberauer 2018, 2019), and against both Strong Uniformity and Strong Modularity"--Publisher's description |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Online resource; title from home page (Oxford Academic, viewed on March 9, 2023) |
| Subject |
Bantu languages -- Syntax
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Bantu languages -- Agreement
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Bantu languages -- Syntax
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
0192582550 |
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9780191879821 |
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0191879827 |
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9780192582553 |
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