This study sets out to investigate the insubordinated infinitive in the Bantu language Makhuwa-Enahara (P31, northern Mozambique), which is used with feeling predicates that have passive... Show moreThis study sets out to investigate the insubordinated infinitive in the Bantu language Makhuwa-Enahara (P31, northern Mozambique), which is used with feeling predicates that have passive experiencers. The expression of bodily feelings and emotions in Makhuwa serves as a foundation, highlighting the unique formal and interpretational properties of the insubordinated infinitive within the domain of feelings. Show less
This book explores variation in Bantu subject and object marking on the basis of data from 75 Bantu languages. It specifically addresses the question of which features are involved in agreement and... Show moreThis book explores variation in Bantu subject and object marking on the basis of data from 75 Bantu languages. It specifically addresses the question of which features are involved in agreement and nominal licensing, and examines how parametric variation in those features accounts for the settings and patterns that are attested crosslinguistically. Jenneke van der Wal proposes a novel syntactic analysis that takes into account not only 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 a long-standing debate. In addition, low functional heads are assumed to be able to 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 and for subject inversion constructions. The correlations between the proposed featural parameters reveal new striking patterns that provide evidence in favour of an emergentist view of features and parameters and against both Strong Uniformity and Strong Modularity. Show less
Given the fact that parts of idioms cannot trigger alternatives in their idiomatic reading, and the requirement that focus triggers alternatives, parts of idioms are predicted to not be focusable.... Show moreGiven the fact that parts of idioms cannot trigger alternatives in their idiomatic reading, and the requirement that focus triggers alternatives, parts of idioms are predicted to not be focusable. Idioms can thus be used to test focus constructions, except idioms that refer to useless tasks (‘carrying coals to Newcastle’), presumably because of their transparent and scalar semantics. Show less
In this paper, we capture the crosslinguistic variation in Bantu nominal structure in a unified analysis of gender on n (Kramer 2014, 2015). We demonstrate that this analysis accounts for the... Show moreIn this paper, we capture the crosslinguistic variation in Bantu nominal structure in a unified analysis of gender on n (Kramer 2014, 2015). We demonstrate that this analysis accounts for the morphosyntactic properties of basic nouns as well as locative and diminutive derivations. Moreover, it allows us to capture intra- and inter-language morphosyntactic variation by reference to just three parameters – one strictly morphological and two structural. The presence of one or two n heads, and the size of the complement distinguish between different types of locatives (structural variation); the presence or absence of a spell-out rule of adjacent n heads differentiates “stacking” versus “non-stacking” prefixes in diminutive and augmentative derivations (morphological variation only). Show less
A movement asymmetry arises in some languages that are otherwise symmetrical for both A- and A-movement in the double object construction, including Norwegian, North-West British English, and a... Show moreA movement asymmetry arises in some languages that are otherwise symmetrical for both A- and A-movement in the double object construction, including Norwegian, North-West British English, and a range of Bantu languages including Zulu and Lubukusu: a Theme object can be A-moved out of a Recipient (Goal) passive, but not vice versa. Our explanation of this asymmetry is based on phase theory- more specifically, a stricter version of the Phase Impenetrability Condition proposed by Chomsky (2001). The effect is that, in a Theme passive, a Recipient object destined for the C-domain gets trapped within the lower V-related phase by movement of the Theme. The same effect is observed in Italian, a language in which only Theme passives are possible. A similar effect is also found in some Bantu languages in connection with object marking/agreement: object agreement with the Theme in a Recipient passive is possible, but not vice versa. We show that this, too, can be understood within the theory that we articulate. Show less
