Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T16:09:34.271Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Structure building and thematic constraints in Bantu inversion constructions1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

LUTZ MARTEN  and
HANNAH GIBSON
LUTZ MARTEN*
Affiliation:
SOAS, University of London
HANNAH GIBSON*
Affiliation:
SOAS, University of London
*
Author’s address: Faculty of Languages and Cultures, SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, UKlm5@soas.ac.uk
Author’s address: Department of Linguistics, SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, UKhg6@soas.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Bantu inversion constructions include locative inversion, patient inversion (also called subject–object reversal), semantic locative inversion and instrument inversion. The constructions show a high level of cross-linguistic variation, but also a core of invariant shared morphosyntactic and information structural properties. These include: that the preverbal position is filled by a non-agent NP triggering verbal agreement, that the agent follows the verb obligatorily, that object marking is disallowed, and that the preverbal NP is more topical, and the postverbal NP more focal. While previous analyses have tended to concentrate on one inversion type, the present paper develops a uniform analysis of Bantu inversion constructions. Adopting a Dynamic Syntax perspective, we show how the constructions share basic aspects of structure building and semantic representation. In our analysis, cross-linguistic differences in the distribution of inversion constructions result from unrelated parameters of variation, as well as from thematic constraints related to the thematic hierarchy. With some modification, the analysis can also be extended to passives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , 01 November 2016 , pp. 565 - 607
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ashton, E. O., Mulira, E. M. K., Ndawula, E. G. M. & Tucker, A. N.. 1954. A Luganda grammar. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Google Scholar
Barrett-Keach, Camillia. 1980. The syntax and interpretation of the relative clause construction in Swahili. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Bearth, Thomas. 1999. The contribution of African linguistics towards a general theory of focus: Update and critical review. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 20, 121–156.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Patrick & Meyer-Viol, Wilfried. 1994. Linguistics, logic and finite trees. Bulletin of the Interest Group for Pure and Applied Logic 2, 3–29.Google Scholar
Bokamba, Eyamba Georges. 1976. Question formation in some Bantu languages. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Bokamba, Eyamba Georges. 1979. Inversion as grammatical relation changing rules in Bantu. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 9.2, 1–24.Google Scholar
Bokamba, Eyamba Georges. 1985. Verbal agreement as a noncyclic rule in Bantu. In Goyvaerts(ed.), 9–54.Google Scholar
Bostoen, Koen & Mundeke, Léon. 2011. Passiveness and inversion in Mbuun (Bantu B87, DRC). Studies in Language 35.1, 72–111.Google Scholar
Bostoen, Koen & Mundeke, Léon. 2012. Subject marking, object–verb order and focus in Mbuun (Bantu, B87). Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 30.2, 139–154.Google Scholar
Bouzouita, Miriam. 2009. The diachronic development of Spanish clitic placement. Ph.D. dissertation, King’s College London.Google Scholar
Bowers, John. 1993. The syntax of predication. Linguistic Inquiry 24.4, 591–656.Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan & Kanerva, Jonni M.. 1989. Locative inversion in Chichewa: A case study of factorization in grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 20, 1–50.Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan & Mchombo, Sam A.. 1987. Topic, pronoun, and agreement in Chichewa. Language 63, 741–782.Google Scholar
Buell, Leston. 2007. Semantic and formal locatives: Implications for the Bantu locative inversion typology. SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics 15, 105–120.Google Scholar
Cann, Ronnie. 2011. Towards an account of the English auxiliary system. In Kempson et al. (eds.), 273–310.Google Scholar
Cann, Ronnie, Kempson, Ruth & Marten, Lutz. 2005. The dynamics of language: An introduction (Syntax and Semantics 35). Oxford: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Carstens, Vicki. 2005. Agree and EPP in Bantu. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 23, 219–279.Google Scholar
Carstens, Vicki. 2011. Hyperactivity and hyperagreement in Bantu. Lingua 121, 721–741.Google Scholar
Creissels, Denis. 2011. Tswana locatives and their status in the inversion construction. Africana Linguistica 17, 33–52.Google Scholar
De Guzman, Videa P. 1987. Indirect objects in SiSwati. Studies in African Linguistics 18, 309–325.Google Scholar
Demuth, Katherine. 1989. Maturation and the acquisition of the Sesotho passive. Language 65.1, 56–80.Google Scholar
Demuth, Katherine. 1990. Subject, topic and Sesotho passive. Journal of Child Language 17, 67–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Demuth, Katherine & Harford, Carolyn. 1999. Verb raising and subject inversion in comparative Bantu. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 20.1, 41–61.Google Scholar
Demuth, Katherine & Kline, Melissa. 2006. The distribution of passives in spoken Sesotho. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 24, 377–388.Google Scholar
Demuth, Katherine & Mmusi, Sheila. 1997. Presentational focus and thematic structure in comparative Bantu. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 18, 1–19.Google Scholar
Diercks, Michael. 2011. The morphosyntax of Lubukusu locative inversion and the parameterization of Agree. Lingua 121, 702–720.Google Scholar
Diercks, Michael. 2012. Parameterizing Case: Evidence from Bantu. Syntax 15.3, 253–286.Google Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro & Byarushengo, Ernest Rugwa. 1977. On the notion of ‘Direct Object’. In Byarushengo, Ernest Rugwa, Duranti, Alessandro & Hyman, Larry M. (eds.), Haya grammatical structure, 45–71. Los Angeles, CA: Department of Linguistics, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
É. Kiss, Katalin. 1998. Identificational focus versus information focus. Language 74.2, 245–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, Hannah. 2008. Half empty or half full: An analysis of subject–object inversion in Swahili. MA dissertation, SOAS, University of London.Google Scholar
Gibson, Hannah. 2012. Auxiliary placement in Rangi: A Dynamic Syntax perspective. Ph.D. dissertation, SOAS, University of London.Google Scholar
Gibson, Hannah & Marten, Lutz. 2015. Variation and grammaticalisation in Bantu complex verbal constructions: The dynamics of information growth in Swahili, Rangi and siSwati. To appear in Léa Nash & Pollet Samvelian (eds.), Approaches to complex predicates. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy. 1979. On understanding grammar. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Goyvaerts, Didier L.(ed.). 1985. African linguistics: Essays in memory of M. W. K. Semikenke. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. 1967. Notes on transitivity and theme in English: Part 2. Journal of Linguistics 3, 199–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamlaoui, Fatima & Makasso, Emmanuel-Moselly. 2013. Object left-dislocation, topicalization and the syntax–phonology mapping of intonation phrases in Bàsàá. Presented at Bantu5, Paris.Google Scholar
Hamlaoui, Fatima & Makasso, Emmanuel-Moselly. 2015. Focus marking and the unavailability of inversion structures in the Bantu language Bàsàá (A43). Lingua 154, 35–64.Google Scholar
Hawkinson, Annie & Hyman, Larry M.. 1974. Hierarchies of natural topic in Shona. Studies in African Linguistics 5, 147–170.Google Scholar
Henderson, Brent. 2006. The syntax and typology of Bantu relative clauses. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.Google Scholar
Henderson, Brent. 2011. Agreement, locality, and OVS in Bantu. Lingua 121, 742–753.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Thompson, Sandra A.. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56.2, 251–299.Google Scholar
Julien, Marit. 2000. Syntactic heads and word formation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kavari, Jekura U., Marten, Lutz & van der Wal, Jenneke. 2012. Tone cases in Otjiherero: Head–complement relations, linear order and information structure. Africana Linguistica 18, 315–353.Google Scholar
Kempson, Ruth, Cann, Ronnie & Marten, Lutz. 2013. Tree growth dynamics. In Cristiano Chesi (ed.), Directionality of phrase structure building: Special issue of STIL Studies in Linguistics 6, 49–81.Google Scholar
Kempson, Ruth, Gregoromichelaki, Eleni & Howes, Christine (eds.). 2011. The dynamics of lexical interfaces. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Kempson, Ruth, Kiaer, Jieun & Cann, Ronnie. 2009. Periphery effects and the dynamics of tree growth. In Shaer, Benjamin, Cook, Philippa, Frey, Werner & Maienborn, Claudia (eds.), Dislocated elements in discourse: Syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic perspectives, 141–172. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kempson, Ruth, Meyer-Viol, Wilfried & Gabbay, Dov. 2001. Dynamic Syntax. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Khumalo, Langa. 2010. Passive, locative inversion in Ndebele and the unaccusative hypothesis. South African Journal of African Languages 30.1, 22–34.Google Scholar
Kimenyi, Alexandre. 1980. A relational grammar of Kinyarwanda. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kimenyi, Alexandre. 1988. Passives in Kinyarwanda. In Shibatani, Masayoshi (ed.), Passive and voice, 355–386. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Kinyalolo, Kasangati Kikuni Wabongambilu. 1991. Syntactic dependencies and the SPEC–head Agreement Hypothesis in KiLega. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 2007. Basic notions of information structure. In Féry, Caroline, Fanselow, Gisbert & Krifka, Manfred (eds.), Working Papers of the SFB 632: Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS), 13–55. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information structure and sentence form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marten, Lutz. 2002. At the syntax–pragmatics interface: Verbal underspecification and concept formation in Dynamic Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marten, Lutz. 2006. Locative inversion in Herero: More on morphosyntactic variation in Bantu. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 43, 97–122.Google Scholar
Marten, Lutz. 2007. Focus strategies and the incremental development of semantic representations: Evidence from Bantu. In Aboh, Enoch, Hartmann, Katharina & Zimmermann, Malte (eds.), Focus strategies in African languages: The interaction of focus and grammar in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic, 113–135. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marten, Lutz. 2010. The great siSwati locative shift. In Breitbarth, Anne, Lucas, Christopher, Watts, Sheila & Willis, David (eds.), Continuity and change in grammar, 249–267. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Marten, Lutz. 2011. Information structure and agreement: Subjects and subject markers in Swahili and Herero. Lingua 121, 787–804.Google Scholar
Marten, Lutz. 2014. The preverbal position(s) in Bantu inversion constructions: Theoretical and comparative considerations. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 57, 136–159.Google Scholar
Marten, Lutz, Kempson, Ruth & Bouzouita, Miriam. 2008. Concepts of structural underspecification in Bantu and Romance. In de Cat, Cécile & Demuth, Katherine (eds.), The Romance–Bantu connection, 3–39. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Marten, Lutz & Kula, Nancy C.. 2012. Object marking and morphosyntactic variation in Bantu. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 30.2, 237–253.Google Scholar
Marten, Lutz, Kula, Nancy C. & Thwala, Nhlanhla. 2007. Parameters of morphosyntactic variation in Bantu. Transactions of the Philological Society 105, 253–338.Google Scholar
Marten, Lutz & Ramadhani, Deograsia. 2001. An overview of object marking in Kiluguru. SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics 11, 259–275.Google Scholar
Marten, Lutz & van der Wal, Jenneke. 2014. A typology of Bantu subject inversion. Linguistic Variation 14.2, 317–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matić, Dejan & Wedgwood, Daniel. 2013. The meaning of focus: The significance of an interpretation-based category in cross-linguistic analysis. Journal of Linguistics 49, 127–163.Google Scholar
Mkude, Daniel J.1974. A study of Kiluguru syntax with special reference to the transformational history of sentences with permuted subject and object. Ph.D. dissertation, SOAS, University of London.Google Scholar
Möhlig, Wilhelm J. G., Marten, Lutz & Kavari, Jekura U.. 2002. A grammatical sketch of Herero. Cologne: Köppe.Google Scholar
Morimoto, Yukiko. 2000. Discourse configurationality in Bantu morphosyntax. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Morimoto, Yukiko. 2006. Agreement properties and word order in comparative Bantu. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 43, 161–187.Google Scholar
Ndayiragije, Juvénal. 1999. Checking economy. Linguistic Inquiry 30, 399–444.Google Scholar
Pak, Marjorie. 2008. A-movement and intervention effects in Luganda. In Abner, Natasha & Bishop, Jason (eds.), 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL27), 361–369. Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Petzell, Malin. 2008. The Kagulu language of Tanzania: Grammar, texts and vocabulary. Cologne: Köppe.Google Scholar
Riedel, Kristina. 2009. The syntax of object marking in Sambaa: A comparative Bantu perspective. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Leiden.Google Scholar
Riedel, Kristina & Marten, Lutz. 2012. Locative object marking and the argument–adjunct distinction. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 30.2, 277–292.Google Scholar
Rooth, Mats. 1996. Focus. In Lappin, Shalom (ed.), The handbook of contemporary semantic theory, 271–297. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Russell, Joan. 1985. Swahili quasi-passives: The question of context. In Goyvaerts(ed.), 477–490.Google Scholar
Sabimana, Firmard. 1986. The relationship structure of the Kirundi verb. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Salzmann, Martin. 2011. Towards a typology of locative inversion – Bantu, perhaps Chinese and English – but beyond? Language and Linguistics Compass 5.4, 169–189.Google Scholar
Sasse, Hans-Jürgen. 2006. Theticity. In Bernini, Giuliano & Schwartz, Marcia L. (eds.), Pragmatic organization of discourse in the languages of Europe, 255–308. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Siewierska, Anna. 1984. The passive: A comparative linguistic analysis. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan & Wilson, Deirdre. 1995. Relevance: Communication and cognition, 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Trithart, Mary Lee. 1977. Relational grammar and Chichewa subjectivization. MA dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Ura, Hiroyuki. 2000. Checking theory and grammatical functions in Universal Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vallduví, Enric. 1992. The informational component. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Visser, Marianna. 1989. The syntax of the infinitive in Xhosa. South African Journal of African Languages 9.4, 154–185.Google Scholar
Wald, Benji. 1997. Instrumental objects in the history of topicality and transitivity in Bantu. In Déchaine, Rose-Marie & Manfredi, Victor (eds.), Object positions in Benue-Kwa, 221–253. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.Google Scholar
Whiteley, Wilfred Howell. 1972. Case complexes in Swahili. Studies in African Linguistics 3.1, 1–45.Google Scholar
Whiteley, Wilfred Howell & Mganga, J. D.. 1969. Focus and entailment: Further problems of transitivity in Swahili. African Language Review 8, 108–125.Google Scholar
Woolford, Ellen. 1995. Why passive can block object marking. In Akinlabi, Akinbiyi (ed.), Theoretical approaches to African linguistics, 199–215. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Wu, Yicheng. 2011. Towards a dynamic typology of passives. In Kempson et al. (eds.), 131–162.Google Scholar
Zeller, Jochen. 2012a. Instrument inversion in Zulu. In Marlo, Michael R., Adams, Nikki B., Green, Christopher R., Morrison, Michelle & Purvis, Tristan M. (eds.), 42nd Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 134–148. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Zeller, Jochen. 2012b. Object marking in isiZulu. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 30.2, 219–235.Google Scholar
Zeller, Jochen. 2013. Locative inversion in Bantu and predication. Linguistics 51.6, 1107–1146.Google Scholar
Zerbian, Sabine. 2006. Expression of information structure in the Bantu language Northern Sotho (ZAS Papers in Linguistics 45). Berlin: ZAS.Google Scholar