Locative subject alternation constructions show variation within and across languages in terms of subject agreement pattern and the type of predicates involved. In Kiwoso, the preverbal locative DPs with and without locative morphology are best analysed as canonical subjects, as evidenced by the subject diagnostics, such as subject-verb agreement and its occurrence as a subject of passive verb and relative verb clauses. The examined examples demonstrate that the postverbal subject neither behaves like canonical subject nor shows features of canonical object in that it cannot passivize in alternation constructions or appear on the verb as an object marker (i.e., cannot be object marked). However, there is strong evidence to suggest that the preverbal locative (subject) DP in Kiwoso locative-subject alternation constructions is a grammatical subject. As in most languages, locative-subject constructions in Kiwoso serve a pragmatic-discourse function of presentational focus. The locative subject argument of the locative-subject alternation constructions is interpreted as a topic, whereas the postverbal thematic subject of these sentences is understood as focus. The postverbal subject provides information which is usually discourse new in relation to preverbal locative DPs. The data examined from Kiwoso challenges the view that formal and semantic locative inversions cannot co-exist in a single language.

This paper examines argument alternation constructions in the Bantu language, Kiwoso. The data demonstrates that alternation is constrained by selectional properties of a root and its combination with different functional heads, which is language specific. The findings establish that external arguments of anticausative, passive and middle alternations are distinct in terms of syntax and semantics. The data indicates that external arguments appear as DPs in causative alternates but in anticausative, passive and middle sentences they surface as PPs, albeit with different interpretations. In passives, the PPs are introduced by a na-phrase and express event participants, while in anticausatives and middles they are introduced by a kophrase which denotes event modifiers. It is also established that anticausative, passive and middle verb constructions are related in that their sole subject argument is the object argument of their causative (transitive) variants.

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