On parametric variation in Bantu, with particular reference to Kinyarwanda

Abstract

Marten, Kula and Thwala (2007) compare the morphological and syntactic properties of ten Bantu languages by postulating 19 micro‐parameters with binary values, which capture many of the grammatical differences between the languages in their sample. In our paper, we extend the empirical basis of their study by describing the morpho‐syntax of the Bantu language Kinyarwanda (D61) with respect to the same 19 micro‐parameters. We then make a proposal about the insights that can be gained from comparative studies of this kind. We suggest that systematically organised data about micro‐variation in Bantu offer the opportunity to discover correlations between grammatical properties from which descriptive generalisations can be derived. These generalisations shed light on the abstract principles that determine linguistic variation and may lead to hypotheses about underlying ‘major’ parameters which control whole clusters of grammatical surface differences between groups of languages. We also discuss a number of examples of (unidirectional and bidirectional) correlations that we have found in the data, which point to interesting links between morpho‐syntactic phenomena such as agreement, relativisation, and word order in the Bantu languages.

A Featural Typology of Bantu Agreement

“…The same full symmetry has been found to apply in Kimeru (Hodges 1977); Shona (Mugari 2013;Mathangwane & Osam 2006); Kinyarwanda (Zeller & Ngoboka 2015;Ngoboka 2005); Kîîtharaka (Muriungi 2008); and Kikuyu (Peter Githinji, personal communication).…”

“…In languages with multiple object markers, the picture is different, judging from the data available so far for Kinyarwanda (from Kimenyi 1995, online;and Zeller & Ngoboka 2015; see also Yokoyama 2016Yokoyama , 2019, as summarized in Table 3.6. As there are multiple independent licensers and relations, a PCC effect is indeed not expected.…”

Transitivity in Bantu: Event-oriented constructions

“…There is a big debate on the status of object markers in Bantu, both in comparative and languagespecific terms (Morimoto 2002;Creissels 2005;Thwala 2006;Riedel 2007;Marten & Kula 2012;Zeller 2012;Zeller & Ngoboka 2015;Van der Wal 2022, among others). Considering it could be related to the Features 1, 2 and 5 from the syntactic features of an event-orientation grammar, it is worth briefly discussing the object markers in Bantu.…”

“…9. There is a large debate on the status of object markers in Bantu, both in comparative and language-specific terms (Morimoto 2002;Thwala 2006;Creissels 2005;Riedel 2007;Marten & Kula 2012;Zeller 2012;Zeller & Ngoboka 2015, among others). I will not discuss the object marker status in this article, even though the pronoun analysis would reinforce the argument to be developed.…”

On the number of object markers in Bantu languages

“…4 This example includes OMs indicating a number of semantic roles including causee, theme, instrument, recipient, beneficiary, and location. Additional examples of forms with four and five OPs are in BLNR (183) and Zeller and Ngoboka (2014).…”