Subject marking and preverbal coordination in Sesotho: A perspective from Optimality Theory

Vos, Mark de; Mitchley, Hazel

doi:10.2989/16073614.2012.737591

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…A conflict arises in Bantu languages if agreement needs to be expressed between the verb and an NP that consists of two conjoined nouns belonging to different noun classes. Different languages have different strategies to resolve this conflict, which may depend on the semantic and/or grammatical properties of the conjoined nouns, their order, or the position of the conjoined NP in relation to the verb (see Bosch ; Marten ; De Vos & Mitchley ; Simango ). With parameter 12, MKT distinguish between languages which use a default agreement marker in case of noun class conflict, and those in which partial agreement (i.e.…”

Section: Some Morphosyntactic Properties Of Kinyarwandamentioning

confidence: 99%

On parametric variation in Bantu, with particular reference to Kinyarwanda

Zeller

Ngoboka

2014

Trans of the Philol Soc

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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.

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Section: Some Morphosyntactic Properties Of Kinyarwandamentioning

confidence: 99%

On parametric variation in Bantu, with particular reference to Kinyarwanda

Zeller

Ngoboka

2014

Trans of the Philol Soc

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“…Based mainly on evidence from Southern Bantu languages like Xhosa and Rhonga, Taraldsen et al (2018) note different agreement patterns with conjoined subjects (cf. Corbett and Mtenje 1987, De Vos and Mitchley 2012, Diercks et al 2015, Marten 2000, Riedel 2009, and Simango 2012 and point out the relevance of this for the analysis of noun class systems. They observe that not all classes permit the expected plural subject agreement with conjoint NPs of the same singular class, showing that in these cases the presumed plural class cannot be analysed as the same gender as the corresponding singular class plus a plural feature, as was proposed in Carstens's (1991) analysis.…”

Section: Number As Inflectionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Noun Classes and Plurality in Bantu Languages

Marten

2021

The Oxford Handbook of Grammatical Number

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Noun classes are a prominent grammatical feature of Bantu languages where typically each noun (or noun stem) is assigned to one of between fifteen and eighteen noun classes. Noun classes are often analysed as a form of nominal classification system and seen as belonging to the same domain as grammatical gender systems. Number in Bantu languages is mediated by the noun class system and the intricate interaction between noun class and number in Bantu has given rise to different theoretical analyses. The chapter focuses on three approaches to analysing grammatical number in Bantu languages—approaches based on an inflectional notion of number, those which analyse number as a derivational relation, and approaches adopting notions of polysemy and paradigms for analysing Bantu noun class systems.

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Class prefixes as specifiers in Southern Bantu

Taraldsen

Medová

Langa

2018

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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We argue that a set of facts about the plural nominal class prefixes in Southern Bantu languages shows that some plural prefixes spell out a phrasal constituent, a Specifier bottoming out in a classifier-like noun. This leads us to adopt a theory of lexicalization that leads to the conclusion that all nominal class prefixes in Southern Bantu lexicalize Specifiers of this sort, and we argue that the relation between primary and secondary prefixes supports this conclusion. We also discuss the consequences of our conclusion for the pairing of prefixes and nouns and for the analysis of agreement.

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Subject marking and preverbal coordination in Sesotho: A perspective from Optimality Theory

Cited by 6 publications

References 18 publications

On parametric variation in Bantu, with particular reference to Kinyarwanda

On parametric variation in Bantu, with particular reference to Kinyarwanda

Noun Classes and Plurality in Bantu Languages

Class prefixes as specifiers in Southern Bantu

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