The noncausal/causal alternation in the Western Serengeti languages

Abstract

This paper takes a look at the noncausal/causal alternation in a sample of about 30 verb pairs in the Western Serengeti languages (WS) Ikoma, Ishenyi, Nata and Ngoreme, spoken in the Mara region of Tanzania. Based on the data presented, these languages can be said to favour a strategy of causativization, i.e. deriving the causal verb from a noncausal base, in coding this alternation. In a preliminary cross-linguistic comparison, this preference for causativization seems to be stronger than in other (Tanzanian) Bantu languages for which data is available. The data also shows that the reflexive prefix is used more often than the neuter suffix in anticausative pairs. While the latter has a widespread use across Bantu languages to derive noncausal verbs, it is unproductive in WS.