A Featural Typology of Bantu Agreement

This book explores variation in Bantu subject and object marking, proposing a novel syntactic analysis that accounts for phi agreement, nominal licensing, and information structure. It shows that a Person feature is responsible for differential object agreement, while low functional heads can Case-license flexibly. The correlations between the proposed featural parameters reveal new patterns that support an emergentist view of features and parameters.

Format: Hardback
Length: 336 pages
Publication date: 31 March 2022
Publisher: Oxford University Press

This book delves into the intricate realm of Bantu subject and object marking, employing a comprehensive dataset encompassing 75 diverse Bantu languages. Its primary objective is to investigate the factors contributing to agreement and nominal licensing, while also exploring how parametric variation in these features shapes the observed settings and patterns across languages. Jenneke van der Wal presents a novel syntactic analysis that encompasses not only phi agreement but also nominal licensing and information structure. Through this analysis, she identifies a Person feature, which is linked to animacy, definiteness, or givenness, as the primary driver of differential object agreement. Simultaneously, this feature accounts for the occurrence of doubling vs. non-doubling object marking, offering a hybrid solution to a longstanding debate in linguistics. Furthermore, the book posits that low functional heads possess the ability to Case-license flexibly downwards or upwards, depending on the relative topicality of the two arguments involved. This accounts for the properties of symmetric object marking in ditransitives and for subject inversion constructions. The correlations between the proposed featural parameters unveil fascinating patterns that strongly support an emergentist perspective on features and parameters, while challenging both Strong Uniformity and Strong Modularity.

This book explores variation in Bantu subject and object marking on the basis of data from 75 Bantu languages. It specifically addresses the question of which features are involved in agreement and nominal licensing, and examines how parametric variation in those features accounts for the settings and patterns that are attested crosslinguistically. Jenneke van der Wal proposes a novel syntactic analysis that takes into account not only phi agreement, but also nominal licensing and information structure. A Person feature, associated with animacy, definiteness, or givenness, is shown to be responsible for differential object agreement, while at the same time accounting for doubling vs. non-doubling object marking - a hybrid solution to a long-standing debate. In addition, low functional heads are assumed to be able to Case-license flexibly downwards or upwards, depending on the relative topicality of the two arguments involved. This accounts for the properties of symmetric object marking in ditransitives and for subject inversion constructions. The correlations between the proposed featural parameters reveal new striking patterns that provide evidence in favour of an emergentist view of features and parameters and against both Strong Uniformity and Strong Modularity.

Weight: 654g
Dimension: 240 x 164 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780198844280