The Bantu-Romance connection in verb movement and verbal inflectional morphology
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Carolyn Harford
Abstract
Romance and Bantu languages show a range of contrasting morphological and syntactic properties, ranging from WH extraction strategies and the existence of V2 to directionality of affixation and degree of fusion and agglutination in verbal inflectional morphology. Using Isizulu and Chishona (Bantu) and standard French and Italian (Romance) as examples, this paper correlates these contrasts in terms of a common right-branching Split-INFL structure, and contrasting preferences for movement (STAY, in Optimality Theoretic terms). It is proposed that the same preference which motivates WH extraction strategies in the four languages also motivates the contrast between the relatively prefixal and agglutinative verbal inflectional morphology of Isizulu and Chishona and the suffixal and more fusional verbal inflectional morphology of French and Italian. The conclusions reinforce intuitions that languages belonging to the Romance and Bantu language families are typologically similar.
Abstract
Romance and Bantu languages show a range of contrasting morphological and syntactic properties, ranging from WH extraction strategies and the existence of V2 to directionality of affixation and degree of fusion and agglutination in verbal inflectional morphology. Using Isizulu and Chishona (Bantu) and standard French and Italian (Romance) as examples, this paper correlates these contrasts in terms of a common right-branching Split-INFL structure, and contrasting preferences for movement (STAY, in Optimality Theoretic terms). It is proposed that the same preference which motivates WH extraction strategies in the four languages also motivates the contrast between the relatively prefixal and agglutinative verbal inflectional morphology of Isizulu and Chishona and the suffixal and more fusional verbal inflectional morphology of French and Italian. The conclusions reinforce intuitions that languages belonging to the Romance and Bantu language families are typologically similar.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction xi
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Part 1. Clitics and agreement
- Concepts of structural underspecification in Bantu and Romance 3
- On different types of clitic clusters 41
- Pronominal object markers in Romance and Bantu 83
- The Bantu-Romance connection in verb movement and verbal inflectional morphology 111
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Part 2. The structure of DPs
- DP in Bantu and Romance 131
- On the interpretability of φ-features 167
- Agreement and concord in nominal expressions 201
- A unified syntactic analysis of Italian and Luganda nouns 239
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Part 3. Information structure
- The fine structure of the Topic field 261
- Focus at the interface: Evidence from Romance and Bantu 293
- Agreement in thetic VS sentences in Bantu and Romance 323
- Index of languages 351
- General index 353
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction xi
-
Part 1. Clitics and agreement
- Concepts of structural underspecification in Bantu and Romance 3
- On different types of clitic clusters 41
- Pronominal object markers in Romance and Bantu 83
- The Bantu-Romance connection in verb movement and verbal inflectional morphology 111
-
Part 2. The structure of DPs
- DP in Bantu and Romance 131
- On the interpretability of φ-features 167
- Agreement and concord in nominal expressions 201
- A unified syntactic analysis of Italian and Luganda nouns 239
-
Part 3. Information structure
- The fine structure of the Topic field 261
- Focus at the interface: Evidence from Romance and Bantu 293
- Agreement in thetic VS sentences in Bantu and Romance 323
- Index of languages 351
- General index 353
