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A unified syntactic analysis of Italian and Luganda nouns

  • Franca Ferrari-Bridgers
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The Bantu–Romance Connection
This chapter is in the book The Bantu–Romance Connection

Abstract

In this paper, I propose a unified syntactic analysis of Luganda and Italian simple nouns. I argue that Italian and Luganda nouns are formed in the syntax via merge and move operations. More specifically, I show that in both languages all nouns are formed via the merger of the nominalizer head [n] with a nominal stem [LP] yielding the nominal structure [nP [n [LP]]] and that syntactic movement is necessary in the noun formation process of Italian nouns to derive the correct morpheme order.

In order to prove that the structure [nP [n [LP]]] is representative for both languages, I demonstrate that the nominalizer head [n] corresponds to both the Italian gender feature and the Luganda class feature and that, therefore, gender and class are the same feature. The data analysis in sections (2) and (3) of this paper supports the claim that gender and class are the same feature because of their identical inflectional and derivational functions. At the inflectional level, gender and class trigger VP and DP agreement and at the derivational level gender and class function as n-marked heads whose merger with an XP yields a noun.

Abstract

In this paper, I propose a unified syntactic analysis of Luganda and Italian simple nouns. I argue that Italian and Luganda nouns are formed in the syntax via merge and move operations. More specifically, I show that in both languages all nouns are formed via the merger of the nominalizer head [n] with a nominal stem [LP] yielding the nominal structure [nP [n [LP]]] and that syntactic movement is necessary in the noun formation process of Italian nouns to derive the correct morpheme order.

In order to prove that the structure [nP [n [LP]]] is representative for both languages, I demonstrate that the nominalizer head [n] corresponds to both the Italian gender feature and the Luganda class feature and that, therefore, gender and class are the same feature. The data analysis in sections (2) and (3) of this paper supports the claim that gender and class are the same feature because of their identical inflectional and derivational functions. At the inflectional level, gender and class trigger VP and DP agreement and at the derivational level gender and class function as n-marked heads whose merger with an XP yields a noun.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgments vii
  4. List of contributors ix
  5. Introduction xi
  6. Part 1. Clitics and agreement
  7. Concepts of structural underspecification in Bantu and Romance 3
  8. On different types of clitic clusters 41
  9. Pronominal object markers in Romance and Bantu 83
  10. The Bantu-Romance connection in verb movement and verbal inflectional morphology 111
  11. Part 2. The structure of DPs
  12. DP in Bantu and Romance 131
  13. On the interpretability of φ-features 167
  14. Agreement and concord in nominal expressions 201
  15. A unified syntactic analysis of Italian and Luganda nouns 239
  16. Part 3. Information structure
  17. The fine structure of the Topic field 261
  18. Focus at the interface: Evidence from Romance and Bantu 293
  19. Agreement in thetic VS sentences in Bantu and Romance 323
  20. Index of languages 351
  21. General index 353
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.131.13fer

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgments vii
  4. List of contributors ix
  5. Introduction xi
  6. Part 1. Clitics and agreement
  7. Concepts of structural underspecification in Bantu and Romance 3
  8. On different types of clitic clusters 41
  9. Pronominal object markers in Romance and Bantu 83
  10. The Bantu-Romance connection in verb movement and verbal inflectional morphology 111
  11. Part 2. The structure of DPs
  12. DP in Bantu and Romance 131
  13. On the interpretability of φ-features 167
  14. Agreement and concord in nominal expressions 201
  15. A unified syntactic analysis of Italian and Luganda nouns 239
  16. Part 3. Information structure
  17. The fine structure of the Topic field 261
  18. Focus at the interface: Evidence from Romance and Bantu 293
  19. Agreement in thetic VS sentences in Bantu and Romance 323
  20. Index of languages 351
  21. General index 353
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