Argument Licensing and Agreement
Claire Halpert
Abstract
Nouns in many Bantu languages show a strikingly unrestricted syntactic distribution, leading to proposals that syntactic case does not play an active role in the grammar of Bantu. This book argues for a different conclusion, proposing on the basis of Zulu that Bantu languages have not only a system of structural case, but also a complex system of morphological case that is comparable to systems found in languages like Icelandic. Comparing this system of argument licensing in Zulu to those found in more familiar languages yields a number of insights onto the organization of the grammar. First, ... More
Nouns in many Bantu languages show a strikingly unrestricted syntactic distribution, leading to proposals that syntactic case does not play an active role in the grammar of Bantu. This book argues for a different conclusion, proposing on the basis of Zulu that Bantu languages have not only a system of structural case, but also a complex system of morphological case that is comparable to systems found in languages like Icelandic. Comparing this system of argument licensing in Zulu to those found in more familiar languages yields a number of insights onto the organization of the grammar. First, while this book argues for a case-licensing analysis of Zulu, it locates the positions where case is assigned lower in the clause in nominative-accusative languages. In addition, while Zulu shows evidence that case and agreement are two distinct syntactic operations, the order in which these operations occur in the syntax mirrors patterns found in Icelandic and other languages. Second, this book proposes a novel type of morphological case that serves to mask the effect of structural licensing in Zulu. Though the effects of this case are unfamiliar, its existence is predicted by the current typology of case. Finally, this book explores the consequences of case and agreement as dissociated operations, showing that other unusual properties of Bantu languages, like hyper-raising, are a natural result. This exploration yields the conclusion that some of the more unusual properties of Bantu languages result from small variations to deeply familiar syntactic principles such as case, agreement, and the EPP.
Keywords:
syntax,
Bantu languages,
case,
agreement,
EPP,
raising,
Zulu,
Icelandic
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190256470 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: December 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190256470.001.0001 |
