Preface

1. The issue The present special issue is developed from a workshop entitled Bantu Universals and Variation at the 10th World Congress of African Linguistics (WOCAL10) held online at Leiden University in June 2021. It includes a selection of papers presented at the workshop, as well as papers submitted in response to an open call for papers. The resultant special issue brings together new perspectives on universals and variation in the Bantu language family, with regards to morphosyntax, sema..

Bantu word order between discourse and syntactic relations

Discourse function has often been noticed to be a strong factor in conditioning Bantu word order. The importance of discourse function for determining the word order of Bantu languages is visible for example in locative inversion and dedicated focus positions. As a result of such phenomena, it has been proposed that Bantu word order is best captured by reference to discourse roles, e.g. Topic-Verb-Nontopic. Nevertheless, we typically see statements describing Bantu word order in relation to grammatical roles (e.g. “SVO”), and the notions “subject” and “object” remain core in analyses of Bantu. In this paper we present the result of a study reconsidering Bantu word order from a discourse-configurational perspective, asking how far we can get without reference to grammatical roles. We use a parametric approach to investigate this syntactic variation, presenting new discourse-oriented field data collected on 9 Bantu languages. We show how these parameters highlight variation within the family, with each language sitting at a different point on a continuum between grammatical role-oriented and discourse role-oriented. We therefore argue against a one-size-fits-all account of Bantu word order and advocate for approaches that include both grammatical and discourse roles.La fonction discursive a souvent été identifiée comme un facteur important dans le conditionnement de l’ordre des mots en bantou. L’importance de la fonction discursive dans la détermination de l’ordre des mots des langues bantoues est visible par exemple dans l’inversion locative et les positions du focus. À la suite de tels phénomènes, il a été proposé que l’ordre des mots en bantou est mieux représenté par les rôles discursifs, par ex. Topique-Verbe-Non-topique. Néanmoins, nous observons généralement des déclarations décrivant l’ordre des mots bantou par rapport aux rôles grammaticaux (par exemple « SVO »), et les notions de « sujet » et « objet » restent au cœur des analyses du bantou. Dans cet article, nous présentons les résultats d’une étude reconsidérant l’ordre des mots bantou dans une perspective des configurations discursives, en nous demandant jusqu’où nous pouvons aller sans référence aux rôles grammaticaux. Nous utilisons une approche paramétrique pour étudier cette variation syntaxique, en présentant de nouvelles données de terrain, axées sur le discours, recueillies sur 9 langues bantoues. Nous montrons comment ces paramètres mettent en évidence la variation au sein de la famille, chaque langue se situant à un point différent sur un continuum entre les rôles grammaticaux et les rôles discursifs. Nous nous opposons donc à une description unique de l’ordre des mots bantou et préconisons des approches qui incluent à la fois les rôles grammaticaux et discursifs

Kiitharaka Event and Result Nominals

This paper explores the subject of event and results nominals and finds that the two can easily be distinguished in Kîîtharaka. Kîîtharaka event nominals are in form of infinitive construction while result nominals are ordinary nouns. The paper argues that there is a parametric variation between these nominals in English and Kîîtharaka. While English event nominals disallow modification by indefinite determiners but allow definite determiners, Kîîtharaka counterparts disallow modification by any form of determiners. Keywords:  Kîîtharaka, nominals. DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/57-04 Publication date:June 30th 201

Semantic and morphophonological productivity of Kîîtharaka gender system

In nominal classification systems, both form (i.e., morphology, phonology or both) and meaning often interact to determine the class or gender of the noun. In Bantu languages in particular, linguistic analysis has often put the emphasis on meaning, both inherent and evaluative (e.g., diminutive). However, recent quantitative studies have argued that both meaning and morphophonology — the ubiquitous nominal prefixes — serve as cues to class in Bantu, with their robustness and specific aspects potentially differing across individual languages. Here, we conducted an experimental study aimed at establishing whether speakers of Kîîtharaka (Bantu, E54) are sensitive to both semantics and morphophonology when classify- ing novel Kîîtharaka nouns. The results of two wug-task-style experiments show that speakers are sensitive to two inherent features Human and Fruit, and evaluative features like Augmentative, Pejorative and Diminutive. On the other hand, they are robustly sensitive to all morphophonological features tested when classifying novel nouns. Our results suggest that se- mantic features are generally less productive than morphophonology in the Kîîtharaka nominal classification system

Bantu word order between discourse and syntactic relations

Talk given at WOCAL10, June 2021, Leiden University (and at ACAL51-52, Apr 2021, University of Florida) by BaSIS project members Allen Asiimwe, Patrick Kanampiu, Elisabeth Kerr, Zhen Li, Amani Lusekelo, Ernest Nshemezimana & Jenneke van der Wal. Handout and pre-recorded video (with subtitles) of talk presented at the ACAL51-52 conference, University of Florida, 8th-10th April 2021 and at WOCAL10 conference, Leiden University, June 2021. The appendix to the talk (consisting of raw data) can be downloaded at https://bantusyntaxinformationstructure.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/appendix-basis-word-order-overview.pdf. For version given at ACAL51-52, see https://osf.io/vybhz/

Asiimwe et al. (2021) Bantu word order between discourse and syntactic relations (ACAL51-52)

Handout and pre-recorded video (with subtitles) of talk presented at the ACAL51-52 conference, University of Florida, 8th-10th April 2021 and at WOCAL10 conference, Leiden University, June 2021. The appendix to the talk (consisting of raw data) can be downloaded at https://bantusyntaxinformationstructure.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/appendix-basis-word-order-overview.pdf. For version given at WOCAL10, see https://osf.io/5x2vj/