Jochen Klaus. Zeller

Relative clause formation in the Bantu languages of South Africa.

This article discusses (verbal) relative clauses in the Bantu languages spoken in South Africa. The first part of the article offers a comparison of the relative clause formation strategies in Sotho, Tsonga, Nguni and Venda. An interesting difference between these language groups concerns the syntactic position and the agreement properties of the relative marker. Whereas the relative markers in Sotho, Tsonga and Venda are clause-initial elements, which express agreement with the head noun, the relative markers in the Nguni languages are relative concords, which are prefixed to the verb and agree with the subject of the relative clause. The second part of the article addresses this difference and shows that there is a historical relation between these two types of relative constructions. It is argued that earlier forms of Nguni employed relative markers similar to those used in present-day Sotho and Tsonga. In Nguni, these relative markers underwent a grammaticalisation process which turned them into relative concords. A detailed analysis of the syntactic conditions for, and the properties of, this grammaticalisation process leads to a hypothesis about the reasons why relative concords have developed in Nguni, but not (to the same extent) in Tsonga, Sotho and Venda.

Object marking in isiZulu.

Abstract I examine object marking in the Nguni language isiZulu, focusing specifically on those properties that are subject to micro-parametric variation within the Bantu family. This includes the occurrence of object markers in object relative clauses and in double object constructions, and the correlation between object marking and dislocation. I also address the extent to which my findings support either a pronoun- or an object agreement-analysis of object markers. My results provide support for the idea that object markers in isiZulu are in the process of changing from pronominal clitics into agreement markers.

Language shift or increased bilingualism in South Africa: evidence from census data

ABSTRACT In the post-apartheid era, South Africa has adopted a language policy that gives official status to 11 languages (English, Afrikaans, and nine Bantu languages). However, English has remained the dominant language of business, public office, and education, and some research suggests that English is increasingly being spoken in domestic settings. Concerns have therefore been raised about the future of the Bantu languages of South Africa. In this study, we use Population Census data from 1996, 2001 and 2011 to investigate whether there is evidence of a language shift to English, in the sense that English is replacing a Bantu language as the home language. We show that English language prevalence among Africans increased considerably, an increase which derives particularly from the growth in English as L2. The age distribution of L2 reporting in English, however, suggests that English as L2 is often acquired through education and time spent in the labour market, rather than in the home. Moreover, second language reporting of many of the Bantu languages also increased, and consequently, the use of almost all of the official Bantu languages has also risen. The period under review therefore is associated with greater bilingualism rather than the displacement of Bantu languages by English.

On the subject marker in Kinyarwanda

This article examines the morphosyntactic representation of the subject agreement marker (SM) in null subject constructions in the Bantu language Kinyarwanda. Three prominent analyses are compared. The first analysis treats the SM in null subject constructions as a pronoun which receives the subject theta role in the morphology. The second approach analyses the SM as a syntactic pronoun, i.e. as a determiner phrase (DP) which receives its theta role in [Spec, V] and then moves to [Spec, T]. The third analysis is based on the theory of pro, which assumes that the subject theta role in null subject constructions is assigned to a phonetically unrealised pronoun. According to the pro-theory, the SM is simply a reflex of agreement between the verb and the null subject pro. The paper shows that the first analysis, which treats the SM as a morphological pronoun, must be rejected for Kinyarwanda on empirical grounds. In contrast, the paper argues that both remaining alternatives represent feasible accounts. The study identifies the empirical predictions and theoretical consequences which are associated with each of these two competing alternatives.

On parametric variation in Bantu, with particular reference to Kinyarwanda

Marten, Kula and Thwala (2007) compare the morphological and syntactic properties of ten Bantu languages by postulating 19 micro-parameters with binary values, which capture many of the grammatical differences between the languages in their sample. In our paper, we extend the empirical basis of their study by describing the morpho-syntax of the Bantu language Kinyarwanda (D61) with respect to the same 19 micro-parameters. We then make a proposal about the insights that can be gained from comparative studies of this kind. We suggest that systematically organised data about micro-variation in Bantu offer the opportunity to discover correlations between grammatical properties from which descriptive generalisations can be derived. These generalisations shed light on the abstract principles that determine linguistic variation and may lead to hypotheses about underlying ‘major’ parameters which control whole clusters of grammatical surface differences between groups of languages. We also discuss a number of examples of (unidirectional and bidirectional) correlations that we have found in the data, which point to interesting links between morpho-syntactic phenomena such as agreement, relativisation, and word order in the Bantu languages.

Right dislocation and raising-to-object in Zulu

Abstract In this paper, we analyze an unusual type of right dislocation in Zulu. We demonstrate that the construction in question combines A-movement of a DP out of an embedded finite CP into a matrix argument position (raising-to-object; RtO) with right dislocation of both the raised DP and the clause out of which it raises. The existence of such a construction is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the conclusion that Zulu allows A-movement out of a finite CP is at odds with standard Minimalist analyses of raising and also with the alternative analysis of RtO from finite clauses proposed in Bruening (2001, 2002). Second, on our proposed analysis, RtO can take place out of a CP-complement, which is subsequently dislocated and adjoined to a maximal projection, supporting Büring and Hartmann (1997), who argue that movement from an extraposed CP happens before CP-dislocation. Our findings thus provide a strong argument for a movement analysis of CP-extraposition. We finally conclude that these constructions present a number of complications for recent analyses of right dislocation as leftward movement plus clausal ellipsis (Ott and de Vries 2014, and Ott and de Vries (in press)), due to the interaction between A-movement and dislocation and the word order resulting from CP-extraposition.

Home language and English language ability in South Africa: Insights from new data

Abstract In this paper we analyse data on language ability collected in a new nationally representative household survey, the National Income Dynamics Study, which captures information on reading and writing ability, both in the individuals home language and in English. Two main findings are that self-assessed reading and writing ability are highly correlated in the data, and that individuals typically report considerably higher ability in their home language than in English. The data also suggest large racial differences in language skills, in the individuals home language and particularly in English. Racial differences however are narrower among younger adults (aged 15 to 30 years) than among older adults. Furthermore, whereas older women are less likely than older men to report being able to read and write very well, in both their home language and in English, this is reversed among younger women and men. Finally, individuals who report good reading and writing ability in their home language are far more likely to report good reading and writing ability in English.

A note on root projection and labelling

This paper identifies a problem with a hypothesis put forward in Chomsky (2013) in relation to his labelling algorithm. Chomsky suggests that category-neutral roots do not qualify as labels and cannot project. However, I provide evidence that the derivation of particle verbs involves the projection of a category-neutral root, which has merged with (a projection of) the particle. It follows that Chomskys hypothesis has to be rejected.

Agreement with locatives in Kinyarwanda: a comparative analysis

Abstract In Bantu languages such as Chichewa or Herero, locatives can function as subjects and show noun class agreement (in class 16, 17 or 18) with predicates and modifiers. In contrast, (preverbal) locatives in Sotho-Tswana and Nguni have been analysed as prepositional adjuncts, which cannot agree. Our paper compares locatives in Kinyarwanda (JD61) with locatives in these other Bantu languages and demonstrates that the Kinyarwanda locative system is essentially of the Chichewa/Herero type. We show that Kinyarwanda locatives are nominal in nature, can act as subjects, and agree with predicates and modifiers. However, even though Kinyarwanda has four locative noun classes (16, 17, 18 and 25), there is only one locative agreement marker (class 16 ha-), which indiscriminately appears with all locatives, regardless of their noun class. We explain this fact by arguing that noun class features in Kinyarwanda do not participate in locative agreement; instead, the invariant class 16 marker expresses agreement with a generic feature [location] associated with all locatives. We offer a syntactic analysis of this peculiar aspect of Kinyarwanda locative agreement, and we propose a parameter that accounts for the relevant difference between Kinyarwanda and Chichewa/Herero-type Bantu languages.

Derived subjects in Kinyarwanda locative constructions

(1a) and (2a) are locative constructions in which the goal argument is realised as the complement of a preposition inside a PP. (1b) and (2b) are the corresponding double object constructions, which realise the goal as an NP-object preceding the theme. In these constructions, the clitics -ho and -mo (underlined in (1b-c) and (2b-c) respectively) are attached to the verb. These clitics bear an obvious cognate relationship to the prepositions ku and mu in the (a)-examples (see Baker 1988; Kimenyi 1980, 1995). (1c) and (2c) illustrate that the clitics -ho and -mo are not