Jerro, Kyle (2018) 'Change-of-state Paradigms and the middle in Kinyarwanda.' Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 36 (3). 235 - 260. ISSN 1607-3614

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Abstract

This paper investigates the derivational relationships among members of verbal paradigms in Kinyarwanda (Bantu JD.61; Rwanda) by pursuing two interrelated goals. First, I describe a variety of derivational strategies for marking transitive and intransitive variants in change-of-state verb paradigms. Second, I focus on the detransitivizing morpheme –ik which serves as one possible marking for intransitive members of these paradigms. Ultimately, I argue that this morpheme is a marker of middle voice, and the variety of readings which appear with this form can be subsumed under a single operation of argument suppression. Finally, I provide a discussion of reflexives and the apparent lack of a reflexive reading with –ik by arguing that this reading is blocked by either lexical reflexives or the reflexive prefix i–.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	valency-changing morphology, argument structure, verb meaning, syntax- semantics interface
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Language and Linguistics, Department of
Depositing User:	Elements
Date Deposited:	11 Sep 2018 09:04
Last Modified:	13 Jun 2019 16:15
URI:	http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/22986

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