Gibson, Hannah (2019) 'The grammaticalisation of verb-auxiliary order in East African Bantu: from information structure to tense-aspect.' Studies in Language. ISSN 0378-4177 (In Press)
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Hannah Gibson_Grammaticalisation of verb-auxiliary order in East African Bantu_accepted.pdf - Accepted Version Download (589kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Bantu languages employ a combination of simple and compound verb forms to encode tense-aspect-mood distinctions. Compound constructions typologically involve an auxiliary form followed by an inflected main verb. However, the six East African Bantu languages under examination in this paper exhibit a typologically and comparatively unusual construction in which the auxiliary appears after the verb. This paper presents a synchronic description of this word order and develops an account of its possible origins. It is proposed that the verb-auxiliary order originated from a verb-fronting construction which was used historically to convey predication focus. The account further corroborates the claim that the progressive aspect is an inherently focal category in Bantu and from a wider perspective, shows the interplay between the encoding of information structure and tense-aspect information.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Language and Linguistics, Department of |
| Depositing User: | Elements |
| Date Deposited: | 30 Jul 2019 09:51 |
| Last Modified: | 30 Jul 2019 09:51 |
| URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/24761 |
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