Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: Focus on East Africa

Edelsten, Peter; Gibson, Hannah; Guérois, Rozenn; Mapunda, Gastor; Marten, Lutz; Taji, Julius

Abstract

Recent studies have developed a systematic approach to morphosyntactic variation among Bantu languages, taking well-known and widely attested construction types as a starting point and sketching their distribution across the family. One such approach, Guérois et al. (2017), utilises 142 morphosyntactic parameters or features, across a sample of some 50 Bantu languages (Marten et al. 2018). The present paper builds on this work and focusses on 10 parameters of variation where there is a significant difference between the values for East African Bantu languages and non-East African Bantu languages of the sample. The parameters relate to areas such as noun class morphology, agreement, and word order and so cover a wide range of morphosyntactic structures. The paper shows that the differences overall can be used for an initial characterisation of East Africa as a morphosyntactic area, with its own specific language change and language contact dynamics.

Citation

Edelsten, P., Gibson, H., Guérois, R., Mapunda, G., Marten, L., & Taji, J. (2022). Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: Focus on East Africa. Journal of the Language Association of Eastern Africa, 1(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.5642/jlaea.OMUG7174

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 23, 2021
• Publication Date: Oct 10, 2022
• Deposit Date: Feb 13, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 13, 2023
• Print ISSN: 2837-7877
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1-24
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5642/jlaea.OMUG7174
• Publisher URL: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jlaea/vol1/iss1/4/