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All Outputs (44)

Morphosyntactic borrowing in closely related varieties: “False cognates” in Swahili (2025)
Book Chapter
Marten, L., & Gibson, H. (2025). Morphosyntactic borrowing in closely related varieties: “False cognates” in Swahili. In H. Kennard, E. Lindsay-Smith, A. Lahiri, & M. Maiden (Eds.), Historical Linguistics 2022. Selected papers from the 25th ICHL, Oxford, 1–5 August 2022 (184-197). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.369.12mar%3Flocatt%3Dmode%3Alegacy

The paper examines contact-induced morphosyntactic change in Swahili, where material which had historically been lost is ‘reintroduced’ through contact with closely related languages which have retained the original feature. The paper discusses three... Read More about Morphosyntactic borrowing in closely related varieties: “False cognates” in Swahili.

Introduction (2024)
Book Chapter
Marten, L., Gibson, H., Guérois, R., & Mapunda, G. (2024). Introduction. In H. Gibson, R. Guérois, G. Mapunda, & L. Marten (Eds.), Morphosyntactic variation in East African Bantu languages: Descriptive and comparative approaches (1-13). Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10663761

Morphosyntactic variation in Old Swahili (2024)
Book Chapter
Marten, L., Gibson, H., Guérois, R., & Jerro, K. (2024). Morphosyntactic variation in Old Swahili. In H. Gibson, R. Guérois, G. Mapunda, & L. Marten (Eds.), Morphosyntactic variation in East African Bantu languages: Descriptive and comparative approaches (383-420). Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10663785

The comparative and historical study of Bantu and other African languages is often based on contemporary, synchronic data since many African languages do not have a long-written record. In contrast, for Swahili such a record exists in the form of an... Read More about Morphosyntactic variation in Old Swahili.

Suffix order restrictions in Bantu (2023)
Book Chapter
Gibson, H., Kula, N. C., Marten, L., & Taji, J. (2023). Suffix order restrictions in Bantu. In P. Ackema, S. Bendjaballah, E. Bonet, & F. Antonio (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Morphology. Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119693604.morphcom002

Bantu languages typically have a rich and complex verb structure, where a range of derivational suffixes can be distinguished. Focusing on the interaction of applicative, causative, reciprocal and passive suffixes, different theoretical and analytica... Read More about Suffix order restrictions in Bantu.

Content words and contextual meaning: Lexical NPs as discourse anaphora in Makhuwa and Cuwabo (2023)
Book Chapter
Marten, L., Gibson, H., Guérois, R., & Poeta, T. (2023). Content words and contextual meaning: Lexical NPs as discourse anaphora in Makhuwa and Cuwabo. In B. Achiri-Taboh (Ed.), The Bantu Noun Phrase: Issues and Perspectives (183-209). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003254188-12

A distinction is often made between words expressing lexical content and those expressing grammatical functions. As a result, content words such as nouns and verbs are typically distinguished from function words such as auxiliaries and pronouns. The... Read More about Content words and contextual meaning: Lexical NPs as discourse anaphora in Makhuwa and Cuwabo.

Englishes in Africa - Foreword (2023)
Book Chapter
Marten, L. (2023). Englishes in Africa - Foreword. In M. Akinlotan (Ed.), Englishes in Africa (ix-x). Peter Lang

Valency and saliency in Bantu applicatives: A diachronic reanalysis (2022)
Book Chapter
Gibson, H., Marten, L., Mous, M., & Riedel, K. (2022). Valency and saliency in Bantu applicatives: A diachronic reanalysis. In S. Pacchiarotti, & F. Zúñiga (Eds.), Applicative Morphology: Neglected syntactic and non-syntactic functions (163-188). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110777949-007

This chapter examines apparent competing functions of applicatives, prepositions and locative-marked phrases in a number of Bantu languages, focussing on the interaction of these types of categories in various applicative constructions. We show that... Read More about Valency and saliency in Bantu applicatives: A diachronic reanalysis.

Noun classes and plurality in Bantu languages (2021)
Book Chapter
Marten, L. (2021). Noun classes and plurality in Bantu languages. In P. Cabredo Hofherr, & J. Doetjes (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Grammatical Number (539-557). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198795858.013.26

Noun classes are a prominent grammatical feature of Bantu languages where typically each noun (or noun stem) is assigned to one of between fifteen and eighteen noun classes. Noun classes are often analysed as a form of nominal classification system a... Read More about Noun classes and plurality in Bantu languages.

Bantu and Bantoid (2020)
Book Chapter
Marten, L. (2020). Bantu and Bantoid. In R. Vossen, & G. J. Dimmendaal (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of African Languages (205-219). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199609895.013.8

The Bantu family is the largest African language family in terms of geographic and demographic spread: the 450–500 Bantu languages are spoken in 27 countries, by about 240 million speakers. The close linguistic relation between Bantu languages has be... Read More about Bantu and Bantoid.

Variation in Bantu copula constructions (2019)
Book Chapter
Gibson, H., Guérois, R., & Marten, L. (2019). Variation in Bantu copula constructions. In M. Arche, A. Fábregas, & R. Marin (Eds.), The Grammar of Copulas Across Languages (213-242). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198829850.003.0011

This chapter provides an overview of variation in Bantu non-verbal predication and copula constructions. These constructions exhibit a wide range of fine-grained micro-variation against a backdrop of broad typological similarity across the Bantu fami... Read More about Variation in Bantu copula constructions.

Clausal morphosyntax and information structure (2019)
Book Chapter
Downing, L. J., & Marten, L. (2019). Clausal morphosyntax and information structure. In M. Van de Velde, K. Bostoen, D. Nurse, & G. Philippson (Eds.), The Bantu Languages (2nd edition) (270-307). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315755946-9

With some 300–500 closely related languages, the Bantu family provides a wealth of examples for the study of syntactic micro-variation within a set of typologically similar languages. This chapter surveys six central topics in the clausal morphosynta... Read More about Clausal morphosyntax and information structure.

Preface (2019)
Book Chapter
Marten, L. (2019). Preface. In Y. Abe, & D. Shinagawa (Eds.), Descriptive materials of morphosyntactic microvariation in Bantu (v-viii). Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

Variation and grammaticalisation in Bantu complex verbal constructions: The dynamics of information growth in Swahili, Rangi and siSwati (2016)
Book Chapter
Gibson, H., & Marten, L. (2016). Variation and grammaticalisation in Bantu complex verbal constructions: The dynamics of information growth in Swahili, Rangi and siSwati. In L. Nash, & P. Samvelian (Eds.), Approaches to Complex Predicates (70-109). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004307094_005

Many Bantu languages have a system of complex verbal constructions, where several verbal forms combine to describe a single event. Typically, these consist of an auxiliary and a main verb, and often tense-aspect marking and subject agreement is found... Read More about Variation and grammaticalisation in Bantu complex verbal constructions: The dynamics of information growth in Swahili, Rangi and siSwati.

Introduction (2013)
Book Chapter
Marten, L. (2013). Introduction. In J. Naughten (Ed.), Conflict and Costume: The Herero Tribe of Namibia (12-18). Merrell

Herman Batibo (2012)
Book Chapter
Marten, L. (2012). Herman Batibo. In E. K. Akyeampong, & H. L. J. Gates (Eds.), Dictionary of African Biography (402-404). Oxford University Press

Agreement in locative phrases in Luganda (2012)
Book Chapter
Marten, L. (2012). Agreement in locative phrases in Luganda. In M. Brenzinger, & A.-M. Fehn (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th World Congress of African Linguistics, Cologne 2009 (433-443). Koppe