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Gibson, Hannah, Marten, Lutz, Mous, Maarten and Riedel, Kristina (2022) 'Valency and saliency in Bantu applicatives: A diachronic reanalysis.' In: Pacchiarotti, Sara and Zúñiga, Fernando, (eds.), Applicative Morphology: Neglected syntactic and non-syntactic functions. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 163-188. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM]. Vol. 373)

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Abstract

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 in a number of Bantu languages, prepositional constructions compete with applicatives. The interaction between the two construction types revolves around valency (the licensing of an additional object) and saliency (the encoding of pragmatic effects), two hallmarks of applicative constructions more widely. Evidence from this interaction, we propose, helps to better understand the diachronic development of applicatives. We further observe a diachronic reanalysis of the applicative marker from expressing both syntactic and pragmatic effects to a pure pragmatic marker of saliency, in the context of functionally and structurally ambiguous locative phrases.

Item Type: Book Chapters
SOAS Departments & Centres: Regional Centres and Institutes > Centre of African Studies
Regional Centres and Institutes > SOAS World Languages Institute
Departments and Subunits > School of Languages, Cultures & Linguistics
Departments and Subunits > School of Languages, Cultures & Linguistics > Department of Linguistics
ISBN: 9783110777857
Copyright Statement: This is the version of the chapter accepted for publication in Pacchiarotti, Sara and Zúñiga, Fernando, (eds.), Applicative Morphology: Neglected syntactic and non-syntactic functions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 163-188 (2022). Re-use is subject to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110777949-007
Date Deposited: 01 Jul 2022 13:42
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/37665

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