Object markers (OMs) in Bantu languages have long been argued to be either incorporated pronouns or agreement
morphemes, distinguished mainly by their ability (or not) to co-occur with (i.e. double) in situ objects. Lubukusu appears to be
an instance of OMs-as-incorporated pronouns, as OMs in neutral discourse contexts cannot double in situ objects in a broad range
of syntactic contexts. As we show, however, certain pragmatic contexts in fact do license OM-doubling; we demonstrate that
OM-doubling in Lubukusu is licit only on a verum (focus) interpretation. We analyze OM-doubling within a Minimalist framework as
the result of an Agree relation between the object and a verum-triggering Emphasis head (Emph°). The non-doubling OM results from
an incorporation operation. We therefore claim that Lubukusu displays two distinct syntactic derivations of OMs (generating
doubling and non-doubling) with the interpretive effects of OM-doubling arising from the semantic/pragmatic properties of
Emph°.
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