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Article published In:
Linguistic Variation
Vol. 22:2 (2022) ► pp.268–324

The locus of parametric variation in Bantu gender and nominal derivation

| University of Southern California
| Leiden University

In this paper, we capture the crosslinguistic variation in Bantu nominal structure in a unified analysis of gender on n (Kramer 2014, 2015). We demonstrate that this analysis accounts for the morphosyntactic properties of basic nouns as well as locative and diminutive derivations. Moreover, it allows us to capture intra- and inter-language morphosyntactic variation by reference to just three parameters – one strictly morphological and two structural. The presence of one or two n heads, and the size of the complement distinguish between different types of locatives (structural variation); the presence or absence of a spell-out rule of adjacent n heads differentiates “stacking” versus “non-stacking” prefixes in diminutive and augmentative derivations (morphological variation only).

Keywords: grammatical gender, Bantu languages, comparative syntax, nominal derivation, locatives, diminutives
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Bantu DPs and derivation
    • 1.2(Questions for) analyses
  • 2.A DM approach to Bantu nominal structure
  • 3.Locatives
    • 3.1Complement of n 16/17/18
    • 3.2Locatives with suffix -(i)ni
  • 4.Derived diminutives and augmentatives
    • 4.1Stacking prefixes
    • 4.2Non-stacking prefixes
  • 5.Combining and comparing locatives and diminutives
    • 5.1Adjacent ns and null spell-out
    • 5.2One vs. two Number projections
  • 6.Implications & conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Symbols and abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 16 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.20007.fuc
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