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Article published In:
Studies in Language
Vol. 43:4 (2019) ► pp.757–799

The grammaticalisation of verb-auxiliary order in East African Bantu

From information structure to tense-aspect

ORCID logo | University of Essex

Bantu languages employ a combination of simple and compound verb forms to encode tense-aspect-mood distinctions. Compound constructions typically involve an auxiliary form followed by an inflected main verb. However, the six East African Bantu languages under examination in this paper exhibit a word order in which the auxiliary appears after the verb. This order is typologically unusual for languages with SVO word order and comparatively unusual in the context of the Bantu languages. This paper presents a synchronic description of this word order and develops an account of its possible origins. It is proposed that the verb-auxiliary order originated from a verb-fronting construction which was used historically to convey predication focus. The account further corroborates the claim that the progressive aspect is an inherently focal category in Bantu and, from a wider perspective, shows the interplay between the encoding of information structure and tense-aspect information.

Keywords: Bantu, grammaticalisation, word order, language contact, information structure
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Verb-auxiliary order in East African Bantu
    • 2.1Auxiliaries in Bantu languages
    • 2.2Verb-auxiliary order: The data
    • 2.3Rangi
    • 2.4Mbugwe
    • 2.5Gusii
    • 2.6Kuria
    • 2.7Ngoreme
    • 2.8Simbiti
    • 2.9Summary
  • 3.The development of the verb-auxiliary order
    • 3.1Background
    • 3.2The proposed pathway of change
    • 3.3Support for the pathway of change: Form
      • 3.3.1Link between verb-auxiliary order and verb fronting
      • 3.3.2Evidence from ni
    • 3.4Support for the pathway of change: Meaning
      • 3.4.1The ‘inversion contexts’: Support from information structure
      • 3.4.2A closer look at tense and aspect
    • 3.5From predicate-centred focus to progressive to future tense
  • 4.Language contact and the development of verb-auxiliary order
    • 4.1Previous contact-based accounts of the verb-auxiliary order
    • 4.2A linguistic overview of the area
    • 4.3Challenges with a contact-based account of the verb-auxiliary order
  • 5.Summary and concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 23 January 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.17033.gib
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