Chapter published in:
Argument Selectors: A new perspective on grammatical relations
Edited by Alena Witzlack-Makarevich and Balthasar Bickel
[Typological Studies in Language 123] 2019
► pp. 511–531

Grammatical relations in Katla

| University of Cologne
This chapter describes grammatical relations in Katla, a Niger-Congo language of Sudan. Katla exhibits a close match between semantic and syntactic valency, and monovalent, bivalent and trivalent verbs can be distinguished by their ability to occur with one, two or three unmarked arguments respectively. Katla shows evidence for the existence of a subject category (including S, A and ADITR, whereby ‘DITR’ as subscript arguments) and of a primary object category (including P and G arguments; but excluding T arguments). Evidence for these categories comes from argument indexing, constituent order and valency-changing morphology. Other potential argument selectors are also discussed, but they provide inconclusive evidence. The chapter concludes with a brief comparison to the closest relative, Tima, showing considerable differences between the two languages.
Published online: 05 March 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.123.14hel
References

References

Alamin, Suzan
2012 The Nominal and Verbal Morphology of Tima: A Niger-Congo Language Spoken in the Nuba Mountains. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Blench, Roger M.
2013 Splitting up Kordofanian. In Nuba Mountain Language Studies, Thilo C. Schadeberg & Roger M. Blench (eds), 571–586. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Dimmendaal, Gerrit J.
2009 Tima. In Coding Participant Marking: Construction Types in Twelve African Languages [Studies in Language Companion Series 110], Gerrit J. Dimmendaal (ed.), 331–353. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2010a Ditransitive constructions in Tima. In Studies in Ditransitive Constructions: A Comparative Handbook, Malchukov, Andrej, Martin Haspelmath & Bernard Comrie (eds), 204–220. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
2010b On the origin of ergativity in Tima. In Essais de typologie et de linguistique générale, Mélanges offerts à Denis Creissels, Frank Floricic (ed.), 233–239. Paris: Presses Universitaires de l’École Normale Superieure.Google Scholar
2010c Esoterogeny and localist strategies in a Nuba Mountain community. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 20: 75–95.Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew
1986 Primary objects, secondary objects, and antidative. Language 62(4): 808–845.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H.
1963 The Languages of Africa. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Hellwig, Birgit
2013 Verbal morphology in Katla. In Nuba Mountain Language Studies, Thilo C. Schadeberg & Roger M. Blench (eds), 237–250. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Meinhof, Carl
1916/17 Sprachstudien im egyptischen Sudan: B. Sudansprachen. 14. Katla. Zeitschrift für Kolonialsprachen 7: 212–235.Google Scholar
Schneider-Blum, Gertrud
2013 Personal pronouns in Tima. In Nuba Mountain Language Studies, Thilo C. Schadeberg & Roger Blench (eds), 281–296. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Simons, Gary F. & Fennig, Charles D.
(eds) 2017 Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 20th edn. Dallas TX: SIL International. http://​www​.ethnologue​.comGoogle Scholar
Stevenson, Roland C.
1940 Grammatical material, vocabulary and texts in Katla. Ms.Google Scholar
1957 A survey of the phonetics and grammatical structure of the Nuba Mountain languages, with particular reference to Otoro, Katcha and Nyimang. Afrika und Übersee 41: 27–65, 117–152, 171–196.Google Scholar
1964 Linguistic research in the Nuba Mountains, Part 2. Sudan Notes and Records 45: 79–102.Google Scholar
Tucker, Archibald Norman & Bryan, Margaret Arminel
1956 The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa. London: Oxford University Press for International African Institute.Google Scholar
1966 Linguistic Analyses: The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa. London: Oxford University Press for International African Institute.Google Scholar