Publications
Publication details [#48311]
Demuth, Katherine and Cécile De Cat, eds. 2008. The Bantu–Romance Connection. A comparative investigation of verbal agreement, DPs, and information structure. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 131). John Benjamins. xix+355 pp.
Publication type
Book – edited volume
Publication language
English
Keywords
Language as a subject
Annotation
This volume is the first work specifically designed to explore the extent to which striking surface morpho-syntactic similarities between Bantu and Romance languages actually represent similar syntactic structures. In particular, it explores the timely and much debated issues of verbal morphology and agreement, the structure of DPs, and word order/information structure, with the goal of providing a better understanding of the structure of the different languages investigated, and the implications this holds for syntactic theory more generally. All of the papers draw on data from both Bantu and Romance languages, providing a framework for much-needed further comparative research on the nature of linguistic structure, its diversity and constraints, and the implications this has for learnability/acquisition. The volume also provides an important precedent for incorporating insights from Bantu linguistic structure into mainstream of syntax research.