Year: 1997
Type: article
Abstract: The Kenyan Bantu language Kitharaka (E.54) has a biclausal construction in which a verb with an athematic subject takes a finite complement. A referential NP in the matrix subject position may acquire its thematic role through linkage with an argument at a lower level of embedding. The paper presents evidence that this construction, referred to as Empty Operator Raising, involves empty operator movement, although it is also semantically similar to Raising-to-Subject. If the matrix subject is distinct from the subject of the nearest embedded clause, this clause must contain a clefted NP. The author proposes that this clefting is a distancing strategy to prevent an empty operator in SPEC/CP from binding the embedded subject position, to avoid forming an illicit chain with the matrix subject.
Source: Studies in African Linguistics
Author: Carolyn Harford
Institution: University of Zimbabwe
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Funder: Social Science Research Council
OpenAlex ID: W2226945706