Phrasal movement inside Bantuverbs : deriving affix scope and order in Kîîtharaka
Year: 2009
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis tries to determine the principles that govern affix ordering in Kîîtharaka, an SVO Bantu language spoken in Kenya. The thesis starts by determining the base hierarchy of affixes by using semantic scope. Thus if an affix A scopes over an affix B, A asymmetrically c-commands B in the phrasal structure configuration. The thesis then tries to investigate how the affixes in the base hierarchy are re-ordered to produce the surface string. It is shown that in order to get the surface string, a constituent containing the verb root undergoes phrasal movement past an affix in a mixture of cyclic and roll-up movement. This movement mechanism, which I refer to as dragging movement, is shown to be strikingly similar to the mechanism that derives the typological variation in the ordering of demonstrative, numeral and adjective in the extended projection of the noun (Cinque 2005). The thesis therefore\nshows that the ordering of the affixes in the extended projection of the verb phrase in Kîîtharaka and the ordering of modifiers in the extended projection of the noun phrase fall under the same generalization.
Author: Peter Kinyua Muriungi
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2168068337