The Bantu Relative Agreement Cycle

Mark van de Velde (1)

1 LLACAN - Langage, LAngues et Cultures d'Afrique

This paper presents the Bantu Relative Agreement (BRA) cycle, a scenario of recurrent morphosyntactic change that involves the emergence of relativisers, which are subsequently integrated into the relative verb form, where they can ultimately replace the original subject agreement prefix. All logical outcomes at every stage of the cycle are amply attested in the languages of the Bantu family. The BRA cycle makes sense of many of the puzzling characteristics of relative clause constructions in the Bantu languages, especially in the domain of agreement.

Mots clés: agreement; Bantu; historical syntax; relative clauses

Domaines: Linguistique; Linguistique

Mark van de Velde. The Bantu Relative Agreement Cycle. Linguistics, 2021, 59 (4), pp.981-1015. ⟨10.1515/ling-2021-0113⟩. ⟨halshs-03045136⟩