English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Zendy Plus

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Zendy Tools

Zendy Open

In Mbuun (B87), a Bantu language spoken in the Bandundu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the valency-increasing functions of the causative and the applicative have, to a certain extent, the same formal expression. They are encoded morphologically by a derivational suffix which has an uncharacteristic morphophonological realization. It triggers the gemination of the root-final consonant. In this paper, we examine whether this causative/applicative isomorphism is the result of a semantic split or rather the outcome of a phonemic merger. In the first case, the semantic extension must have happened from applicative to causative rather than the cross-linguistically more common evolution from causative to applicative, since the consonant gemination associated with these forms has its origin in the Proto-Bantu applicative suffix * -  i  d- . In the case of a phonemic merger, however, this applicative suffix would have become homophonous with an originally distinct suffix having a causative effect as the result of convergent morphophonological change. This morpheme cannot be the Proto-Bantu causative suffix * -ici- , which still has a residual causative use in Mbuun.

The causative/applicative syncretism in Mbuun (Bantu B87, DRC): Semantic split or phonemic merger?