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Multiple agreement and inversion in bantu
Author(s) -
Henderson Brent
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
syntax
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-9612
pISSN - 1368-0005
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9612.2006.00093.x
Subject(s) - bantu languages , participle , agreement , inversion (geology) , linguistics , raising (metalworking) , verb , feature (linguistics) , subject (documents) , specifier , argument (complex analysis) , mathematics , computer science , philosophy , geometry , geology , biochemistry , chemistry , paleontology , structural basin , library science , noun , noun phrase
. Carstens (2001) argues that multiple agreement constructions in Bantu arise through raising of the subject through each verb's specifier. This paper argues against this account, providing evidence from relative inversion that subjects move directly from their base position to their final position with no intermediate stops. It is argued that these facts are consistent with a Multiple Agree analysis in which agreement on participle verbs is parasitic on the φ ‐features of their selecting auxiliary verbs. Carstens's arguments against Chomsky's (2000, 2001) system of φ ‐complete Case checking are also discussed and a new argument against Chomsky's system is presented that demands φ and Case feature checking relations be divorced. Data come from Swahili and Kirundi.