Clausal morphosyntax and information structure

Abstract

With some 300–500 closely related languages, the Bantu family provides a wealth of examples for the study of syntactic micro-variation within a set of typologically similar languages. This chapter surveys six central topics in the clausal morphosyntax, highlighting similarities and variation across the Bantu spectrum. The themes discussed are: word order, agreement in the phrase and the clause, valency-changing morphosyntax, non-verbal predication, complex clause structure and dependent clauses and the phonology-syntax interface. Each topic is amply illustrated with data from several geographically disparate languages, and the implications of the data for leading theoretical frameworks are discussed.