The Amar mechanism

Nominal expressions in the Bantu languages are shaped by apposition and reintegration

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3987529
AutoresMark L O Van De Velde (0000-0002-2803-2130, LLACAN , UMR 8135 CNRS INALCO EPHE , Villejuif , France, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume60
Fascículo3
Páginas899-931
Data de publicação2022-05-25
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoLinguistics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0024-3949 • E-ISSN: 1613-396X
EditoraWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ling-2020-0132
OpenAlexW4200588862
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas23

Nominal expressions in the Bantu languages have extraordinary typological characteristics. Their word order patterns are extremely diverse and some of the attested patterns are crosslinguistically very rare, or even unique. The same diversity can be found in the number of agreement marker paradigms. Equally remarkable are the prosodic idiosyncrasies found at the level of nominal expressions, especially the existence of prosodic boundaries associated with certain types of adnominal modifiers. Although logically unrelated, I argue that these typological characteristics can be accounted for by a single diachronic scenario here called the AMAR mechanism: a double tendency in the Bantu languages for the emergence of construals in which a nominalized modifier is in apposition to the phrase that contains its semantic head and for such appositional construals to be gradually reintegrated into a single nominal constituent. This paper aims to summarize some of the more remarkable typological characteristics of nominal expressions in the Bantu languages and to lay out the AMAR mechanism as a hypothetical diachronic explanation for many of them

Bantu languages · Construal level theory · Construals · Linguistics · Mechanism (biology) · Phrase · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation