Mark C. Baker (Rutgers University): Verb-Noun Complexes that Behave Like a Verb in Some Niger-Congo Languages
Complement clauses in some Niger-Congo (NC) languages like Lubukusu, Kinande, and Ibibio can have a C head that agrees with the matrix subject, whereas other kinds of clauses (relative clauses, high adjunct clauses, etc.) generally cannot. Similarly, complement clauses in some West African languages like Yoruba and Ibibio can have a logophoric pronoun which refers to the matrix subject, whereas other kinds of clauses (relative clauses, high adjunct clauses, etc.) generally cannot. What is a bit surprising, then, is that the CP complement of a noun like ‘news’ or ‘rumor’ can have C-agreement and logophoric pronouns when it appears in a collocation like ‘hear the news that…’ or ‘spread the rumor that…’ even though the CP seems to be a dependent of the noun rather than the verb. In this respect, ‘hear the news’ behaves like a simple verb, and the question arises as to why. Focusing on C-agreement and logophoric data from Ibibio (Cross-River language, Nigeria), I argue that this complex predicate behavior is the result of nouns like ‘news’ having arguments of their own, often realized as null pronominal arguments, but sometimes as an overt possessor. These null arguments of the noun can be controlled by corresponding arguments of the verb, which results in the noun projection being effectively transparent for control-based phenomena. I show that this account explains some basic constituency facts about the construction, in which the CP still forms a unit with the noun rather than the verb, and generalizes to the behavior of N+CP constructions in the subject position, which would not be explained if one says that V+N gets “reanalyzed” into a kind of verb.
Mary Amaechi (University of Ibadan), Reginald Akuoko Duah (University of Ghana at Legon and Humboldt University of Berlin) and Malte Zimmermann (University of Potsdam): The structure and meaning of (seeming) OBJ-sharing SVCs in Igbo and Akan
Abstract in pdf form available here