Course Description
In this course we will explore selected aspects of the syntax of African languages such as the following: Bantu noun classes and agreement; Is there DP without articles?; Aspects of the syntax of information structure; Negative concord; Serial verbs; Questions. The topics to be studied have generated substantial interest among Africanist linguistics and the broader theoretical syntax community because of the wealth of information they provide on human linguistic diversity and on questions in morpho-syntactic theory. Bantu noun classes are vital to the analysis of grammatical gender, for example, and agreement phenomena in Bantu languages figure prominently in debates over the directionality of agreement, properties of feature-checking relations, and the relationship between agreement, movement, and Case. Negative concord and the syntactic encoding of information structure illuminate cross-linguistic variation in how nominal licensing works. The size of nominal expressions in languages without articles is an important topic at the syntax/semantic interface. Serial verb constructions in West African languages provide unique insights into clausal architecture and into the nature of complementation. Variation in the syntax of question formation tells us how to understand such phenomena as superiority, weak crossover, island effects and in situ vs. ex situ wh-questions.
Area Tags: Syntax, Information structure, African languages, Field work, Areal linguistics, Language documentation
(Sessions 1 & 2) Tuesday/Friday 3:00pm – 4:20pm
Location: ILC S416
Instructors: Vicki Carstens & Harold Torrence
Vicki Carstens is a Professor of Linguistics in the Linguistics Department at the University of Connecticut. She completed her BA in African Languages and Linguistics at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her MA and PhD in Linguistics at UCLA. Much of her work is concerned with agreement phenomena and nominal syntax in Bantu languages. In recent years, she has focused on the Nguni languages of South Africa. Her work has appeared in volumes and journals including Linguistic Inquiry, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, Language, Lingua, and The Linguistic Review. At UConn, she teaches courses in linguistic field methods, syntax, and general linguistics.
Harold is a professor in the UCLA Department of Linguistics. His research focuses on the comparative syntax and morphology of African and Native American languages.
