A generative grammar of SiSwati: The morphology and syntax of nouns and verbs.

摘要

This dissertation is a study of the morphology and the syntax of nouns and verbs in SiSwati, a Bantu language of Southern Africa. Starting with the general description of the internal morphology of nouns, we show that SiSwati nouns must consist of a class/number prefix and a stem. Then we show that such a description misses some crucial properties of the morphology of nouns. For example, the fact that common nouns differ from proper names morphologically and in the types of inflections they admit. Turning to the external morphology of nouns, we discuss diminutive and augmentative suffixes.;Syntactically, we propose that class and number are functional projection of N;Turning to the verb complex, we show that there are some irregularities in the positions of some inflections. For example, the tense inflection normally occurs before the verb root, but in the immediate past tense it occurs verb-finally. To account these irregularities we propose that all verbal inflections are base-generated as functional projections and that alternations in their positions is due to movement. So, when tense occurs verb-finally, we propose than an X;Finally, we discuss the generalization that subjects and objects which trigger verb agreement have a wider distribution than ones that do not. We analyze this as an evidence that arguments that do not trigger verb agreement must remain within VP, whereas arguments which trigger agreement must occur outside of VP or their base clause.