Abstract
The main goal of our paper is to give a first, general description of middle voice in Bantu. As will be shown, this language group has a set of verbal derivational morphemes that challenges some of the concepts related to the middle domain. First of all, as of yet no description has been found of a language having more than one middle marker, yet many Bantu languages have up to four or five derivational morphemes that cover several parts of the semantic domain of the middle. Secondly, provided that the polysemy patterns of these morphemes only partially cover what is generally considered the “canonical” middle domain, we will call these “quasi-middle” markers. The fact that these verbal morphemes also convey notions that are usually not considered to belong to the domain of the canonical middle calls for a reassessment of what constitutes the semantic core of this voice category cross-linguistically. Although the theoretical implications of these new data are not the central focus of our paper, the basic description that we aim to provide of the middle in Bantu can nevertheless contribute to further discussion on this intricate voice category.
References
Allan, Rutger. 2003. The middle voice in Ancient Greek: A study of polysemy. Amsterdam: J. Gieben.
Ambouroue, Odette. 2007. Éléments de description de l’orungu, langue bantu du Gabon (B11b). Brussels: Université Libre de Bruxelles. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Bastin, Yvonne & Coupez, André & Mumba, Evariste & Schadeberg, Thilo C. (eds.). 2002. Bantu lexical reconstructions 3 / Reconstructions lexicales bantoues 3. Tervuren: Royal Museum for Central Africa. (http://linguistics.africamuseum.be/BLR3.html)
Bearth, Thomas. 2003. Syntax. In Nurse, Derek & Philippson, Gérard (eds.), The Bantu languages, 121-142. New York: Routledge.
Bostoen, Koen. 2010. Reflexive-reciprocal polysemy in South-Western Bantu: Typology and origins. (Paper presented at Syntax of the World’s Languages IV, Lyon, 23-26 September 2010.)
Bostoen, Koen & Dom, Sebastian & Segerer, Guillaume. 2015. The antipassive in Bantu. Linguistics 53(4). 731-772.
Bostoen, Koen & Nzang-Bie, Yolande. 2010. On how “middle” plus “associative/reciprocal” became “passive” in the Bantu A70 languages. Linguistics 48(6). 1255-1307.
Bowler, Margit & Gluckman, John. 2016. Expletive agreement, evidentiality, and modality in Logooli. (Paper presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley, 23-26 March 2016.)
Chavula, Jean Josephine. 2016. Verbal derivation and valency in Citumbuka. (LOT 423). Utrecht: LOT.
Creissels, Denis. 2002. Valence verbale et voix en tswana. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 97(1). 371-426.
Culy, Christopher & Fagan, Sarah M. B. 2001. The history of the middle in Dogon. Studies in African Lingistics 30(2). 171-194.
Dom, Sebastian. 2014. The neuter suffix in Bantu: A Systemic Functional Analysis. Ghent: Ghent University. (Master dissertation.)
Dom, Sebastian. 2015. The neuter suffix -ik- in Bantu. (Unpublished manuscript.)
Dubinsky, Stanley & Simango, Silvester Ron. 1996. Passive and stative in Chichewa: Evidence for modular distinctions in grammar. Language 72(4). 749-781.
Fehderau, Harold W. 1962. Descriptive grammar of the Kituba language: A dialectal survey. Léopoldville: American Mennonite Brethren Board of Missions.
Grégoire, Claire. 2003. The Bantu languages of the forest. In Nurse, Derek & Philippson, Gérard (eds.), The Bantu languages, 349-370. New York: Routledge.
Grestenberger, Laura. 2016. Reconstructing Proto-Indo-European deponents. Indo-European Linguistics 4. 98-148. (http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/docserver/journals/22125892/4/1/22125892_004_01_s004_text.pdf?expires=1484054517&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=0B9CA70D0428059D1FB8A11FFA147D9F) (Accessed 10 January 2017.)
Guérois, Rozenn. 2015. A grammar of Cuwabo (Mozambique, Bantu P34). Lyon: Université Lumière Lyon 2. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Guérois, Rozenn & Bostoen, Koen. 2016. From separative to middle/passive polysemy in Cuwabo (Bantu P34). (Paper presented at the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley, 23-26 March 2016.)
Helmlinger, Paul. 1972. Dictionnaire duala-français, suivi d’un lexique français-duala. Paris: Klincksieck.
Hulstaert, Gustaaf. 1957. Dictionnaire lɔmɔ́ngɔ-français (Annales - Série in-8° - Sciences de l’Homme 16, Tome I). Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale.
Hulstaert, Gustaaf. 1965. Grammaire du lɔmɔ́ngɔ vol. 2: Morphologie (Annales - Série in-8° - Sciences Humaines 57). Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale.
Janic, Katarzyna. 2016. L’antipassif dans les langues accusatives (GRAMM-R. Études de Linguistique Française). Brussels: Peter Lang.
Janic, Katarzyna & Segerer, Guillaume. 2011. Reciprocal-antipassive polysemy: Convergence from unrelated languages. (Paper presented at the Association for Linguistic Typology 9th Biennial Conference, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 21-24 July 2011.)
Jasanoff, Jay. 1978. Stative and middle in Indo-European (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 23). Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.
Kabuta, Ngo Semzara. 2008. Nkòngamyakù Cilubà-Mfwàlànsa (Linguistic Series 19). Ghent: Ghent Research Centre of African Languages and Literatures, Ghent University.
Kawasha, Boniface Kaumba. 2003. Lunda grammar: A morphosyntactic and semantic analysis. Ann Arbor: University of Oregon. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Kazenin, Konstantin I. 2001. Verbal reflexives and the middle voice. In Haspelmath, Martin & König, Ekkehard & Oesterreicher, Wulf & Raible, Wolfgang (eds.), Language typology and language universals: An international handbook vol. 2 (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 20). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Kemmer, Suzanne. 1993. The middle voice (Typological Studies in Language 23). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Khumalo, Langa. 2009. The passive and stative constructions in Ndebele: A comparative analysis. Nordic Journal of African Studies 18(2). 154-174.
Kimenyi, Alexandre. 1988. Passives in Kinyarwanda. In Shibatani, Masayoshi (ed.), Passive and voice, 355-386. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kisilu Meso, Jean Samuel. 2001. Morphologie flexionnelle du kimboma. Kinshasa/Binza: Institut Pédagogique National. (Mémoire de licence.)
Kouarata, Guy Noël. 2015. Grammaire beembe: Langue bantu (H10) du Congo-Brazzaville. Paris: Edilivre.
Kulikov, Leonid. 2011. Passive to anticausative through impersonalization: The case of Vedic and Indo-European. In Malchukov, Andrej & Siewierska, Anna (eds.), Impersonal constructions: A cross-linguistic perspective (Studies in Language Companion Series 124), 230-254. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kulikov, Leonid. 2013. Middle and reflexive. In Luraghi, Silvia & Parodi, Claudia (eds.), The Bloomsbury companion to syntax, 261-280. London: Bloomsbury.
Lichtenberk, Frantisek. 2000. Reciprocals without reflexives. In Frajzyngier, Zygmunt & Curl, Traci S. (eds.), Reciprocals: Forms and functions, 31-62. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Marlo, Michael R. 2015. On the number of object markers in Bantu languages. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 36(1). 1-65.
Meeussen, Achille Emille. 1967. Bantu grammatical reconstructions. Africana Linguistica 3. 79-122.
Meeuwis, Michael. 2010. A grammatical overview of Lingála. Munich: Lincom.
Morrison, Michelle Elizabeth. 2011. A reference grammar of Bena. Houston, Texas: Rice University. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Nagaya, Naonori. 2009. The middle voice in Tagalog. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 1. 159-187.
Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. 2007a. Overview of the research: Definitions of terms, framework, and related issues. In Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. (ed.), Reciprocal constructions. Vol. 1, 3-114. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. 2007b. Polysemy of reciprocal markers. In Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. (ed.), Reciprocal constructions. Vol. 1, 231-333. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Nurse, Derek. 2008. Tense and aspect in Bantu. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Palancar, Enrique L. 2004. Middle voice in Otomi. International Journal of American Linguistics 70(1). 52-85.
Racine, Odile. 2015. Les extensions verbales en swahili standard (East African Languages and Dialects 24). Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
Schadeberg, Thilo C. 1982. Les suffixes verbaux séparatifs en bantou. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 4. 55-66.
Schadeberg, Thilo C. 2003. Derivation. In Nurse, Derek & Philippson, Gérard (eds.), The Bantu languages, 71-89. New York: Routledge.
Seidl, Amanda & Dimitriadis, Alexis. 2002. Statives and reciprocal morphology in Swahili. In Sauzet, Patrick & Zribi-Hertz, Anne (eds.), Typologie des langues d’Afrique et universaux de la grammaire, 239-284. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Shibatani, Masayoshi. 2004. Voice. In Booij, Geert & Lehmann, Christian & Mugdan, Joachim & Skopeteas, Stavros (eds.), Morphology: An international handbook on inflection and word-formation vol. 2 (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 14), 1145-1165. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Stappers, Leo. 1964. Morfologie van het Songye. Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale.
License
Copyright (c) 2016 Sebastian Dom, Leonid Kulikov, Koen Bostoen
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.