Cover not available

Article published In: Studies in Language
Vol. 43:4 (2019) ► pp.757–799

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

The grammaticalisation of verb-auxiliary order in East African Bantu

From information structure to tense-aspect

ORCiD logo with link | University of Essex
Published online: 23 January 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.17033.gib
Abstract
Bantu languages employ a combination of simple and compound verb forms to encode tense-aspect-mood distinctions. Compound constructions typically involve an auxiliary form followed by an inflected main verb. However, the six East African Bantu languages under examination in this paper exhibit a word order in which the auxiliary appears after the verb. This order is typologically unusual for languages with SVO word order and comparatively unusual in the context of the Bantu languages. This paper presents a synchronic description of this word order and develops an account of its possible origins. It is proposed that the verb-auxiliary order originated from a verb-fronting construction which was used historically to convey predication focus. The account further corroborates the claim that the progressive aspect is an inherently focal category in Bantu and, from a wider perspective, shows the interplay between the encoding of information structure and tense-aspect information.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Verb-auxiliary order in East African Bantu
    • 2.1Auxiliaries in Bantu languages
    • 2.2Verb-auxiliary order: The data
    • 2.3Rangi
    • 2.4Mbugwe
    • 2.5Gusii
    • 2.6Kuria
    • 2.7Ngoreme
    • 2.8Simbiti
    • 2.9Summary
  • 3.The development of the verb-auxiliary order
    • 3.1Background
    • 3.2The proposed pathway of change
    • 3.3Support for the pathway of change: Form
      • 3.3.1Link between verb-auxiliary order and verb fronting
      • 3.3.2Evidence from ni
    • 3.4Support for the pathway of change: Meaning
      • 3.4.1The ‘inversion contexts’: Support from information structure
      • 3.4.2A closer look at tense and aspect
    • 3.5From predicate-centred focus to progressive to future tense
  • 4.Language contact and the development of verb-auxiliary order
    • 4.1Previous contact-based accounts of the verb-auxiliary order
    • 4.2A linguistic overview of the area
    • 4.3Challenges with a contact-based account of the verb-auxiliary order
  • 5.Summary and concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (93)
References
Abels, Klaus & Peter Muriungi. 2008. The focus marker in Kîîtharaka: Syntax and semantics. Lingua, 687–731. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anderson, Gregory. 2006. Auxiliary Verb Constructions. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Auxiliary Verb Constructions in the Languages of Africa. Studies in African Linguistics 40(1–2). 1409.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ashton, Ethel O. 1947. Swahili grammar, including intonation. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aunio, Lotta. 2015a. Contact leading to a more complex tonal system: The case of Ikoma and Datooga in north-west Tanzania. Helsinki: University of Helsinki thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015b. A typological perspective on Bantu nominal tone: The case of Ikoma-Nata-Isenye in western Tanzania. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 33(3). 359–371. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aunio, Lotta, Holly Robinson, Tim Roth, Oliver Stegen & John B. Walker. 2019. The Mara languages (JE40). In Koen Bostoen, Derek Nurse, Gérard Philippson & Mark van de Velde (eds), The Bantu Languages, 2nd ed. 501–532. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bastin, Yvonne. 1989. El, prefijo locativo de la clase 18 y la expresión del progresivo presente en bantú (I). Estudios Africanos. Revista de la Asociación Española de Africanistas 4(7). 61–86.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bennett, Patrick R. 1985. Gikuyu ni Kioigire: essays, texts and glossaries. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin-Madison thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bouka, L. Y. 1989. Elements de description du kaamba. Parler bantou de la Republique Populaire du Congo (Groupe Koongo, HI7b). Brussels. Universite Libre de Bruxelles thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Botne, Robert. 1989. Reconstruction of a grammaticalized auxiliary in Bantu. Studies in the Linguistics Sciences. 19(2). 169–186.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Specificity in Lusaamia infinitives. Studies in Language 28(1). 137–164. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brenzinger, Matthias. 2013. The twelve modern Khoisan languages. Paper presented at Khoisan Languages and Linguistics, Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium (Research in Khoisan Studies 29), Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Classifying the non-Bantu click languages. In Lungisile Ntsebeza & Chris Sanders (eds), Papers from the Pre-Colonial Catalytic Project, vol. 11, 80–102. Cape Town: University of Cape Town.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The evolution of grammar. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cammenga, Jelle. 2002. Phonology and Morphology of Ekegusii: A Bantu language of Kenya. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Igikuria Phonology and Morphology: A Bantu language of South-West Kenya and North-West Tanzania. East-African languages and dialects. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Campbell, Lyle. 1987. Syntactic change in Pipil. International Journal of American Linguistics 531. 253–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Coetsem, Frans. 1988. Loan phonology and the two transfer types in language contact. Dordrecht: Foris. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collins, Peter. 1991. Cleft and Pseudo-Cleft Constructions in English. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. New York: Basil BlackwGell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dom, Sebastian & Koen Bostoen. 2015. Examining variation in the expression of tense/aspect to classify the Kikongo language cluster. Africana Linguistica 211. 163–211. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drubig, Hans B. 2003. Toward a typology of focus and focus constructions. Linguistics 41(1). 1–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. 1992. The Greenbergian word order correlations. Language 68(1). 81–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dunham, Margaret. 2005. Eléments de description du langi, langue Bantu F.33 de Tanzanie (Collection Langues et littératures de l’Afrique noire SELAF 413). Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ehret, Christopher. 1986. Proposals on Khoisan reconstruction. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 7(2). 105–130.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Elderkin, Edward D. 1986. Diachronic Inferences from basic sentence and noun Structure in Central Khoisan and Sandawe. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 71. 131–156.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1989. The significance and origin of the use of pitch in Sandawe. York: University of York dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibson, Hannah. 2012. Auxiliary placement in Rangi: A Dynamic Syntax perspective. London: SOAS University of London dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Auxiliary placement in Rangi: A case of contact-induced change? SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics 161. 153–166.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. A unified dynamic account of auxiliary placement in Rangi. Lingua 1841. 79–103. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. Auxiliary constructions in Bantu. Essex: University of Essex thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibson, Hannah & Lutz Marten. 2019. Probing the interaction of language contact and internal innovation: Four case studies of morphosyntactic change in Rangi. Studies in African Linguistics 491. 63–92.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In Joseph H. Greenberg (ed), Universals of Language, 73–113. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Khoisan language classification today. In Tom Güldemann & Anne-Maria Feh (eds), Beyond ‘Khoisan’: Historical Relations in the Kalahari Basin, 1–41. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Güldemann, Tom, and Rainer Vossen. 2000. “Khoisan.“ African languages: An introduction, 99–122.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gunnink, Hilde. 2016. The fronted-infinitive in few. Paper presented at 6th International Bantu conference, Helsinki University. 20–23rd June 2016.
Guthrie, Malcolm. 1967–71. Comparative Bantu. Farnborough: Gregg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hadermann, Pascale. 1996. Grammaticalisation de la structure infinitive+verbé conjugue dans quelques langues bantoues. Studies in African Linguistics 25(2). 155–169.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harris, Alice & Lyle Campbell. 1995. Historical syntax in cross-linguistic perspective. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hartmann, Katharina & Tonjes Veenstra. 2013. Introduction to Cleft structures. In Katharina Hartmann & Tonjes Veenstra (eds). Cleft Structures, 1–32. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 1993. Auxiliaries: Cognitive Forces and grammaticalization. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2005. On contact-induced grammaticalization. Studies in Language 27(3). 529–572. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. 1991. On some principles of grammaticalization. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization, 17–35. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry & John Watters. 1984. Auxiliary focus. Studies in African Linguistics 151. 233–273.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kerr, Elisabeth J. 2017. Focus marking in Ekegusii. Cambridge: University of Cambridge thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kießling, Roland. 2007. The “marked nominative” in Datooga. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 28(2). 149–191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kießling, Roland, Maarten Mous & Derek Nurse. 2008. The Tanzanian Rift Valley area. A Linguistic Geography of Africa. In Bernd Heine & Derek Nurse (eds.), A linguistic geography of Africa, 186–227. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Kind, Jasper, Sebastian Dom, Gilles-Maurice de Schryver & Koen Bostoen. 2015. Event-centrality and the pragmatics-semantics interface in Kikongo: From predication focus to progressive aspect and vice versa. Folia Linguistics Historica 361. 113–163.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form. Topic, focus and the mental representations of discourse referents. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lehmann, Christian. 2008. Information structure and grammaticalization. In Elena Seoane & María José López-Couso (eds.), Theoretical and Empirical Issues in grammaticalization (Typological Studies in Language 77), 207–229. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leslau, Wolf. 1945. The influence of Cushitic on the Semitic languages of Ethiopia: A problem of substratum. Word 11. 59–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maho, Jouni Filip. 1999. A comparative study of Bantu noun classes. Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marten, Lutz. Forthcoming. Bantu and Bantoid. In Rainer Vossen (ed.), Handbook of African Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Marten, Lutz, Peter Edelesten, Rozenn Guérois & Hannah Gibson. 2018. Database of morphosyntactic variation in Bantu. Leverhulme Trust funded project ‘Morphosyntactic variation in Bantu: typology, contact and change’.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meeussen, Achille Emille. 1967. Bantu Grammatical Reconstructions. Africana Linguistica 31. 79–121. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morimoto, Yukiko. 2013. Gĩkũyũ. Unpublished ms. Paper presented to the Predicate-centered focus types: B7 project meeting, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Nov. 19, 2013.
. 2016. Verb doubling vs. the conjoint/disjoint alternation. Paper presented at 6th International Bantu conference, Helsinki University 20–23rd June 2016.
. 2017. The Kikuyu focus marker nĩ: formal and functional similarities to the conjoint/disjoint alternation. In Jenneke van der Wal & Larry M. Hyman (eds.), The conjoint/disjoint alternation in Bantu, 147–174. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mous, Maarten. 1993. A grammar of Iraqw (Cushitic Language Studies 9). Hamburg: Helmut Buske.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000. Counter-universal rise of infinitive-auxiliary order in Mbugwe (Tanzania, Bantu, F34.). In Rainer Vossen, Angelika Mietzner & Antje Meissner (eds.), Mehr als nur Worte… : afrikanistische Beiträge zum 65. Geburtstag von Franz Rottland, 469–481. Köln: Köppe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. A grammatical sketch of Mbugwe: Bantu F34, Tanzania (Grammatische Analysen afrikanischer Sprachen). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Alagwa Grammar, Texts and Lexicon (Cushitic Language Series). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ndumbu, J. M. G. & W. H. Whiteley. 1962. Some problems of stability and emphasis in Kamba one-word tenses. Journal of African Languages 1(2). 167–180.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nurse, Derek. 2000. Diachronic morphosyntactic change in Western Tanzania. In Rainer Vossen, Angelika Mietzner and Antje Meissner (eds.), Mehr als nur Worte… : afrikanistische Beiträge zum 65. Geburtstag von Franz Rottland, 517–534. Köln: Köppe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Aspect and tense in Bantu languages. In Derek Nurse & Gérard Philippson (eds.), The Bantu Languages, 90–102. London, Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Tense and Aspect in Bantu. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nurse, Derek & Gérard Philippson. 2006. Common TA markers in Bantu. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 271. 155–196. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Philippson, Gérard and Derek Nurse. 2000. Gweno, a little known Bantu language of Northern Tanzania. Unpublished manuscrip. Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris / Dynamique du Langage, Lyon and Memorial University of Newfoundland.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Riedel, Kristina. 2009. The syntax of object marking in Sambaa: A comparative Bantu perspective. Amsterdam: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roth, Tim. 2014. The Case of Ngoreme: Distinguishing contact from inheritance in Mara Bantu. Paper presented at Language Contact: State of the Art, Helsinki, Finland.
. 2018. Aspect in Ikoma and Ngroreme: a comparison and analysis of two Western Serengeti Bantu languages. Helsinki: University of Helsinki dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schachter, Paul. 1973. Focus and relativization. Language 49(1). 19–46. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwarz, Florian. 2003a. Focus marking in Kikuyu. Berlin: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003b. Focus marking in Kikuyu. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 301. 41–118.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Ex-situ focus in Kikuyu. In Enoch O. Aboh, Katharina Hartmann & Malte Zimmermann (eds.), Focus strategies in African languages: The interaction of focus and grammar in Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic, 139–160. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stegen, Oliver. 2002. Derivational processes in Rangi. Studies in African Linguistics 31(1/2). 129–153.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Participatory Research, TAM Functions, and Dialect Survey Among the Rangi. SIL, unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Takizala, Alexis. 1972. Focus and relativisation: The case of Kihung’an. Studies in African Linguistics 3(2). 259–286.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah G. & Terrence Kaufmann. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley; University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van de Velde, Mark & Koen Bostoen. 2019. The Bantu languages, 2nd edn. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Wal, Jenneke. 2016. Diagnosing focus. Studies in Language 40(2). 259–301. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, John B. 2013. Comparative tense and aspect in the Mara Bantu languages: Towards a linguistic history. Langley City, CA: Trinity Western University thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Westphal, Ernst O. J. 1971. The click languages of southern and eastern Africa. In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Current trends in linguistics 7: Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa, 367–420. The Hague: Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whiteley, Wilfred. H. 1959. The tense system of Gusii. Kampala: East African Literature Bureau.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilhelmsen, Vera. 2014. Periphrastic verbs in Mbugwe (F34). Unpublished ms. Uppsala University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. A description of the Mbugwe lanaguage – with a focus on tone and TAM. Uppsala: Uppsala University dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wright, Richard, Ian Maddieson, Peter Ladefoged & Bonny Sands. 1995. A phonetic study of Sandawe clicks. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 911. 1–24.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Bernander, Rasmus
2025. Epistemic possibility adverbs in East African Bantu – a typological-comparative overview. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 46:1 ► pp. 71 ff. DOI logo
Svenonius, Peter
2025. Word Order Universals and Their Relationship to Structure. Annual Review of Linguistics 11:1 ► pp. 137 ff. DOI logo
Harvey, Andrew, Hannah Gibson & Richard Griscom
2023. Preverbal clitic clusters in the Tanzanian Rift Valley revisited. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 44:2 ► pp. 175 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue