Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Sep 6;61(5):1285-1339.
doi: 10.1515/ling-2021-0027. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Determiner spreading in Rukiga

Allen Asiimwe  1 , Maria Kouneli  2 , Jenneke van der Wal  3
Affiliations

Determiner spreading in Rukiga

Allen Asiimwe et al. Linguistics. .

Abstract

Determiner spreading, the phenomenon whereby adnominal modifiers carry an 'additional' determiner, has been studied extensively for a variety of languages, most notably Greek, Semitic, and Scandinavian languages. Interestingly, the same phenomenon occurs in the Bantu language Rukiga. We show how the Rukiga augment is parallel to the Greek determiner in the context of modification, and how it triggers a restrictive reading when present on a larger class of modifiers than familiar so far: relative clauses, adjectives, possessives, and certain quantifiers. Considering its morphosyntactic and interpretational properties, we propose that the variation in the presence versus absence of the augment on modifiers is due to different underlying structures, applying an analysis of determiner spreading in terms of a reduced relative clause structure.

Keywords: Bantu; augment; determiner spreading; relative clause; restriction.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:
Set 1 ripe versus unripe pineapple (pictures via Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons, and Pixy).
Figure 2:
Figure 2:
Set 2 unripe bananas versus unripe pineapple.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abels Klaus, Neeleman Ad. Linear asymmetries and the LCA. Syntax . 2012;15(1):25–74. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9612.2011.00163.x. - DOI
    1. Abney Steven. The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect . Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation; 1987.
    1. Acuña-Fariña Juan Carlos. The puzzle of apposition . 1996 Santiago: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.
    1. Acuña-Fariña, Juan Carlos. The grammars of close apposition. Journal of English Linguistics . 2016;44:61–83.
    1. Alexiadou Artemis. A possessive adjective in the Greek DP. In: Stavrou Melita, Terzi Arhonto., editors. Advances in Greek generative syntax: In honor of Dimitra Theophanopoulou-Kontou . Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins; 2005. pp. 127–152.

LinkOut - more resources