The existential in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness : The existential copula in Xhosa in relation to indefiniteness

• Bare nouns in languages without articles can be semantically ambiguous between definite and indefinite interpretations. It is assumed here that speakers of such languages can still signal to the hearer when such nouns refer to unique and identifiable referents. This paper contributes to the long-standing cross-linguistic question of how bare nouns are interpreted and what means languages without articles have to disambiguate between definite and indefinite readings. This question is largely unexplored for Bantu languages. The answer is sought in the use of different word orders and morphosyntactic constructions, with a focus on the existential, in this paper. In many languages of the world, there is a restriction on definites as pivots in existential constructions, which serves as a motivation for exploring these constructions in Xhosa. Xhosa makes use of a non-verbal copula -kho(na) in prototypical existentials as well as in presentationals. The combination of a long and a short version of the copula, together with a choice between expletive and subject agreement, gives rise to four different forms which express the existence or presence of a referent. The aim of this paper is to answer the question of how these different forms map onto a difference in meaning and function, based on examples from a corpus of natural speech and checked in follow-up elicitation. It is shown that Xhosa has a dedicated existential which is used when the coda, rather than the pivot, is the perspectival center. The existential takes expletive agreement on the copula, and the copula plus pivot have a fixed word order. When the same copula agrees with the theme argument, which can be pre- or postverbal, it functions as a presentational. The existential is used with new referents, which are overwhelmingly indefinite. However, there is no strict definiteness effect. The presentational takes a wider range of referents, which are also mostly indefinite. When it comes to the use of the short and long forms of the copula, the paper reveals an unexpected analogy with the use of the so-called conjoint and disjoint forms in Xhosa tense-aspect paradigms.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Studier av enskilda språk (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Languages (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Language Studies and Linguistics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

(in)definiteness

existential

presentational

Bantu

bare nouns

activation states

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)