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BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. NAME: MWANGI PETER NDERITU TASK: FORMAL PROPOSAL TITLE: BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX DATE: NOVEMBER 23, 2010 1 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. TITLE Binding in Swahili morphology and syntax. INTRODUCTION: RESEARCH AREA This study focuses on Binding in Swahili morphology and syntax. Swahili is an agglutinative language and its grammaticality is largely determined by the concord between its morphology and syntax. Accordingly, binding in Swahili is twofold: in morphology and syntax. However, morphology and syntax cannot work independently in the light of concordial agreement; this study will eventually attempt to show how the two interact in deciding the grammaticality of sentences. Key terms and concepts that will be commonly used in this study include: subject and object markers. These two refer to the prefixes attached to the verb’s stem to indicate the subject and the object pronouns conjugated in the verb. Another common term will be verbal complex. This will be referring to the structure of a Swahili verb, which mainly consists of the subject, tense and object prefixes and the verb’s stem. Keach (1995) points out that the subject and object prefixes may either serve the purpose of agreement or pronoun incorporation. A Swahili verb may also include suffixes, which indicate such features as voice, mood and persons. Also, connected to the concept of verbal complex is the concept of concordial agreement. This will relate to the agreement among persons, numbers and noun classes of the subjects and objects within a verbal complex. In addition, binding theory will be mentioned often which according to Santorini and Kroch (2007) refers to the part of syntactic theory that is concerned with how the interpretations of noun phrases is constrained by syntactic considerations. Hence, my study will be attempting to investigate binding-like phenomena within the Swahili verbal complex. 2 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. The problem that I will be attempting to solve in this study then is how morphology and syntax interact in binding in Swahili. AIM/JUSTIFICATION This paper is important because binding in Swahili differs from binding in English precisely because unlike English, Swahili is an agglutinative language and binding is realized both in morphology and syntax. Two articles, among the ones I have read on Swahili anaphors have generated a heated debate on how Swahili anaphors determine the grammaticality in Swahili sentences. This debate relates to the principles of binding theory, in particular, principles A and B. This study aims to shed some light on this debate. Woolford (1999) concurs with an earlier claim by Rizzi (1990). Rizzi (1990), on examining the anaphoric relations in Italian and Icelandic languages concluded that all natural languages exhibit anaphor agreement effect. However, Woolford (1999) reveals an important omission in Rizzi’s generalization. She further brings to focus anaphors with objective agreement. Rizzi’s (1990) study had only focused on the nominative anaphors. In doing this, Woolford (1999) investigates languages with object agreement, among them, Swahili. Her investigation reveals that these languages too conform to Rizzi’s (1990) generalization. Indeed, it is through the study of languages with object agreement that she modifies Rizzi’s (1990) generalization. On the other hand, Shiraki (2004) provides what he terms as, “Alternative explanation for the anaphor agreement effect.” In so doing, he argues that if Rizzi’s (1990) generalization which Woolford (1999) support is correct, reflexives in a Swahili verbal complex should not occupy the object marker’s position. The Swahili’s -ji- reflexive does exactly this. He then analyzes the same sentences analyzed by Woolford (1999) and concludes that Swahili does not exhibit the anaphor agreement effect. 3 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. My study will be investigating the stances assumed by the above mentioned three authors from the binding in Swahili morphology and syntax perspective with the aim of revealing any important underlying anaphoric relations between the two which may provide a solution to the debate mentioned above. My paper will thus be important for the following two reasons: To begin with, it will reveal how binding works in an agglutinative language such as Swahili and secondly, it will shed light in the debate whether or not, Swahili exhibits anaphor agreement effect. HYPOTHESES i) Subject and object marking in Swahili must be adhered to strictly in the light of binding in Swahili morphology and syntax. ii) Binding principles must first be satisfied both at the morphology and syntax levels separately iii) Binding at both morphology and syntax levels must be harmonized to give us grammatical sentences. LITERATURE REVIEW My research topic is on Binding in Swahili morphology and syntax. This literature review is organized as follows. The first part looks at the definition of binding theory and principles involved. Secondly, I will look at Swahili pronouns, which are addressed by principle B of the binding theory. Thirdly, I will look at Swahili reflexives, which are addressed by principle A of the binding theory. Fourthly, I will look at two conflicting views of binding in Swahili, which deal with whether Swahili exhibits anaphor agreement effect or not. Finally, I will look at subject and object marking in Swahili, which forms the basis of binding in morphology. To achieve this, I will be guided by the previous works done by 4 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. Carnie (2007), Santorin and Kroch (2007), Mohammed (2001), Kihole, Massamba and Msanjila (2001), Krifka (1995), Vitale (1981), Keach (1995), Keith (1983), Woolford (1999) and Shiraki (2004) Binding Theory Santorini and Kroch (2007) define Binding Theory as that part of Syntactic Theory that is concerned with how the interpretation of NPs is constrained by syntactic considerations. They further add that for the purpose of binding theory, it is useful to distinguish several types of NPs such as: i) Full noun phrases for instance My Research Methods’ professor ii) Ordinary nouns for instance John, James, Ruth among others iii) Reflexive pronouns for instance myself, ourselves, yourself, yourselves him/herself and themselves iv) Reciprocal pronouns such as each other. In this exploration, I will start by looking at the Swahili pronouns and reflexives precisely because of the debates surrounding each of them. Next, I will get into the debate surrounding whether Swahili exhibits anaphor agreement effect. Finally, the issue of subject and object marking will be addressed. While showing how binding theory can work in Swahili, I shall abide by the principles of Binding Theory in giving all examples from Carnie (2007), particularly, principles A and B. Principle A of the binding theory requires an anaphor to be bound in its binding domain while principle B requires a pronoun to be free within its binding domain. 5 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. Pronouns and pronominalization in Swahili Mohammed (2001) defines pronouns as a set of items that can be used to replace or substitute nouns or noun phrases. According to this definition, it appears like any set of items, which replaces a noun, or a noun phrase is a pronoun. Personal pronouns in Swahili Mohammed (2001) identifies two groups of personal pronouns: i) Personal independent pronouns also referred to as self-standing pronouns. They are as follows: Person Singular Plural 1. Mimi ‘I/ me’ Sisi ‘we/us’ 2. Wewe ‘you’ Nyinyi ‘you’ 3. Yeye ‘he/him, she/her’ Wao ‘they’ Mohammed (2001) points out that independent pronouns can stand on their own and they are thus free morphemes. In addition, they can serve as subjects. Examples. 1a. Mimi ni____ ta____ enda shule___ni I school 1SUBJ FTR go ‘I will go to school.’ b. Wewe u____ me___ ni____ shtua. 6 LOC. BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. You 2SUBJ PER 1OBJ scare ‘You have scared me’ 1 c. Yeye a_____ na____ ondoka sasa. He/she 3SUBJ PRE now leave ‘He/she is leaving now’ Mohammed observes that personal independent pronouns can also serve as objects. Examples: 2a. Jane a_____ na____ ni____ita (mimi). Jane 3SUBJ PRE me 1OBJ call ‘Jane is calling me’ b. Ali a_____ ta____ ku___ acha Ali 3SUBJ FTR ‘Ali will leave you’ (wewe). 2OBJ leave you 2 c. Daktari a_____ li____ m____ tibu (yeye). Daktari 3SUBJ PST him/her 3OBJ treat ‘The doctor treated him/her’ However, when used this way, they make the sentences sound strange. Since the object markers in the verbal complex have the same role as these pronouns, any native speaker will notice the oddness in 1 The items with dashes in the above sentences are bound morphemes within the verbal complex and at the end of a noun for instance to show location. 2 Abbreviation used in the paper: INF = Infinitive, Numerals = personal pronouns or noun classes, REFL= Reflexive, SUBJ = subject, OBJ = object, FTR = Future tense, HAB = Habitual, PRES= Present tense, PRES = Present tense and PER=Perfect tense 7 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. them. Even my advanced Swahili students told me that people do not speak this way last academic year. This view is compatible with Keith’s (1983) opinion that such usage should make such sentences ungrammatical in as far as the object NP and the cliticized object are supposed to be co-referential. Krifka (1995, p. 1400) on the other hand notes that, free pronouns are only used as objects in special instances such as for emphasis. ii) Mohammed identifies the second category of personal pronouns as that made of subject and object prefixes. Thus, this second group of personal pronouns is made of bound morphemes, which are attached to the verbal complex. Krifka (1995) points out that in this second category, we find some differences between subject and object forms and this is the only trace in Swahili of case system. These are: I Subject Markers (SM). Person Singular Plural 1 Ni___(I) Tu___(we) 2. U___(you) M/mw___(you) 3. A___(he/she) Wa___(they) Examples of sentences. 3 a. Ni_____ta____enda kulala 1SUBJ FTR go sleep ‘I will go to sleep.’ 8 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. b. U_____na____penda ku____cheza. 2SUBJ PRES like to play ‘You like playing.’ c. A_____na____soma maktaba____ni 3SUBJ PRES read library LOC. ‘He/she is reading in the library. II. Object Markers (OM). Person Singular Plural 1 _ni____(me) _tu___(us) 2. _ku___(you) _m/mw___(you) 3 _mw___(him/her) _wa___(them) Examples of sentences. 4a. a_____li_____ni_____ita usiku 3SUBJ PST night 1OBJ call ‘He/she called me (at) night’ b. ni_____ta____ku____chukua kesho. 1SUBJ FUT tomorrow 2OBJ pick ‘I will pick you up tomorrow’ 9 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. C. tu____ li_____mw___alika kwenye sherehe. 1SUBJ PST party. 3OBJ invite to ‘We invited him/her to the party’. Debate on Swahili pronouns Kihole, Massamba and Msanjila (2001) claim that personal pronouns made by subject and object prefixes as shown by Mohammed (2001) should not be considered as fully-fledged personal pronouns due to the fact that they are not full words. They insist that personal pronouns are those words, which stand independently or freely. They further insist that pronouns should be looked at as full words which replace a noun and not otherwise. However, they absolutely acknowledge the fact that these morphemes refer to nouns, but they are not complete words. Hence, they have considered Mohammed’s personal independent pronouns as the only personal pronouns in Swahili. My opinion regarding the debate raised here is that, while I concur with Kihole, Massamba and Msanjila(2001), it is not possible to disregard the role of the subject and object prefix markers in the Swahili verbal complex, especially in binding theory. This is because, as we shall see later, these prefixes determine the grammaticality of Swahili sentences largely. I shall demonstrate this at a later stage. On the other hand, Mohammed (2001) suggests that independent personal pronouns can serve both as subjects and as objects. However, Krifka (1995) observes that independent personal pronouns do not distinguish between subjects and objects forms. I agree with Krifka’s (1995) claim because as I earlier mentioned, there is a feel of redundancy when the independent personal pronouns are used as objects. Swahili reflexives Vitale (1981) considers two types of reflexives. 10 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. I. The –enyewe reflexive. Vitale (1981) points out that this type of a reflexive anaphor, -enyewe ‘self, own’ has a prefix attached to it, which shows agreement with the gender and number of the antecedent NPs. Although Vitale (1981) mentions that the prefix that is attached to –enyewe shows agreement in gender among other things, it is important to clarify here that Swahili does not make the kinds of gender distinctions English makes through its system of pronouns. Indeed, the gender of a person in Swahili pronouns depends on the context. Thus, all the three persons take mwenyewe (myself, yourself, and himself/herself) in singular form and wenyewe (ourselves, yourselves, themselves) in plural form as shown in the table below. Person Singular Plural 1 Mwenyewe ‘myself’ Wenyewe ‘Ourselves’ 2 Mwenyewe ‘Yourself’ Wenyewe ‘Yourselves’ 3 Mwenyewe ‘him/herself’ Wenyewe ‘Themselves’ Possessive and anaphoric -enyewe Caution should be taken when dealing with –enyewe because Swahili has two types of –enyewe: the reflexive and the possessive one. While my discussion will focus exclusively on the reflexive –enyewe, it is necessary to draw a distinction between the two forms here. The English translation of the Swahili possessive –enyewe is ‘the owner’. Thus, it does not have any anaphoric usage whatsoever. It is usually associated with animate nouns, human beings in particular, as they are capable of owning other animate nouns such as pets and property such as car, house, and 11 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. ornaments among others. It usually occupies the subject position especially if the referent is already known, for instance: 5. Mwenyewe a_____ me___ i______chukua. Owner 3SUBJ PER 9N take. ‘The owner has taken it’ It can also appear at the end of the sentence in a passive sentence as shown below. 6. I______me___ chuku_ liwa na 9N PAS owners PER take by wenyewe. ‘It has been taken away by its owners’ The litmus test for whether the –enyewe in a sentence is anaphoric or possessive is to have an agreeable noun or pronoun precede it. Only anaphoric –enyewe can take a noun or a pronoun. Indeed, placing a noun or its pronoun right before the possessive form of –enyewe automatically changes it to anaphoric one. For instance, example 5 repeated below as 7. 7. Jamesi mwenyewei a_____ me___ i______chukua. James himself3SUBJ PER 9N take. ‘James himself has taken it’ Examples of anaphoric –enyewe 8. Wachezajii wenyewei wa____li_____cheza mpira vizuri. Players themselves 3SUB PST Play ‘The players themselves played the ball nicely’ 12 ball nice. BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. 9. Øi Mwenyewei SUB. Him/herself a_____ me___ hama. 3SUB PER move ‘he/himself/her/herself has moved’ Vitale (1981) calls this form of -enyewe the “emphatic” reflexive and states the following rule: The reflexive anaphor –enyewe must agree with its antecedent in number and noun class (Mention of the noun class is mine because Swahili pronouns do not make gender distinctions as mentioned above). Vitale (1981,) further observes that while this rule is not very different from the English Reflexives’ rule, the semantic function of –enyewe seems to be one of emphasis or emphatic possession rather than a true voice relationship. I have already shown this while discussing about the possessive –enyewe. He adds that in the examples such as the ones shown above, the emphatic –enyewe unambiguously agrees with the NP wachezaji ‘players’ and the deleted pronoun yeye ‘he/she’ (the feminine interpretation is mine). This is a case of suppressed subject. He also argues when –enyewe occurs in construction with two NPs of the same gender and number, ambiguity may result. Examples: 10. Hamisii Hamisi himself mwenyewei a_____ li_____m____ penda 3SUB PST 3OBJ love Asha. Asha. ‘Hamisi himself loved Asha’ 11. Hamisi a_____ li_____m____ penda Ashai mwenyewei. Hamisi 3SUB PST Asha herself/himself (?) 3OBJ love ‘Hamisi loved Asha her/himself (?)’ It is apparent that unlike 10, example 11 is ambiguous because it is possible to come up with the following two meanings without the coindexication: 13 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. i) Hamisi himself loved Asha (just like in 10 above). ii) Hamisi loved Asha herself, not any other girl. (Or put differently Hamisi loved Asha for who she was, not what she had. This meaning is depicted). The ambiguity in example 11 does not emanate from the issue of gender because the names used are gender-specific. Hamisi is a male name while Asha is a female name. The positioning of the reflexive, which is not gender specific at the end, mostly causes the ambiguity. Furthermore, it is apparent that binding relationship is very relevant even for emphatic use of reflexives. This is because once the proper coindexication is done; we end up getting the only one intended meaning. This way, the ambiguity is solved. Thus, binding theory is very crucial in languages such as Swahili that do not have gender-specific anaphors. Vitale (1981) notes that –enyewe may occur in different syntactic positions just as it is the case with the English construction. For example 12. Kamaui mwenyewei a_____ li_____cheza mpira. Kamau himself3SUB PST Play ball. ‘Kamau himself played the ball’. 13. Kamaui a_____ li_____cheza mpira mwenyewei. Kamau 3SUB PST Play ball himself. ‘Kamau played the ball himself’ It is important to note that moving –enyewe to occupy the position shown in 13 above results in an ambiguous sentence. For instance, it is possible to have the following interpretation from 13: i) Kamau played the ball in person. 14 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. ii) Kamau played the ball all alone. On the other hand, we only have one meaning for sentence 12. II. The –ji- reflexive Vitale (1981) observes this second reflexive is one in which there is coreferentiality between the subject and some other NP in the sentence, either the direct or indirect object. The major difference between –ji- reflexive and –enyewe reflexive, he states, is that while transitivity is irrelevant in the – enyewe constructions, it plays a crucial role in –ji- reflexives. This argument will be investigated at a later stage. It is important to point out here that –ji- reflexive is a bound morpheme and occupies the objects’ slot in the verbal complex. For instance: 14. Mwanasiasai a_____ li_____jii_____sifu. Politician 3SUB. PST REFL. Praise. ‘The politician praised him/herself’. 15. Gaidii a_____ li_____jii_____laumu. Terrorist 3SUB. PST REFL blame. ‘The terrorist blamed him/herself’. Vitale (1981) suggests that examples to be considered under the –ji- reflexive should contain transitive verbs since transitivity is a necessary condition. For example: 16. Hans hu____m____chukia Johari. Hans HAB 3OBJ hate Johari. ‘Hans hates Johari’. 15 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. 17. *Hansi hu____mi____ chukia Hans. Hans HAB 3OBJ hate Hans ‘Hans hates Hans’. 18. *Hansi hu____ji_____chukia Hansi. Hans HAB REFL hate Hans ‘Hans hates himself Hans’ 19. Hansi hu____jii_____chukia mwenyewe. Hans HAB REFL hate himself. ‘Hans hates himself’ 20. Hansi hu____jii_____chukia. Hans HAB REFL hate. ‘Hans hates himself’ The ungrammaticality of such a sentence as 17 according to Vitale (1981) is caused by the fact that both subject and object have the same reference, yet in derived structure, the verb is marked by -ji- as in 20. However, in binding theory, the ungrammaticality of 17 above is more due to coindexing the object marker, which is itself a pronoun, with the subject, Hans. This violates the principle B of the binding theory, which requires a pronoun to be free in its binding domain. The similarity in the names does not necessarily mean that they have the same referent. On the other hand, the ungrammaticality of 18 can be explained with respect to principle C of the binding theory, which according to Carnie (2007) states that an R-expression must be free. According to this argument, it appears as if we had the two nouns, Hans, unbound, our sentence could have been grammatical. However, this still would not be the case. It can only be grammatical when either the second Hans is deleted or is replaced by a third person singular anaphor like in example 19. This is 16 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. compatible with Vitale’s (1981) observation that no surface objects, except –enyewe can occur with reflexive -ji-. While I concur with this observation, the presence of –enyewe as an object makes the sentence redundant. Mutual exclusivity between –ji- and the object marker. Since reflexive -ji- occupies the object’s slot in a verbal complex; it is obvious that a verbal complex cannot have both the ji-reflexive and an object prefix at the same time. Such a situation would make any such sentences ungrammatical as Vitale (1981) points out. For instance: 21. *Hans a_____li_____ji_____ni_____piga. Hans 3SUB PST REFL 1OBJ beat. ‘Hans beat himself me up’ 22. *Maria a_____ ta____ ji_____ku____jibu. Maria 3SUB FTR REFL 2OBJ answer. ‘Maria will answer herself you’ In explaining the mutual exclusivity of reflexives and pronominal prefixes, Vitale (1981) argues that the features [+pro] [+refl] would be included as part of the object NP. To this end, it is apparent that binding relations in Swahili are realized in both morphology and syntax. This is especially clear with the reflexive -ji- that is within the verbal complex and for the sentence to be considered grammatical in the light of the binding theory; this reflexive must be bound to its antecedent, which is an independent NP. It may also be argued that the subject marker is a pronoun and can thus be used to bind such a reflexive but this matter will be investigated later. The above phenomenon is further compounded in the following section that looks at languages with object agreement. 17 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. Languages with object agreement. Woolford (1999) states that there are many examples of languages without object agreement that allow anaphors in object position such as English. However, she gives examples of languages that have object agreement such as Swahili, Inuit and Nez. She notes that the latter group of languages does not allow agreeing objects to be anaphors with one well-defined exception, which is objective anaphors, can agree just in case a special anaphoric form of agreement is present. In addition, she points out that in Swahili, objects agree in person, number and noun class. The object agreement morpheme is always inside the verbal complex just before the verb stem. I have already given some examples that show this but for the sake of the argument that is raised here, I will look at a few more examples. 23. Juma a______na____mw___ita Asha Juma 3SUB PRES 2OBJ call Asha. ‘Juma is calling Asha’ Woolford (1999) observes that pronominal objects can be overt if they are contrastively stressed, as shown in (24), but they are normally null (pro) as in (25). However, she adds that null objects trigger agreement just as overt objects do. 24. Yusuf a_____ li_____m_____penda yeye. Yusuf 3SUBJ PST 3OBJ Love her. ‘Yusuf loved her’ Woolford (1999) cites Hoekstra and Dimmendaal (1983) as having stated that the above sentence is grammatical with contrastive stress on her. 18 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. 25. Yusuf a_____ li______m____penda. Yusuf 3SUBJ PST 3OBJ Love. ‘Yusuf loved her’ Woolford (1999) further notes that reflexive pronouns can also be overt when emphasized, but they are normally also null. She points out that the morpheme –ji- occupies the object agreement position in the verbal complex as we have already seen elsewhere. Examples: 26. Ednai aj_____na____jii_____penda mwenyewej. Edna 3SUBJ PRES REFL love herself (coindexication mine) (emphatic reflexive) ‘Edna loves herself. 27. Ednai a_____na____jii_____penda Edna 3SUBJ.PRES. REFL. Love ‘Edna loves herself’ Debate on languages with object agreement. Shiraki (2004) starts by concurring with Woolford (1999) that Swahili has object agreement. Following this, he attempts to refute Rizzi’s (1990) generalization, which has been supported by Woolford (1999) above, by arguing that if it is correct, we should not expect reflexives to appear in the object positions in Swahili. However, as I have previously shown in all my examples, the reflexive prefix –ji- occupies the object’s position. Rizzi’s (1990) generalization according to Woolford (1999) is about the universality of anaphor agreement effect. Following his analysis on the Italic and Icelandic languages, he concluded that all natural languages exhibit anaphor agreement effect. 19 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. Shiraki (2004) further notes that Woolford’s (1999) analyses of Swahili reflexive data concludes that Swahili displays the anaphor-agreement effect, precisely because normal object agreement never occurs with anaphoric objects. He shows that indeed, a reflexive in object position triggers the presence of the reflexive object morpheme –ji- on the verb. He cites the following examples from Woolford (1999) article: 28. Juma a______li______m_____busu Juma 3SUBJ PST 3OBJ yeye kiss her ‘ Juma kissed her’ (Hoekstra and Dimmendaal 1983, p.55) 29. Ahmed Ahmed a______na_____m_____penda Halima. 3SUBJ PRES 3OBJ love Halima ‘Ahmed loves Halima’ (Vitale 1981, p.137) 30. Ahmedi Ahmed ai______na_____jii______penda mwenyewei. (coindexication mine) 3SUBJ PRES REFL love himself. ‘Ahmed loves himself’ (Vitale 1981, p.137) Shiraki (2004) observes that from 28 and 29 above, objects agree with their predicates in Swahili. This, he explains, is shown by the 3rd person singular object agreement morpheme –m- attached to the verb. However, he notes that in 30, when the object is a reflexive, the reflexive object agreement morpheme –ji- is attached to the verbal complex and occupies the object’s position (emphasis is mine). Because of this, he notes, Woolford (1999) claims that Swahili exhibits the Anaphor-Agreement effect and came up with the following dictum: Anaphors do not occur in syntactic positions construed with agreement, unless the agreement is anaphoric, Shiraki (2004) 20 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. Shiraki (2004) then bases his analysis of Swahili on the above argument. He starts by pointing out that the morpheme –enyewe is what Vitale (1981) calls an “emphatic reflexive” as we have already seen previously. Shiraki further points out that objects in transitive sentences may be deleted in Swahili as long as the verb has an object agreement morpheme. We have already seen this but for the purpose of the proposition that he makes, it is worth revisiting it. He cites the following examples. 31. Juma Juma a______li______u______fungua 3SUBJ PST 3N open. ‘Juma opened it’ (Vitale 1981, p. 24) 32. Fatuma Fatuma a______na_____ya_____panda. 3SUBJ PRES 6N plant. ‘Fatuma plants them’ (Vitale 1981, p. 24) 33. *Juma Juma a______li______fungua. 3SUBJ PST open. ‘Juma opened (something)’ (Vitale 1981, p. 24) The grammaticality of 31 and 32 is associated with the presence of the object agreement morphemes – u- and –ya- respectively in the verbs. However, example 33 is ungrammatical since the verb is a transitive one and it requires a theme argument. It is worth mentioning here that for a sentence such as 33 above to be grammatical, you can either insert the object morpheme in the verb or add the object after the verb even without an object morpheme marker such that it reads: 21 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. 34. Juma a______li______fungua Juma 3SUBJ PST open mlango. door ‘Juma opened the door’ The issue of subject and object markings in Swahili will be looked at in the following section because it has been termed by several authors to be complex and it relates to binding in Swahili morphology. Shiraki (2004) further observes that when the reflexive morpheme –ji- is put in a verb, -enyewe can be omitted as we have already seen. He cites the following two examples. 35. Ahmedi Ahmed aj______na_____jii________penda mwenyewej. (coindexication mine) 3SUBJ PRES REFL himself. love ‘Ahmed loves himself’ (Vitale 1981, p. 137) 36. Ahmed Ahmed ai______na_____jii_________penda. 3SUBJ PRES REFL love ‘Ahmed loves himself’ (Vitale 1981, p. 137) Shiraki (2004) concludes that –enyewe is pseudo-reflexive and the morpheme –ji- is the real reflexive. He clarifies that by ‘real reflexive’ he refers to anaphoric dependency in the domain of syntax or morphology (such as English himself) or one that reflexivizes a predicate. Shiraki further notes that considering that a verbal complex with –ji- introduces only one theta function. Hence, -enyewe is probably used adverbially, in a way similar to such an English sentence as: 37. He himself refused to accept the money. Shiraki adds that even if we were forced to assume that an object like yeye in 28 was an argument, we could still account for the observed reflexivization pattern. He revisits example 35 repeated as 38 to demonstrate this argument. 22 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. 38. Ahmedi Ahmed aj______na_____jii______pendaj mwenyewei. 3SUBJ PRES REFL himself. love ‘Ahmed loves himself’ He argues that there are two potential analyses that present themselves. To begin with, if it is assumed that the theme theta role of the predicate a-na-ji-penda is satisfied by mwenyewe, and that, following Woolford (1999), the morpheme –ji- is not a real object agreement morpheme, then, the object argument mwenyewe has to be licensed by case and not by agreement. In this case, nothing prevents mwenyewe from occurring in the object position. Secondly, Shiraki (2004) argues that if we consider the alternative possibility that –ji- is real object agreement and that it is a manifestation of agreement between the reflexive and the predicate, the object argument has to be licensed by agreement. He adds that if we were to consider sentence 38 again, here the mwenyewe is headed by –enyewe. Hence, there is no reason to assume that these elements do not agree and as a result, the sentence is grammatical. As such, he concludes, we do not observe any anaphor-agreement effects in object anaphors in Swahili. I think there is a misconception here. To begin with, it is not mwenyewe that is headed by –enyewe but rather, it is –enyewe that is headed by mw- for agreement purposes with the subject; Ahmed and its prefix in the verbal complex a-. It is clear that the debate raised here by Shiraki (2004) touches on subject and object marking in Swahili. The following section will help in shedding light regarding subject and object marking in Swahili. To this end, it is clear that the debate surrounding subject/object marking is important in the Swahili verbal complex and largely determines the grammaticality in Swahili sentences. The following section exclusively looks at subject/object marking in Swahili. 23 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. Subject and object marking in Swahili Keach (1995) investigates the functions of Subject and Object markings in Swahili. Her guiding principle is that for a morpheme to be in agreement relationship with XP, it has to first share the relevant characteristics in terms of person, class marking and number with NP. Secondly, the agreement morpheme must be strictly local to XP, where the order is irrelevant. She states the following rule to reflect this: 39. [XPi AGREEMENTi –V] She further assumes that an Incorporated Pronoun (PI) is the XP that anaphorically binds a topic NP to the clause: 40. (NPiTOP) … XPi –V) Subject Marking (SM) Following the above guiding principle, she notes that SM in Swahili is twofold: agreement and IP. She demonstrates this by use of the following examples: 41. a. [watu wa Kenya]i WAi- na- people of Kenya SM- wa- PRES- OM- penda watoto like children ‘Kenyan people like children’ b. WAi - na SM wa- PRES OM penda watoto [watu wa Kenya]i like people of Kenya. children ‘They like children, Kenyan people’ 24 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. c. [watu wa Kenya]i nafikiri kuwa WAi- naPeople of Kenya I think that SM wa- PRES OM penda watoto. like children ‘Kenyan people, I think like children’ Keach (1995, p. 110) Keach (1995, p. 110) argues that SM in 41a satisfies both the agreement and PI functions. However, in b and c, the SM satisfies only the PI function because the subject NP, “watu wa Kenya” is not local to the clause. She notes that in b and c, SM serves the subject/agent function in accordance with 40 above and it links the topic NP, “watu wa Kenya,” to the predicate. The above argument relates to binding principles in morphology. The SM can only serve an agreement purpose if it satisfies two conditions: i) If it shares basic features of the XP ii) If it is local. These conditions are satisfied if the subject and the verb are adjacent to each other. Whenever a SM does not satisfy these two conditions, its function is PI. Object marking Keach (1995, p. 113) points out a popular view regarding the distribution of animate and inanimate OM in Swahili. This is the view that OM is obligatory for animate objects but optional for inanimate ones. Furthermore, in the case of inanimate objects, the OM permits a definite or specific interpretation of the inanimate NP. She however notes that just as with the SM, OM is ambiguous. She provides the following prove to show that inanimate OM is PI whereas animate OM is both for agreement as well as for PI. 25 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. 42. a) Aisha Aisha a- na- m- SM PRES OM penda Juma. love Juma “Aisha loves Juma” b). *Aisha Aisha a- na- penda Juma. SM PRES love Juma “Aisha loves Juma” c). Aisha Aisha a- na- ki- soma kitabu SM PRE OM read book “Aisha is reading (the) book.” d). Aisha Aisha a- na- soma kitabu SM PRE read (the) book. “Aisha is reading (the) book” Keach (1995, p. 114) observes from the above phenomena that animate SM and OM are ambiguous in encoding both the agreement and PI functions. Hence, she argues, an overt object NP may occupy the object position where it will agree with the verb or it may be a topic bound to the verb by OM, which serves the PI function. She however notes that an inanimate object does not display such flexibility. It only occurs with OM when it is a topic, which serves to bind the dislocated NP to the clause. She concludes that inanimate objects, unlike animate object NPs never agree with the verb and OM is thus only PI. This conclusion is compatible with that of Keith (1983) who argues that when OM occurs without a coreferential object noun phrase (ONP), it functions pronominally. However, he adds that 26 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. when both the OM and the ONP occur together, the OM must have another function, which is, it is the topic of discussion. Thus, this argument is based on discourse. To this end, the above reviewed literature points towards the interaction between morphology and syntax in Swahili. Starting with the two debated categories of personal pronouns, it is clear that drawing a distinction between the two is confusing since the bound morpheme pronouns necessarily refer to the independent ones. Furthermore, the independent ones have to be marked using the bound ones in the verb. Secondly, the –enyewe reflexive can easily lead to ambiguity since it is not gender specific. The –ji- reflexive on the other hand dislocates the object from the verbal complex compounding the debate by Woolford (1999) and Shiraki (2004). This implies that a further investigation, involving subject/object marking and the reflexives is needed in order to show how binding works in both morphology and syntax in Swahili. RESEARCH QUESTIONS i) What is the nature of agreement in a Swahili verbal complex? ii) Can binding relations be exhaustively explained using a Swahili verbal complex? iii) Which of the two reflexives in Swahili: -enyewe and –ji- is the real reflexive? iv) Does Swahili exhibit anaphoric agreement effect? METHODOLOGY Sources I will employ a qualitative approach in collecting my data. I will need to read the existing texts on my research topic, generate my own sentences whose number is undefined which will contain anaphors to investigate their relations both in morphology and syntax alongside the ones used by the authors mentioned below. Furthermore, I will also rely on the available corpus for my data. 27 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. Justifying the selection of the sources I have selected Woolford’s (1999) and Shiraki’s (2004) articles as the basis of my study specifically because they use Swahili sentences to anchor their arguments on the debate surrounding anaphor agreement effect. Woolford (1999) concurs with an earlier generalization by Rizzi (1990) about anaphor agreement effect. Rizzi (1990) upon investigating Italic and Icelandic languages concluded that all natural languages exhibit anaphor agreement effect. However, his study only focused on languages with nominative agreement. Woolford (1999) notices this gap and conducts a study focusing on languages with objective agreement, among them Swahili. She observes that these languages too exhibit anaphor agreement effect and her findings thus confirm and add validity to Rizzi’s (1990) generalization. Shiraki (2004) on the other hand reacts to the anaphor agreement effect by offering an alternative explanation to it. He concurs with Woolford (1999) that Swahili has object agreement. However, he attempts to refute Rizzi’s (1990) generalization, which has been supported by Woolford (1999) above. His claim is that if Rizzi’s (1990) generalization is correct, we should not experience instances where the reflexives appear in the object positions in Swahili. However, the reflexive prefix -ji- in Swahili does exactly this. He explains this phenomenon by analyzing the same sentences analyzed by Woolford (1999) from the agreement and case points of view. This leads him to draw several conclusions regarding Swahili: firstly, he argues that –enyewe is a pseudo-reflexive and the morpheme –ji- is the real reflexive. Secondly, Swahili does not exhibit anaphor agreement effect. Thus, the debate that has ensued from the two opposing views forms the basis of my study. Keach’s (1995) article on Subject and object markers as agreement and pronoun incorporation in Swahili will be pivotal in this study. The major contentious issue by Woolford (1999) and Shiraki (2004) can be traced in the fact that the reflexive morpheme –ji- in a Swahili verbal complex occupies 28 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. the object’s position. This necessarily implies that the two, the object marker and –ji-, are in complementary distribution. Hence, the issue of object marking in Swahili demands to be investigated in the light of this debate. Keith (1983) who looks at the function of object marking in Swahili will also be used. On the other hand, Vitale (1981) will be very useful for this study. He discuses Swahili Syntax in depth. Furthermore, all the Swahili examples used by Woolford (1999) and Shiraki (2004) are from his book. Kihore, Massamba and Msanjila (2001) have been selected based on how they address what a Swahili pronoun is and what it is not. They argue that though some scholars, like Mohammed (2001) have identified two categories of Swahili personal pronouns: independent pronouns and bound pronouns, the latter category does not qualify to be pronouns in the strict sense of the word. On the contrary, Mohammed (2001) identifies both categories. Krifka (1995) too identifies two categories. This leads to a debate on Swahili pronouns in the light of the Binding Theory. Hence, these books are relevant to my study since principle B of the Binding Theory, which will be part of the investigation, relates to pronouns. Carnie (2007) introduces the basics of the Binding Theory and his book is thus necessary to equip me with the fundamental basics. There are two chapters dealing with Binding Theory in this book. Santorini & Kroch (2007) have a similar online-book to that of Carnie (2007). Their book will be used alongside that of Carnie for the sake of clarity. Sampling The subjects who will be involved in my study are mostly the Swahili scholars in the US. The Snowball sampling method will be used to identify them. I only know of a few whom I have met with 29 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. at a conference. These few have indeed suggested to me professors who have done something related to morphology and syntax and working in the US. Materials I will rely on the above-mentioned texts for examples of Swahili sentences with the linguistic features I will be investigating in my study: pronouns and reflexives. In addition, I will generate my own sentences, which will include these features and test them against the binding principles A and B. Later, Swahili scholars in the US will be sought after to solicit their insights in my judgments on these sentences. Procedure I will start by reading relevant literature relating to Swahili anaphors, particularly Swahili pronouns and reflexives. This will be done to first get a clear understanding of the Swahili pronouns following the debate mentioned earlier on them. The pronouns will be looked at from the binding perspective rather than from the strict sense of the word. Secondly, I will investigate the nature of subject/object marking in the Swahili verbal complex. The relevant literature that I am familiar with indicates that there are no hard and fast rules governing object marking in Swahili. A number of generalizations have been floated to explain this phenomenon though. However, for the sake of investigating binding in morphology and syntax, I will require to establish a sound conclusion on object marking in Swahili. This will be particularly crucial in addressing the issue of the reflexive –ji- that occupies the object’s position and gives Shiraki (2004) basis for his argument against the anaphor agreement effect. Secondly, I will focus on Swahili reflexives according to Vitale (1981). This will be done with the aim of establishing which one between -enyewe and –ji- is the real reflexive in Swahili. 30 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. Thirdly, I will read Rizzi (1990) article, which floated the idea of anaphor agreement effect. This will be followed by Woolford (1999) who modifies Rizzi’s (1999) generalization after her investigation on languages with objective agreement. Shiraki’s (2004) article will follow. I will seek to get a deeper understanding of his ‘alternative explanation’ of the phenomenon identified as anaphor agreement effect earlier by Rizzi (1990) and confirmed by Woolford (1999). Fourthly, I will scrutinize the examples used by Woolford (1999) and Shiraki (2004) in anchoring their arguments to establish their point of disagreement. Fifthly, upon establishing the point of argument by the above-mentioned authors, I will generate my own sentences involving pronouns and reflexives to test their arguments. In doing this, I will abide by the principles of the Binding Theory. At this point, I will also be investigating how the Swahili morphology and syntax interact to fulfill the principles A and B of the Binding Theory. Sixth, I will seek other native speakers’ insight in my grammaticality judgments on both the authors’ as well as my own sentences. Finally, I will scrutinize all the examples both grammatical as well as the ungrammatical ones to establish whether or not Swahili exhibits anaphor agreement effect. Type of data The data that I expect to collect from the above procedure will be in form of sentences, whose number is undefined at this stage. These sentences will be on Swahili pronouns, subject and object marking and Swahili reflexives. They will also be either simple or complex depending on the specific issue(s) being investigated. All the anaphors in the sentences will have been coded in accordance to the Binding Theory. Coding refers to coindexing anaphors with their antecedents to satisfy the binding principles. 31 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. Analysis All the sentences that I will have will be analyzed in the light of the Binding Theory in morphology and syntax. To begin with, I will seek to establish the nature of subject/object marking in a Swahili verbal complex. This establishment will help me in determining how pronouns in Swahili should be defined in the light of my research topic. Secondly, I will investigate object marking in Swahili to establish if there is any rule I can formulate about it with regard to binding. At the moment, the generalizations given about this issue are confusing and cannot be relied on to address binding in Swahili morphology and syntax. Thirdly, I will investigate sentences containing Swahili reflexives to determine which of the two reflexives, -enyewe and –ji-, in Swahili is the real reflexive. Fourthly, I will investigate the mutual exclusion between the –ji- reflexive and the object marker in a Swahili verbal complex. This analysis will be tested against the anaphor agreement effect to establish whether or not Swahili exhibits this phenomenon. Anticipated problems Firstly, the corpus that I will be relying on is very shallow because scholars who have looked at Swahili syntax appear to be analyzing almost the same sentences. For instance, Woolford (1999) and Shiraki (2004) whose arguments form the basis of my study analyze the same Swahili sentences, which are taken from Vitale (1981). In total, they have analyzed less than ten sentences. Secondly, given the limited time that I have for doing this study, I will be unable to build my own corpus in terms of investigating how the linguistic features I am investigating have been used in various Swahili genres. Thirdly, the scholars whom I will be consulting with are Swahili scholars who might base their arguments on their preferred generalizations regarding the linguistic features being investigated such as the bound personal pronoun morphemes only. 32 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. Expected findings. iv) Subject and object marking in Swahili must be adhered to strictly in the light of binding in Swahili morphology and syntax. v) Binding principles must first be satisfied both at the morphology and syntax levels separately vi) Binding at both morphology and syntax levels must be harmonized to give us grammatical sentences. vii) This harmony between morphological and syntactical binding will determine whether Swahili exhibits the anaphor agreement effect being debated on by the two authors mentioned previously. Conclusion In this proposal, I have looked at variables that need to be investigated in order to eventually arrive at binding in Swahili morphology and syntax. To begin with, I have looked at Swahili pronouns and the debate generated by opposing views among Swahili scholars of what should be considered as a Swahili pronoun. I have taken the position that we need to treat both independent and bound morpheme pronouns as pronouns. This is because both categories manifest different realities in binding. My prediction is that while the independent personal pronouns relate to binding at syntax level, the bound morphemes ones relate to binding at morphology the level. Secondly, I have looked at Swahili reflexives. It has become evident that owing to the fact that the Swahili reflexives are not as gender specific as the English ones, their usage can lead to ambiguity. However, this problem can be solved by principles of binding especially when the proper coindexication is done. The –ji- type of reflexive presents another challenge, which is occupying the object marker’s position in the verbal complex and therefore displacing it. This phenomenon lays the foundation on which Shiraki (2004) bases his argument against Swahili exhibiting anaphor agreement 33 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. effect. However, this is an issue that needs to be investigated further and my prediction is that its solution will be untangled by binding in morphology. Thirdly, I have looked at the issue of subject and object marking in Swahili. My prediction is that since this issue centers around the verbal complex, it will not only show how morphology and syntax interact in binding in Swahili but also will shed light on the debate on anaphor agreement effect by Woolford (1999) and Shiraki (2004). I have finally addressed the methodology I will use to collect and analyze my data as well as the expected findings and limitations. 34 BINDING IN SWAHILI MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX. Reference. Allan, K. (1983). Anaphora, cataphora, and topic focusing: Functions of the object prefix in Swahili. In Dihoff, I. (Ed.), Current approaches to African linguistics, 1, 323-335. AM Dordrecht: Foris publication Holland. Carnie, A. (2007). Syntax: A generative introduction (2nd Ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Keach, C. N. (1995). Subject and object markers as agreement and pronoun incorporation in Swahili. In A. Akinlabi (Ed.), Theoretical approaches to African linguistics (pp.109-116). New Jersey: African world press, Inc Kihore, Y., Massamba, D., & Msanjila, Y. (2001). Sarufi Maumbo ya Kiswahili Sanifu (Structural swahili grammar). Dar es Salaam: University of Dar es Salaam Press, TUKI. Krifka, M. (1995). Swahili. In: Jacobs, J., Stechow, A., Sternefeld, W. & Vennemann, T. (Eds.), Syntax: Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung, vol. 2, 1397-1418. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Mohammed, M. (2001). Modern Swahili Grammar. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Santorini, B., & Kroch, A. (2007). The syntax of natural language: An online introduction using the trees program. Retrieved from: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/syntax-textbook. Shiraki, H. (2004). Anaphors, Agreement and Case. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics (UCLWPL), 16, 109-147. Retrieved from: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/publications/WPL/uclwpl16.html Vitale, A. J. (1981). Swahili Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Woolford, E. (1999). More on the Anaphor Agreement Effect. Linguistic Inquiry, 30(2), 257-287. 35