Morphological Coding of Verb-Object Agreement in African Languages

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the structures of some African languages that mark agreement between the verb and the object. The means of coding agreement are rich and differentiated and include pronominal affixes on verbs for objects but not for subjects, verb endings and tonal contrast as well as some other modifications of verb when used with object. Morphological devices tend to code for the grammatical properties of the object, such as gender and number, or – in languages with class systems – the noun class attributed to the object. Some other languages mark the agreement with either nominal or pronominal form of the object. The languages may also denote a semantic distinction between ‘single’ and ‘many’. With reference to marking properties of semantic Patient rather than syntactic object, it is postulated to relate the presented system of marking verb-object agreement as traces of an ergative concord system in African languages.