Forthcoming: The expression of information structure in Bantu

Jenneke van der Wal   

Synopsis

The Bantu language family is spread over a large area of Africa, stretching from Cameroon to Kenya to South Africa, and comprises of an estimated 555 languages. The languages show a large amount of small-scale variation while at the same time forming part of one relatively uniform family within Niger-Congo. Interestingly, the morphosyntax of these languages has been observed to be heavily influenced by information structure. Studying the expression of information structure in Bantu is therefore of great importance not only for developing cognitive models of the role of information structure in language, but also for understanding the basic grammatical structure of the Bantu languages themselves. Before modelling the interaction between syntax and information structure in Bantu, however, a thorough empirical description of the expression of information structure in Bantu should be available. That description is what this book aims to provide.

This book follows from a systematic investigation of information structure in the languages of the BaSIS research project (Bantu Syntax and Information Structure). The data come from original field research conducted using the BaSIS methodology, which was specifically developed to investigate the expression of information structure in Bantu. The book contains a comprehensive introduction chapter which explains the main terms and issues in the field of information structure, the methodology employed in the project, and common structures which characterise topic and focus expression in Bantu. The introduction is then followed by eight chapters which each give detailed descriptive overviews of the expression of information structure in a different Bantu language, namely Tunen (Guthrie classification A44, Cameroon), Teke-Kukuya (B77, Congo), Kîîtharaka (E54, Kenya), Kirundi (JD62, Burundi), Rukiga (JE14, Uganda), Kinyakyusa (M31, Tanzania), Makhuwa-Enahara (P31, Mozambique), and Cicopi (S61, Mozambique).

Taken together, the book provides detailed information on the expression of information structure in the Bantu family. It is intended both to inform future theoretical work and to provide a methodology and model for the investigation of information structure that can be used in studies of other languages.

Chapters

  • On the expression of information structure in Bantu
    Jenneke van der Wal , Allen Asiimwe, Patrick Kanampiu, Elisabeth J. Kerr, Amani Lusekelo, Nelsa João Nhantumbo, Ernest Nshemezimana
  • The expression of information structure in Tunen (A44)
    Elisabeth J. Kerr
  • The expression of information structure in Teke-Kukuya
    Zhen Li
  • The expression of information structure in Kîîtharaka
    Patrick Kanampiu, Jenneke van der Wal 
  • The expression of information structure in Kirundi
    Ernest Nshemezimana, Jenneke van der Wal 
  • The expression of information structure in Rukiga
    Allen Asiimwe, Jenneke van der Wal 
  • The expression of information structure in Kinyakyusa
    Amani Lusekelo, Jenneke van der Wal 
  • The expression of information structure in Makhuwa-Enahara
    Jenneke van der Wal 
  • The expression of information structure in Cicopi
    Nelsa João Nhantumbo, Jenneke van der Wal 

Author Biography

Jenneke van der Wal 

Jenneke van der Wal is a Senior Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. After obtaining her PhD degree at the same institute in 2009, she worked on grammaticalisation at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Belgium), was part of the ERC project ‘Rethinking Comparative Syntax‘ at the University of Cambridge, and taught at Harvard University. She obtained an NWO Vidi grant to start the BaSIS project. Her research combines finding new data from Bantu languages with developing theories on the interface between syntax and information structure. ORCID: 0000-0003-1136-5884

book cover

Published

July 11, 2024
LaTeX source on GitHub

Series

Contemporary African Linguistics

Print ISSN

2511-7726
Cite as
van der Wal , Jenneke. Forthcoming. The expression of information structure in Bantu. (Contemporary African Linguistics). Berlin: Language Science Press.
Copyright (c) 2024 Allen Asiimwe; Jenneke van der Wal ; Patrick Kanampiu, Elisabeth J. Kerr, Zhen Li, Amani Lusekelo, Simon Msovela, Nelsa João Nhantumbo, Ernest Nshemezimana

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.