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Negative Indefinite Constructions in Bantu: ‘Nobody’

Authors: Maud Devos; Johan van der Auwera; Rasmus Bernander;

Negative Indefinite Constructions in Bantu: ‘Nobody’

Abstract

This paper presents a first typology of negative indefinites in Bantu languages. The lack of interest in expressions of ‘nobody’ in Bantu languages is connected with the idea that they merely involve a generic noun for ‘person’ and main clause negation. Our study, based on a dataset of 85 Bantu languages, shows that exponents of ‘nobody’ can be quite diverse, either resembling exponents of ‘somebody’ or differing from them through the use of pragmatically strong modifiers like scalar additive operators or explicit quantifiers like the numeral ‘one’. We also look at the constructions in which exponents of ‘nobody’ occur and observe that next to canonical SVO constructions, two construction types are used which are known to express information structure in Bantu languages: inversion constructions and existential cleft constructions. Inversion constructions are shown to be especially frequent with intransitive clauses but we also find object inversion for either ‘somebody’ or ‘nobody’ but not for both in the same language. Existential cleft constructions, on the other hand, are shown to be especially frequent with transitive clauses and, more importantly, they are more frequently used for expressions of ‘nobody’ than for expressions of ‘somebody’ in line with recent observations for South-East Asian and Mixtec languages.

Country
Belgium
Keywords

inversion, Language and Literature, somebody, existentialization, Linguistics, P, nobody, Bantu, indefiniteness

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
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gold