SOMALI AS A POLYSYNTHETIC LANGUAGE

• Published in: BOUNDARIES OF MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX, Mereu, Lunella [Ed], Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1999, pp 97-120 Vol. 180; pp. 97 - 120
• Main Authors: Svolacchia, Marco, Puglielli, Annarita
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: The Netherlands John Benjamins Publishing Company 1999
• Subjects: Agreement; Argument Structure; Clitics; Cushitic Languages; Incorporation; LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS; Language Typology; Morphology Syntax Relationship
• ISBN: 9789027236869; 9027236860
• ISSN: 0304-0763
• DOI: 10.1075/cilt.180.07svo

In the sense of Mark Baker's (1996) definition of polysynthesis, Somali is argued to be a polysynthetic language of a subtype that exploits noun incorporation only in the form of clitic incorporation, suggesting that Baker's morphological visibility condition be simplified to unify his polysynthetic & polyagreeing categories of nonconfigurational languages. The revised condition, which eliminates coindexation by agreement, is shown to be responsible for a wide range of problematic phenomena in Somali: apparent discontinuous constituents, scrambling, discourse configurationality, the structure of the Somali verbal complex with its obligatory pronominal clitics, the absence of true anaphors & nonfinite clauses, & the impossibility of multiple wh-questions. Disjoint reference & Comp-trace effects show that full object determiner phrases (DPs) are never in argument positions in Somali, & verb movement data are best explained if subject DPs are also adjuncts. 35 References. J. Hitchcock