Abstract

This article examines the influence of verbal syntactic and semantic features on the occurrence of the object marker in Chiyao (P21), a Bantu language of Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi. The article categorises verb stems into three main groups: those that take an obligatory object marker; those that block the occurrence of the object marker; and those that neither require nor block the object marker. The analysis shows that some monotransitive verbs denoting visual and mental perception take an obligatory object marker regardless of the syntactic context or semantic features of their respective object NPs. A similar pattern is exhibited by unextended ditransitive verbs. On the other hand, verbs in the middle voice and those occurring in cognate object constructions restrict the occurrence of the object marker. Between these two extremes are the verbs that pose no restriction to object marking as they can occur with or without the object marker depending on syntactic structure, pragmatic context and object noun features. This last category constitutes the majority of the verbs and is considered unmarked. It is concluded that verbal semantic and syntactic features are important aspects to consider in any account of the conditions for object marking in Chiyao.

摘要

本文考察了语言句法和语义特征对宾语坦桑尼亚，莫桑比克和马拉维的班图语Chiyao（P21）中宾语标记出现的影响。本文将动词词干分为三大类：带有强制性宾语标记的动词；那些阻止对象标记发生的对象；以及既不需要也不阻止对象标记的对象。分析表明，某些表示视觉和心理感知的单及物动词带有强制性宾语标记，而与它们各自宾语NP的句法语境或语义特征无关。未扩展的双及物动词表现出相似的模式。另一方面，在中间语音中的动词和在同源宾语结构中出现的动词会限制宾语标记的出现。在这两个极端之间的动词对对象标记没有任何限制，因为根据句法结构，语用语境和对象名词特征，有或没有对象标记的动词都可以出现。最后一个类别构成动词的大部分，被认为是未标记的。得出的结论是，在考虑到姚明的客体标记条件时，言语语义和句法特征是需要考虑的重要方面。