Abstract
This article examines and compares the morphological structure of the perfect verb form in two closely related Bantu languages: Sesotho and isiZulu. Working within the framework of Distributed Morphology, it demonstrates that the exponents of the two morphemes involved in the formation of the perfect—the perfect suffix and the Final Vowel (FV)—are assigned by rules that are essentially identical in the two languages. Multiple divergences that are observed between perfect forms of individual verbs in isiZulu and Sesotho are all due to the following two points of difference: (1) isiZulu and Sesotho use different phonological processes to deal with a underspecified segment /L/ contained in the perfect suffix 〈IL〉; (2) the class of verbs forming the perfect through zero-suffixation is much more extensive in Sesotho than in isiZulu. Crucially, the present account attributes superficially similar phonological modifications associated with the “imbrication” phenomenon in Bantu to two fundamentally different mechanisms: readjustment rules triggered by the zero exponent of the perfect marker on one hand, and regular phonological processes conditioned by purely phonological factors on the other. Various phenomena such as the pattern of disjoint/conjoint form distribution in isiZulu are cited in support of this view.
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Notes
Some synchronically unproductive suffixes also participate in this process, for example the suffix -alal- as well as other suffixes in stems that are no longer transparently derived. I assume that these suffixes continue to behave as separate “pieces” in the synchronic grammar.
Note that we can account for the lack of application of /L/-contractions to roots by assuming that roots are fully specified for segmental content. In other words, roots contain the segment /l/, not /L/. This suggestion fits the usual Bantu pattern where only roots show the full range of contrast in vocalic phonemes, and where only roots are specified for tone (H or toneless).
Both forms in (10) are disjoint even though there is an object following the verb. The object in this case is right-dislocated and is outside of the vP.
There is another stative morpheme -ek-/-ik- in isiZulu but it is added to non-inchoative stems to make them into statives: for example, thand-ek-a ‘be loveable’.
This account presupposes that zero morphemes are still relevant at the level where readjustment rules apply.
As a result of the rules (15) and (16), the combination of the perfect suffix and the FV appears to alternate between -IL.E and -I. Existence of this alternation was observed in Bastin (1983) but its nature so far has not been investigated.
There are further complications to this pattern which are described an accounted for in Monich (2014).
There is a tonal difference between the disjoint and conjoint perfect forms in Sesotho but it has an underlying syntactic reason that is irrelevant here (see Creissels 2012 for data on Setswana, a closely related language).
See footnote 9.
Listing /s/ as a palatalized element may seem questionable. However, Sesotho /s/ may in fact descend from some sort of palatal/palatalized velar. The Kiswahili cognate of the Sesotho /s/ is /k/: for example, Sesotho ba s ali ‘women’ = Kiswahili ba k azi. This is reminiscent of the centum/satem split that took place in Indo-European history, where the same reconstructed palatal velar \(^{*}\hat{\mathrm{k}}\) was inherited as /k/ into phonological inventories of some languages, but as /s/ into others.
As an anonymous reviewer points out, the mismatch between sets of verbs which take “irregular” exponents in closely related languages finds parallels in other language families. Thus the same verb “to wash” has a regular past tense in English (washed) but irregular in German (wusch). The English past tense of “wash” is formed by means of the default past morpheme -ed, while in German the same verb is part of a diacritically marked set of verbs using a Ø-exponent of the past morpheme and a readjustment rule modifying the vowel of the root.
The fact that the FV following the morpheme /IL/ is different from the default is not surprising. The perfect element throughout the Niger-Congo languages has a status somewhat ambiguous between the auxiliary verbs and a suffix. Thus, in Sesotho, for example, ile may be used as an auxiliary verb taking past subjunctive clause as a compliment. In Bantu auxiliary, or “deficient” (as they are often called), verbs most often have FVs which do not follow the pattern of FVs at the ends of lexical verbs. The vowel /e/ is the FV most common in this kind of verbs.
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Monich, I. Comparative morphological analysis of the perfect form in Sesotho and isiZulu. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 33, 1271–1292 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-014-9280-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-014-9280-6