The (anti-)causative alternation in Kikongo

The (Anti-)Causative Alternation in Kikongo The lexical semantic and syntax properties of change of state and change of location verbs Mbiavanga Fernando Instituto Superior de Ciências da Educação de Luanda This book investigates the problem of how the lexical-semantic, aspectual (event structure) and syntactic properties exemplified in the causative and anticausative sentences in Kikongo can be accounted for by invoking different combinations of the Voice, vCAUS, and Root nodes in terms of the decomposition approach to the analysis of causative and anticausative alternation. In so doing, the book explores the nature of the interaction and interdependence of lexical semantic verb class properties, aspectual verb class properties, and the syntactic encoding of the external argument of verbs in the causative and anticausative alternation constructions. Certainly, the construal of transitivity in Kikongo constitutes a central issue in the investigation in relation to the problem of argument alternation. Kikongo is a cross-boarder Bantu language spoken in Angola, DRC, Congo Brazzaville, and Gabon, zoned as H with unit 10 in Guthrie’s (1967-71) referential classification. In Angola Kikongo has many dialects, thus, data used in this book is from Kizombo, a dialect classified as 16h, as spoken in Damba and the Maquela do Zombo districts in the province of Uige. The Kizombo dialect is estimated to be spoken by 25% of the total population of the province of Uige. Owing to the exocentric language policy adopted by the local authorities in the earlier years of independence, Kikongo, similar to other African languages of Angola, is not sufficiently documented. Thus little literature in or about Kikongo is available. ISBN 9783862887552 (Hardbound). Lang-uages of the World 53. 328pp. 2017.