Syntactic Aspects Of Ekegusii Subject And Object Markers

Abstract

The verbal complex in Bantu languages is an important unit in the syntactic structure. The verbal word in Bantu, in particular, EkeGusii, has a structure which accommodates affixation of a variety of morphemes as prefixes and suffixes before the final vowel (Bresnan & Mchombo, 1987; Sozinho & Mbiavanga, 2008; Iorio, 2015; Sikuku, 2013; Ondondo, 2015 among others). Notable among these are the Subject Marker (SM) and the Object Marker (OM). The SM and OM represent their corresponding subject and object Determiner Phrases (DPs) respectively. The aim of this paper is to describe the syntactic operations that licence the occurrence of these markers in the EkeGusii verb. There have been attempts in the analysis of EkeGusii verb (Basweti et. al., 2015; Ogechi, 2002, 2006; Elwell, 2008; Ongarora, 2008 among others). However, none has attempted an analysis of syntactic aspects of subject and object markers in this language. This paper seeks to focus on the syntactic properties and operations that determine the occurrence of these markers on the EkeGusii verb with a view to describing their syntactic aspects. The paper shows that the SM and OM attach to the verb through incorporation. Additionally, the SM moves to the verb through lowering operation while the OM gets to the verb through a raising operation.