Lecture | This Time for Africa!
Nominalizations and their arguments in Iraqw
- Date
- Friday 24 March 2023
- Time
- Series
- This Time for Africa!
- Location
- tba
Abstract
In Iraqw, a Cushitic language spoken in Tanzania, event nominals (also referred to as verbal nouns) can be derived from verbs with a variety of different suffixes. Event nominalizations in Iraqw have a number of interesting properties, particularly in regards to the expression of arguments. Thematically related nominals (e.g. agents or patients) may occur as possessors of event nominals, but they cannot be licensed as subjects or objects of the nominalized verb itself. However, thematically related nominals may occur as arguments of the main clause, which is cross-linguistically unusual.
In this talk, based on my MA thesis, I give an overview of the properties of event nominalization in Iraqw, particularly having a closer look at the ways their arguments can and cannot be expressed and what the implications are for linguistic theory.