I gratefully acknowledge the role of the AHRC (doctoral award) and the ESRC (postdoctoral award No. PTA-026-27-0883) in providing the financial support necessary to carry out this research. This work could not have been attempted without the support of my Eleme consultants (too numerous to name individually here), and I am especially grateful to Enu-Obari Ekaka-a for his valuable time and knowledge. I would also like to thank Leora Bar-el, Kersti Börjars, Grev Corbett, Bethwyn Evans, Martina Faller, Kristine Hildebrandt, Anthony Jukes, Louise Mycock, John Payne, Malin Petzell, Jeanette Sakel and four anonymous reviewers for providing comments on earlier drafts of this paper. The conclusions presented here also benefited from the suggestions of the participants at the 2005 LAGB Annual Meeting in Cambridge, where the data included in this paper were first presented (‡).
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The locative-applicative in Eleme†
Article first published online: 16 MAR 2009
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-968X.2009.01213.x
© The author 2009. Journal Compilation © The Philological Society 2009
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How to Cite
Bond, O. (2009), The locative-applicative in Eleme. Transactions of the Philological Society, 107: 1–30. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-968X.2009.01213.x
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- Issue published online: 16 MAR 2009
- Article first published online: 16 MAR 2009
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Abstract
The Eleme locative-applicative =
is a non-canonical applicative that demonstrates morphosyntactic properties commonly associated with clitics. It is employed in one of two functions: (i) to indicate an increase in the transitivity of a clause and (typically) to introduce an otherwise oblique function as a core argument of a base verb, or (ii) to indicate the presence of an atypical verbal complement. It is usually found in constructions containing a verb stem that expresses location, directed motion or transfer, but also functions as an obligatory component of the Eleme progressive construction. While locative and comitative expressions are common source-constructions for progressives in Niger-Congo languages, Eleme is apparently unique within the literature in that it includes an applicative with comitative function that must be enclitic to a verb of location to express progressive aspect.