Copy Pronouns: Case Studies from African Languages

Abstract

This volume is a collection of articles which may be used as a reference work for the comparative study of African pronoun systems. The book is an original and new contribution insofar as it is a first collection of articles which focus on languages that share the typological features of copied pronouns. These articles correlate copy pronouns with middle voice verbs and mirativity. A major goal of the present volume is to explore the richness, diversity, and origins of one of the most puzzling features of African pronoun systems, namely the copy pronoun or ICP (intransitive copy pronoun) of West-Central African languages. The repeated pronoun, designating the subject or agent in a phrase, has often been analysed as a marker of intransitive verbs. Since it occurs in neighbouring languages belonging to the Afroasiatic and Niger- Congo phyla, it has commonly been considered an areal feature of the Nigerian sprachbund typifying the Plateau and Benue-Gongola Basin. The areas covered by the studies in this volume, however, reach beyond this geographical zone, and deal with copy pronouns that appear to express other meanings, and fulfil other functions than mark or construct intransitive verb forms.