Ndebele clausal embedding

Northern Ndebele (Bantu S44, Zimbabwe, ISO 639-3 nde) introduces every finite complement clause with ukuthi: the augment u-, the prefix all nominals carry, on the class-15 complementizer root kuthi, etymologically a nominalization of thi 'say'. It introduces indicative and subjunctive complements alike, under cabanga 'think', funa 'want' and zwa 'hear', as the object of the preposition nga 'about' under khuluma 'talk', as a demoted passive subject with the oblique yi- in place of the augment, and as a clausal subject controlling class-15 agreement. The augment drops exactly where nominal augments drop, under negation in situ; the complementizers ukuze and sengathi are lexically selected and occur only with the subjunctive.

The data are Pietraszko's, the clausal positions the rows of Data/Examples/Pietraszko2019.json. The paper runs no projection tests, and the 'the fact that' paraphrases in its translations are an English artifact it flags itself.

References

• [Pie19]
• [Noo07]

Clause-typers

def Ndebele.ukuthi : Complementizer

The complementizer ukuthi, the augment over the class-15 root kuthi, on indicative and subjunctive complements alike ((4), (7b), fn. 3).

Equations

• Ndebele.ukuthi = { morphs := [Morphology.Morph.pref "u", Morphology.Morph.root "kuthi"], types := Clause.Selection.only Clause.SentenceType.declarative, verbForm := some UD.VerbForm.Fin }

Predicates

structure Ndebele.Verbextends Verb : Type

An Ndebele complement-taking predicate is a verb entry with its [Noo07] class.

• valency : Valency
• voiceType : Option VoiceType
• passivizable : Bool
• perfectAuxiliaries : Finset PerfectAuxiliary
• vendlerClass : Option Aspect.VendlerClass
• scaleDimension : Option Degree.ScalarDimension
• scalePolarity : Polarity
• direction : Option Spatial.Path.Direction
• incrementality : Option Aspect.Incrementality
• phasal : Option Aspect.Phasal
• factivity : Option Presupposition.Factivity
• implicative : NaturalLogic.ImplicationSignature
• opaqueContext : Bool
• attitude : Option _root_.Attitude
• readings : List Reading
• complementSig : Option NaturalLogic.Signature
• levinClasses : Finset ArgumentStructure.LevinClass
• levinExcluded : Finset ArgumentStructure.LevinClass
• root : Semantics.Root
• morphs : List Morphology.Morph
• speechActVerb : Bool
• senseTag : SenseTag
• predicateClass : Complement.PredicateClass

  The [Noo07] class.

def Ndebele.cabanga : Verb

cabanga 'think', with an indicative complement ((4), (12)).

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Ndebele.funa : Verb

funa 'want', with a subjunctive complement and plain class-15 objects ((7)).

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Ndebele.zwa : Verb

zwa 'hear', attested as a hearsay report ((18)).

Equations

• Ndebele.zwa = { valency := Verb.Valency.ofFrame ArgumentFrame.finiteClause, morphs := [Morphology.Morph.root "zwa"], predicateClass := Complement.PredicateClass.perception }

def Ndebele.khulumaNga : Verb

khuluma nga 'talk about', whose clause is the object of the preposition ((20b)).

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Ndebele.verbs : List Verb

The predicates with clausal-argument data in the paper.

Equations

• Ndebele.verbs = [Ndebele.cabanga, Ndebele.funa, Ndebele.zwa, Ndebele.khulumaNga]

theorem Ndebele.takes_ukuthi (v : Verb) : v ∈ verbs → ∀ fr ∈ v.valency.frames, fr.HasClausal → fr.Takes ukuthi

Every clausal frame takes ukuthi, the one complementizer for both moods.