Class 17 as a non-locative noun class in Zulu

Abstract

Bantu noun class 17 is locative both historically and in many modern languages. However, in Zulu, certain uses of class 17 are clearly non-locative. For example, class 17 demonstrative pronouns can refer to situations but not to places, while the class 17 subject marker is used when the preverbal subject is a conjunction of unlike classes. This paper explores the uses of class 17, to evaluate the traditional notion of its locative nature in Zulu. Syntactic analyses are given of the many constructions in which the class 17 subject marker appears, including inversions and non-verbal existential predication. It is shown that the unusual agreement pattern in copular constructions is due to agreement with a non-expletive class 17 pro, mirroring a pattern found in French and Dutch. The paper concludes that class 17 is essentially non-locative in Zulu, by arguing that the supposed locative properties can be attributed either to accidental class membership or to the fact that items historically related to class 17 lie outside the modern noun class paradigm.