The syntax and semantics of causative affixes in central Kenya Bantu

Abstract

Typologists have established that there are two main types of causative constructions: the lexical and the non-lexical (Cooper, 1976; Shibatani, 1973, 1976; Givon, 1976). The two constructions are said to differ both syntactically and semantically. One of the main syntactic differences between the two is that lexical causatives are said to be mono-clausal while non-lexical causatives are bi-clausal, even in languages where both are morphologically marked in the verb (Marantz, 1984; Shibatani, 1976). Mwangi (2001) argues that though the mono-clausal/bi-clausal distinction may be relevant in the description of causative constructions in some languages, it does not seem to have a direct bearing on Gikuyu. This paper focuses on the description of the syntactic and semantic features determining the distribution of the two causative affixes in four Central Kenya Bantu languages and discusses the relevance of this distribution to the distinction made between lexical and non-lexical causatives.