Presented as part of the Centre for Research on Language Change Seminar Series

A number of languages of the Khoe family – one of the three genetic lineages comprising southern African Khoisan – show an accusative marker, typically a postposition which in its elsewhere form has the shape (ʔ)à. In all languages for which adequate data is available, this postposition appears to be optional on object NPs for at least some nominals – specifically, some continuous interval on Silverstein’s hierarchy. A few tentative proposals have been made for the grammaticalisation of this marker, notably by Kilian-Hatz (2005:55; 2013:376–378). However, not only are these proposals specific to the Khwe language, but also they fail to account for the optionality of the accusative marker. In this paper I widen the net to the Khoe family as a whole, and consider the synchronic situations for the usage of the marker (ʔ)à and its allomorphs and putative cognates in those languages for which pertinent data is available. This is used as the basis for a diachronic proposal concerning the grammaticalisation of (ʔ)à in the modern languages. Specifically, it is proposed that the accusative marker began life as a copular; this was employed to mark the focus in cleft sentences, and later became an optional accusative marker through grammaticalisation processes akin to those outlined in McGregor (2010, 2013) for the development of optional ergative case markers in some Australian languages. Thus, one the one hand the grammaticalisation scenario proposed is unexceptional and consistent with pathways of development of other optional case-markers, and on the other, contrary to Fehn (2014:316, 319–320), the markers that have previously been considered historically related turn out to actually be cognates.

References

Fehn, Anne-Maria. 2014. A grammar of Ts’ixa (Kalahari Khoe). PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.

Kilian-Hatz, Christa. 2005. A grammar of Modern Khwe (Central Khoisan). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.

Kilian-Hatz, Christa. 2013. Syntax: Kxoe subgroup: Khwe. In Vossen, Rainer (ed.), The Khoesan languages. London and New York: Routledge. 356–378.

McGregor, William B. 2010. Optional ergative case marking systems in a typological-semiotic perspective. Lingua 120 (7). 1610–1636.

McGregor, William B. 2013. Optionality in grammar and language use. Linguistics 51 (6). 1147–1204.