Morphosyntactic Properties of Overtly-MarkeAssociative Nominals in RunyankoreRukiga

Abstract

The paper examines the morphosyntactic properties of Runyankore-Rukiga associative nominals that are overtly marked. Cross-linguistically, some associative nominals are expressed using morphological overt marking, while others are expressed lexically. Languages which mark associative nominals overtly show variations on which constituent of the associative nominal is marked, and present unique morphosyntactic features that constrain the usage and structure of associative nominals, an issue this paper addresses with evidence from Runyankore-Rukiga. Data were collected from elicitation, Runya and Makerere Nkore-Kiga corpora. Data was analyzed based on the typology of the canonical connective construction.   The study findings reveal that -a and -nya- overtly mark the association of two nominals in Runyankore-Rukia. Further, associative nominals visibly connected by associative markers largely conform to the properties of the typology of canonical connective construction. However, micro variations exist in agreement patterns, the position of associative markers, augment insertion and deletion, the nominal complements of the associative markers, and properties that govern recursive associative modifiers. The study concludes that the position of the associative element, the type of the associative marker, and the number of associative elements were not emphasized in the typology of canonical connective construction, yet they dictate head deletion, agreement patterns, and augment deletion or insertion as observed in the case of Runyankore-Rukiga associative nominals.  The study yields significant insights into the microvariations that exist between associative nominals of Runyankore-Rukiga and other Bantu languages which contributes to the general typology of Bantu associative nominals