MULL-lab will be meeting this Tuesday, February 21st at 3:00 pm. Meetings take place in Rm. 002 of the McGill Linguistics department, with a Zoom room open for those unable to join in person.
This week, Katya will be presenting a talk entitled: ‘Expressing Present in Kanien’kéha On the structural differences of kó and yúukó-clauses in Kirundi and Kinyarwanda’. The abstract is below.
Closely-related Kirundi and Kinyarwanda (Great Lakes Bantu) both have two types of embedded clauses that are similar in their properties but have two different complementizers: kó and yúukó. In the literature, the two clauses are said to be in free variation. However, a more intricate examination shows that there are certain differences in the distribution of the two types of clauses. For example, for some speakers, emotive factive verbs do not select for yúukó-clauses. Furthermore, only kó- but not yúukó-clauses are adjuncts of reason.
I propose that yúukó is more structurally complex than kó; namely, it contains a functional element similar to the preposition na. In the talk I am going to show how the assumption about the complexity of yúukó can help us account for the distribution of different complement clauses. I will also discuss how the data in Kirundi and Kinyarwanda add to our understanding of the syntax and semantics of embedded clauses.
Please register in advance HERE to receive the Zoom link. You can also share this link with others who may want to join.