The Shona Subject Relation: Some Selectional Principles

Abstract

This article presents some selection principles of the subject relation in Shona, a southern Bantu language spoken in Zimbabwe. The selectional principles are based on the morphological and semantic characteristics of the preverbal noun phrase (NP). The data for this investigation came from the authors who are native speakers of two main Shona dialects, namely, Zezuru and Karanga. Data was analysed using the projection principle, a branch of government and binding (GB) theory, as well as the seven selectional principles established in well researched languages. It came out that no single selectional rule can cater for all the possible Shona sentences. We demonstrate that seven selectional principles are required for a holistic account of the subject relation in Shona. We also show that there are instances where the selectional rules contradict. As a result, we suggest a hierarchy of reliability to cater for this: namely, thematic or semantic reasons > PAH selection > morphological reasons > topicality in word order > intransitivity assumption > dummy subject. As there are few descriptive and theoretical studies on Shona syntax, this research recommends more studies on this subject.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n27p1592