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Towards the reconstruction of the tense-aspect-mood (TAM) system in early Bantoid, with particular attention to the category “tense” John R. Watters, SIL International September 2012 Proto-Niger-Congo Congress, Paris 1.0 Definition of the question The general purpose of this study is to contribute to our understanding of the tense-aspect- mood (TAM) categories and systems in proto or early Bantoid. Within that broad purpose, this study will give particular attention to the status of tense in Proto-Bantoid or early Bantoid. All Bantoid languages today systematically mark aspectual categories (e.g. imperfective) and modal categories (e.g. subjunctive). However, only some Bantoid languages mark tense as a grammatical category such as the Grassfields Bantu and Narrow Bantu languages. In other Bantoid languages, tense is absent such as in the Ekoid Bantu languages. This variation in the distribution of tense raises the question whether proto or early Bantoid was a tense-aspect language in which tense was lost in some subgroups over time, or was an aspect-prominent language in which certain subgroups innovated tense. If the latter case holds, I would want to ask additional questions: Where and when did the marking of tense as a verbal category emerge? What would it mean for our understanding of the early years of Bantoid, its subgroupings, and its internal migrations? Did the development of tense originate within one sub-set of languages from which it spread to others, or did various subgroups innovate tense independently of the others? I would also want to compare the distribution of tense in Bantoid languages with the results of lexicostatistical studies. These studies to date form the basis upon which researchers identify Bantoid subgroups today. So how does the distribution of verbal systems with tense and without tense correspond to the results of lexicostatistical studies? Do they corroborate their conclusions or only make the picture of early Bantoid more complex? I should note that in terms of historical time Proto-Bantoid dates back possibly five millennia from the present (see Blench (2006: 126-138), Nurse (2008), and Ehret (2016: 106-116). When referring to tense as a marked, systematic, grammatical, verbal category, I expect that an affix, clitic or particle relative to the verb will morphologically mark it. Otherwise, a compound verbal construction will indicate the tense. The construction will consist of an auxiliary verb indicating the tense followed by the main semantic verb, either in finite or non-finite form. 1 Combinations of these realizations or grammatical strategies may mark tense in the same system. These strategies will produce an inflectional verbal category within a paradigm in which at least past, present and future are formally distinguished. In addition, the tense paradigm must minimally involve both perfective and imperfective aspects. The perfective aspect may carry a label like ‘factative’ or ‘completive’ and the imperfective a label like ‘incompletive’ or ‘continuous’. Therefore, if there is a past tense, there will be both a past perfective and a past imperfective. So we return to the basic question of this study: Was Proto-Bantoid or early Bantoid an aspect- prominent or tense-aspect language. From the answer to this question, I want to consider the implications for Proto-Bantoid or early Bantoid and the Bantoid subgroups. 2.0 Possible results in answering the question The first step in this study will be to determine the distribution of aspect-prominent Bantoid languages and tense-aspect languages. The distribution and attribution of verbal systems will be presented in terms of Bantoid subgroups rather than individual languages, but the verbal system typical of a given subgroup will be represented by at least one language within the subgroup. Given certain assumptions to be noted in section 3.0, this distribution could help us to: 1. determine the likely TAM system of Proto-Bantoid relative to tense, whether aspect- prominent or tense-aspect in form, and 2. determine the likely geographical area for the genesis of tense in Bantoid languages, whether the area where Proto-Bantoid was spoken or a subarea within the Bantoid region. The second step will compare the results of this distributional study of aspect-prominent systems and tense-aspect systems within Bantoid with the results of recent lexicostatistical studies. We will see that there is a lack of alignment between the results of the distribution of TAM systems with the lexicostatistical results at two points. This lack of alignment actually provides a richer tapestry from which we can speculate about the early location of Proto- Bantoid and migrations of the Bantoid subgroups. So we will seek to: 3. derive a plausible identification of the geographical area where Proto-Bantoid was spoken, and 4. derive a plausible scenario for the migration of the early Bantoid subgroups. 2 The third step will be to range more widely than Bantoid. It has been proposed that the Bantoid languages are paired at the next point higher on the eastern Benue-Congo tree with the Cross River languages (see (1) below). Again, the distribution of aspect-prominent and tense-aspect languages will be mapped for the Cross River subgroups, providing evidence that could allow us to: 5. determine the likely TAM system of Proto-Cross River relative to tense, whether aspect- prominent or tense-aspect in form, and 6. determine whether any language(s) of the Cross River group that are tense-aspect in form today shared in the possible innovation of tense in Bantoid as noted as a possibility by Nurse (2008). 3.0 Assumptions underlying this study The possible results listed in 2.0 depend on certain assumptions that operate in this study. First, following Nurse and Philippson (2003) and Nurse (2008), I assume that Proto-Niger- Congo was an aspect-prominent language. Even today most languages in West Africa are aspect-prominent. Yet in the central and eastern regions of Niger-Congo is a large contingent of over 500 Bantu languages that are well known for their elaborate tense systems. Tense appears in a few other areas within Niger-Congo (Supyire, eastern Kru, Nupoid languages, maybe Igbo, Ijo, and Zande), but tense in these other areas seems to be a local development in each case, unrelated to Bantu and the other Bantoid languages with tense (Nurse 2008). In addition, they only account for a small number of the total number of Niger-Congo languages outside Bantu and Bantoid. Most Niger-Congo languages outside Bantu and Bantoid have not innovated tense. The hinge between the western and the central and eastern portions of Niger-Congo is the Bantoid set of languages found along the Nigeria-Cameroon border. We will see that they in fact define the major border between aspect-prominent languages and tense-aspect languages. And even though Narrow Bantu that spreads across central, eastern and southern Africa has over 500 of the nearly 700 Bantoid languages within its subgroup, the number of subgroups parallel with Narrow Bantu within Bantoid is greater in the Nigeria-Cameroon borderland than elsewhere. In other words, we will see that most of the Bantoid groups stayed close to the Bantoid homeland while Narrow Bantu spread across Africa to the east and south of the Bantoid homeland in relative recent times, perhaps over the past two millennia. 3 Second, I assume that the expansion of Niger-Congo (excluding discussions about Kordofanian) was from west to east. Closer to the Bantoid region this means that the development of Benue- Congo subgroups was due to a migratory process that was generally west to east across Nigeria into Cameroon. The Bantoid languages would end up being the most easterly of these Benue- Congo subgroups, found somewhere along the Nigeria-Cameroon borderland. Its current 691 languages would mean that Bantoid accounts for 45% of the 1,532 Niger-Congo languages (Lewis 2009). This easterly migration pattern is critical to determining the most plausible location for Proto-Bantoid and a plausible location for the innovation of tense relative to Bantoid. Third, I assume that Bantoid is a coherent grouping of languages, sharing in a common history. The important remaining question concerning the coherency of Bantoid involve one subgroup, namely, the place of the Dakoid within Bantoid. The coherence of Bantoid has been reinforced through various lexicostatistical studies over the past forty years that have included the Bantoid languages within their scope (Henrici 1973; Heine 1973; Coupez, Evrard and Vansina 1975; Bennett and Sterk 1977; Piron 1995 and 1997; and Grollemund 2012). Bantoid as such includes not only a collection of various groupings of languages in Cameroon and Nigeria, but also all of the Bantu languages spread across central, eastern and southern Africa. Based on this coherence, we understand that all of the various subgroups of Bantoid, including Bantu, derive from the variety of speech forms of an earlier Bantoid period perhaps five millennia ago in the Cameroon-Nigeria borderland (Nurse 2008:283 ??). Fourth, I assume at least operationally that Proto-Bantoid Cross is a unit higher on Benue- Congo tree, above Bantoid and Cross River. Williamson and Blench (2000) proposed that the Bantoid languages share this wider common history with the Cross River languages. This is a proposal that has a certain plausibility but currently has less evidence supporting it than that supporting the unitary nature of Bantoid. However, if these two Benue-Congo groups do form a unit, it then widens the question of the distribution of tense by bringing the Cross River languages into the discussion moves the question further back in time to Proto-Bantoid Cross. Based on these assumptions, I will take the steps mentioned in 2.0 by using the following process.
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