Macro- and micro-variation in Bantu grammatical gender systems and their sociolinguistic correlates

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Annemarie Verkerk
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 529007750

Variation and change are inherent to language. While this is an uncontroversial statement in linguistics, the mechanisms that steer language variation and change are debated. Our project addresses this debate by investigating variation and change in the nominal classification systems of the Bantu languages, a.k.a. grammatical gender systems. Bantu is one of the world’s largest language families. At each of the borders of the Bantu spread zone – northwestern, northeastern, and southern – Bantu languages are in contact with other language families that we investigate. These encompass distantly related branches of the Niger-Congo family, such as Ubangi, and genealogically unrelated groupings such as Cushitic, Nilotic, Central Sudanic, Khoe-Kwadi, Kx’a, and Tuu. Within the Bantu spread zone, inter-Bantu contact can be intense and sustained. We investigate how Bantu gender systems vary and change in languages spoken at the border with non-Bantu and/or other Bantu languages. By comparing changes that occur in Bantu languages in contact with non-Bantu and Bantu languages, we study how processes of language convergence differ depending on whether languages in contact share ancestry. In doing so, we examine the sociohistorical correlates of language change across different language contact ecologies and shed new light on the language and population history of sub-Saharan Africa. Language contact is well-researched, but the outcomes of contact are still hard to predict, and there is a lack of research on comparing contact effects in unrelated and related languages. Our research consortium will tackle these issues with new methods and bring fresh answers to it. We investigate contact-induced change in Bantu gender systems through large-scale comparative analyses and field-based studies conducted in several regions of the Bantu-speaking world. The two teams consist of researchers with leading expertise in Bantu historical-comparative and contact linguistics, the language and population history of the Bantu people and Africa, language typology, sociolinguistics, and quantitative methods in the language sciences.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France
• Partner Organisation: Agence Nationale de la Recherche / The French National Research Agency
• Cooperation Partner: Privatdozentin Dr. Francesca Di Garbo