Towards a heuristic approach to cross-Bantu typology: drawing on historical, theoretical, and descriptive linguistics

Speaker: Daisuke Shinagawa (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

The Bantu language family of about 350-400 languages shows a high degree of linguistic variation. Previous studies of variation in Bantu have typically focused on large-scale phonological and lexical comparison for historical study or on detailed typological studies concentrating on one specific construction type. However, more recently there has been an increase of studies on the systematic analysis of morphosyntactic variation. 

This talk will build on these new developments and show how they draw on different approaches and methods from historical, theoretical, and descriptive linguistics.