Aspects of empty categories in Xhosa within the theory of government and binding

Abstract

The approach to subject- and object-verb agreement within the government-binding (GB) theory of transformational generative grammar is reviewed. The principles of this approach are applied in the analysis of agreement in Xhosa. It is shown that the phonologically null element or empty category, pro, plays a major role in Xhosa syntax. A crucial question concerning subject- and object-verb agreement is: What is the syntactic status of the subjectival and objectival concord in Xhosa? In the case of subject-verb agreement, constructions are examined, both in which the subjectival concord co-occurs with a lexical NP subject and in which it does not. Similarly, in the case of the clitic, constructions are reviewed in which the clitic is associated with an object NP, and in which it is not. The argument applied in the analysis of subject- and object-verb agreement, is extended to the analysis of modifier-verb agreement, agreement in prepositional phrases, copulative constructions and possessive constructions. The proposed analyses present a uniform treatment of agreement in Xhosa. Furthermore the similarity amongst the different agreement phenomena is established empirically.