Subject agreement with denominal copulatives in Zulu

Abstract

Subject agreement with denominal copulatives appears not to be compulsory, as is the case with verbs. Zulu grammarians are not, however, of one mind regarding the usage of the subject concord in denominal copulative constructions. The purpose of this article is to investigate subject agreement with denominal copulatives in a discourse framework, as certain discourse strategies such as pronominalization and focus may influence the employment of concordial agreement. The findings concerning subject agreement with denominal copulatives in discourse are discussed in the light of problems arising from the views of traditional grammarians.