# Agreement on Proto-Bantu relative verb forms

Mark L.O. van de Velde

► To cite this version:

Mark L.O. van de Velde. Agreement on Proto-Bantu relative verb forms. Koen Bostoen; Gilles-Maurice de Schryver; Rozenn Guérois; Sara Pacchiarotti. On reconstructing Proto-Bantu grammar, Language science press, pp.463-492, 2022, Niger-Congo Comparative Studies, 978-3-96110-406-2. 10.5281/zenodo.7575835. halshs-04034040

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# Chapter 11

## Agreement on Proto-Bantu relative verb forms

Mark Van de Velde

LLACAN - Langage, Langues et Cultures d'Afrique (CNRS, INALCO, EPHE)

This chapter argues that Meeussen's (1967) reconstruction of a Direct and an Indirect relative clause construction in Proto-Bantu (PB) is untenable, because there exists no scenario of morphosyntactic change that can lead from that reconstructed state of affairs to the relative clause constructions attested in contemporary Bantu. Although typologically unusual and widely attested across Bantu, relative verb forms that agree with the relativised noun phrase are not reflexes of a proto-construction with the same properties, but are the result of recent, parallel evolutions driven by a mechanism called the Bantu Relative Agreement (BRA) cycle. The only logically possible starting point from which the currently attested typological variation in Bantu relative clause constructions could have evolved is one in which relative verbs agreed with their subject. This conclusion has consequences for the reconstruction of the PB verbal template, which must have lacked a Pre-initial position.

### 1 Introduction

In his *Bantu Grammatical Reconstructions* (BGR), Meeussen (1967: 113, 120) reconstructs two relative clause constructions in Proto-Bantu (PB), called Direct and Indirect.<fnref n="1" /> As for their verb forms, he only reconstructs their behaviour as agreement targets and the tone of their Final morpheme, stating that any other formal characteristics were “not within reach of reconstruction” at the time of writing.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

<footnote n="1">¹Following common practice in the typological literature, names for Bantu-specific grammatical forms and categories such as *Direct relatives*, *Final* and *Pronominal prefix* are capitalised. The meaning and use of these terms will be discussed in this introduction.</footnote>
The PB Direct and Indirect constructions, illustrated in (1), should therefore be interpreted as morphosyntactic templates, rather than full syntactic reconstructions.

(1) Partial PB reconstructions (Meeussen 1967: 113)

a. mɔ̄-ntɔ̄ jɔ̄-d im-à ì- píà
1-person PPr1-cultivate-FV 5-garden
‘a person who cultivates the garden’

b. ì- píà dí-d im-á mɔ̄-ntɔ̄
5-garden PPr5-cultivate-FV 1-person
‘the garden that the person cultivates’

c. mɔ̄-ntɔ̄ jɔ̄-tó-d im-ìd-á ì- píà
1-person PPr1-VPr1PL-cultivate-APPL-FV 5-garden
‘the person for whom we cultivate the garden’

Direct relative clause constructions are used for subject relatives (1a) and for non-subject relatives when the relative verb has a lexical subject (1b) in Meeussen's PB. Their verb form has a prefix of the Pronominal prefix (PPr) paradigm that indexes the relativised noun phrase. Still according to Meeussen, the PB Indirect construction is used for non-subject relatives when the subject of the relative verb is not lexical (1c). Their verb form is characterised by a succession of two agreement prefixes. The first is a Pronominal prefix that indexes the relativised NP and the second is a prefix from the Verbal prefix (VPr) paradigm that indexes the subject of the relative verb (Meeussen 1967: 120). As can be seen in (1b), the relative verb precedes its lexical subject in Meeussen's reconstruction of PB non-subject relative clauses; see also Hamlaoui (2022 [this volume]).

Direct and Indirect relative constructions of the type exemplified in (1) are attested throughout the Bantu area. In contrast, I am not aware of any occurrence in the Benue-Congo languages outside of Narrow Bantu. Moreover, these constructions are formally highly unusual. In the position where other Bantu finite verb forms have a prefix that indexes the subject, the verb of the Direct construction has a prefix that indexes the relativised NP and is taken from a paradigm of agreement markers normally found on adnominal modifiers, whereas the verb of the Indirect construction has a succession of two agreement markers. Their unusual character, their omnipresence in Narrow Bantu and their absence elsewhere in Benue-Congo make the Direct and Indirect templates seemingly perfect candidates for reconstruction in PB. However, I argue that they should not be reconstructed in PB, nor in the proto-language of any of Bantu's major
genealogical subgroupings, such as those corresponding to the numbered nodes
in the classification by Grollemund et al. (2015).

This conclusion is based on two observations. First, there are languages in all
major subgroups of Bantu that have subject and/or non-subject relative clause
constructions in which the relative verb starts with a VPR that indexes its subject.
This type of agreement, here called TYPE SBJ and illustrated in (2), is typologically
trivial and not reconstructed in PB by Meeussen.

(2) Shi JD53 (Polak-Bynon 1975: 260)

áa-ba-lume Ludúunge a-a-rhum-íre

AUG2-2-man 1.Ludunge Vpr1-RPST.PFV-send-RPST.PFV

‘the men whom Ludunge sent’

Second, I will show that this widely attested type cannot be a reflex of the
Direct relatives reconstructed by Meeussen, because there is no scenario of mor-
phosyntactic change that can replace an adnominal agreement marker used to
index the relativised noun phrase by a subject agreement marker.

In contrast, I will show that there exists a scenario of morphosyntactic change,
the Bantu Relative Agreement (BRA) cycle (Van de Velde 2021), that can generate
the full extent of observed variation in agreement types of Bantu relative clause
constructions when the starting point is a PB morphosyntactic template in which
the relative verb agrees with its subject, as in (2).

Before moving on to the main topic of this chapter, I will make a number
of general methodological observations in §2. §3 provides an overview of the
contemporary constructional variation in the domain of relative clauses that a
successful reconstruction needs to account for. §4 then shows how the BRA cycle
can account for this variation if we assume that PB relative verb forms indexed
their subject by means of a prefix of the VPR paradigm. In contrast, §5 argues
that there is no path from the reconstruction proposed in BGR to the current
situation. §6 provides arguments for the assumption that the BRA cycle must
not have been active yet at the PB stage. §7 explores some of the consequences
of this chronology for the typological profile of the pre-stem domain in PB and
Proto-Benue-Congo. A brief conclusion is given in §8.

2 Methodological preliminaries

2.1 Paradigms, functions and positions of verbal morphemes

When Bantuists analyse and gloss a verb form such as that in (1c), we can ap-
proach the first two prefixes *jɔ́-tɔ́-* from three different perspectives, viz. func-
tional, positional and paradigmatic. From a functional point of view, the prefix *tɔ́* is used to index the subject of the relative verb. It could therefore be glossed *sp*, short for *subject prefix*. Likewise, the prefix *jɔ́* is used to mark agreement with the relativised NP, so could be glossed *rel*, for instance. A second way to characterise these two prefixes is to situate them in the morphological slot-filler template of the Bantu verb. Using terminology introduced by Meeussen, the prefix *jɔ́* occupies the Pre-initial slot of the verb and *tɔ́* the Initial slot. Consequently, these morphemes can alternatively be glossed as *prein* and *in* respectively. A simplified version of Meeussen’s slot-filler template is provided in (3). A number 1 in the second row means that maximally one morpheme can fill the position, whereas *n* stands for one or more. Brackets are used to mean that the position can be left empty, depending on the verb form. *in* is short for Initial, *fo* for Formative, *if* for Infix (the name of a prefix position, i.e. not an actual infix), *ext* for Extension and *fv* for Final (vowel).

(3) Simplified version of Meeussen's slot-filler template

<table><thead><tr><th>prein</th><th>in</th><th>postin</th><th>fo</th><th>if</th><th>root</th><th>ext</th><th>fv</th><th>postfv</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>(1)</td><td>(1)</td><td>(1)</td><td>(n)</td><td>(n)</td><td>1</td><td>(n)</td><td>1</td><td>(1)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Finally, the prefixes can be characterised in terms of the formal paradigms to which they belong. The *jɔ́* prefix belongs to the morphological paradigm called *Pronominal prefixes* (*ppr*) in Meeussen (1967), whereas *tɔ́* is a form from the Verbal prefixes (*Vpr*) paradigm. Meeussen (1967) reconstructs five paradigms of class markers in PB, viz. Nominal prefixes (*Npr*), Numeral prefixes (*Epr*), Pronominal prefixes (*Ppr*), Verbal prefixes (*Vpr*) and Object prefixes (*Opr*). These are shown in Table 1.

In most circumstances the distinction between these three perspectives has little relevance for glossing. There is a general preference for functional labels, no doubt because they are the most transparent and universal. Positional and paradigmatic labels are hardly ever used to gloss verb forms. They are often actively discouraged by reviewers and editors, who point out that they are idiosyncratic (restricted to Bantu philology) and potentially misleading. The positional label Initial, for instance, is not necessarily used for the first morpheme of a verb form, nor is the *fv* always the last morpheme, and the so-called Infix is prefixed to the root, not infixed. The same is true for paradigmatic labels, where Pronominal prefixes do not always show up on pronouns and the term *Verbal prefixes* is arbitrarily assigned to only one of several paradigms of morphemes that can be prefixed to a verb stem. However, it is important to bear in mind that these positional and paradigmatic labels are not descriptive terms, but names for language-
<table><caption>Table 1: The Proto-Bantu class marker paradigms (Meeussen 1967: 97) [abridged]</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>NPr</th><th>EPr</th><th>PPr</th><th>VPr</th><th>OPr</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1SG</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>À-</td><td>À-</td></tr><tr><td>2SG</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>Ù-</td><td>kÙ-</td></tr><tr><td>1PL</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>tÙ-</td><td>tÚ-</td></tr><tr><td>2PL</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>mÙ-</td><td>mÚ-</td></tr><tr><td>cl. 1</td><td>mÙ-</td><td>(Ù?)</td><td>jÙ-</td><td>Ú-, á-</td><td>mÙ-</td></tr><tr><td>cl. 2</td><td>bà-</td><td>bá-</td><td>bá-</td><td>bá-</td><td>bá-</td></tr><tr><td>cl. 3</td><td>mÙ-</td><td>(Ú?)</td><td>gÚ-</td><td>gÚ-</td><td>gÚ-</td></tr><tr><td>cl. 4</td><td>mì-</td><td>(Í-?)</td><td>gÍ-</td><td>gÍ-</td><td>gÍ-</td></tr><tr><td>cl. 5</td><td>ì-</td><td>dÍ-</td><td>dÍ-</td><td>dÍ-</td><td>dÍ-</td></tr><tr><td>cl. 6</td><td>mà-</td><td>(á-?)</td><td>gá-</td><td>gá-</td><td>gá-</td></tr><tr><td>cl. 7</td><td>kì-</td><td>kí-</td><td>kí-</td><td>kí-</td><td>kí-</td></tr><tr><td>cl. 8</td><td>bì-</td><td>bí-</td><td>bí-</td><td>bí-</td><td>bí-</td></tr><tr><td>cl. 9</td><td>n-</td><td>(ì?)</td><td>jì-</td><td>jí-</td><td>jí-</td></tr><tr><td>cl. 10</td><td>n-</td><td>i-</td><td>jí-</td><td>jí-</td><td>jí-</td></tr><tr><td>...</td><td>...</td><td>...</td><td>...</td><td>...</td><td>...</td></tr></tbody></table>

or family-specific categories, which is conventionally signalled by their initial capitalisation. Hence, it makes perfect sense to write that not all verbal prefixes are Verbal prefixes.

However, when discussing agreement on relative verb forms, it is essential to distinguish between the three above-mentioned perspectives as clearly as possible, since we are interested in determining which slot in the verbal template is occupied by a marker from which paradigm, indexing which element in the syntactic context. Examples in this chapter will mostly be glossed using positional labels, because their assignment is the least dependent on analysis.

There are obviously strong correlations between the three alternative ways in which a verbal morpheme can be characterised, which is definitely another reason why the distinction is rarely made. For instance, morphemes in the Initial position tend to be Verbal prefixes indexing the subject in non-relative verb forms, but there are two complications. First, it is not always clear whether the participant that is indexed by the Initial morpheme is best analysed as a subject, e.g. in some of the so-called inversion constructions. Second, in many languages, including Meeussen's Proto-Bantu, there is strictly speaking more than one paradigm of Verbal prefixes. Paradigms of agreement prefixes are normally minimally
differentiated in the Bantu languages, with only a minor formal distinction in a
couple of classes. Since Meeussen reconstructs two prefixes for class 1 in his VPr
paradigm, viz. á- and ó-́, his PB actually has two paradigms of Verbal prefixes,
which could be abbreviated as A-VPr and U-VPr. The notion of *Verbal prefixes* is
a useful cover term for the A-VPr and U-VPr paradigms in Proto-Bantu and other
Bantu languages with similar minor paradigmatic distinctions.

Turning to relative verb forms such as those illustrated in (1), there is only a
partial correlation between position in the verbal template on the one hand and
paradigm and function on the other. The Initial slot can be occupied by a VPr that
indexes the subject of the relative verb (1c) or by a PPr that marks agreement with
the relativised NP (1a, 1b). The Pre-initial slot, if present, is always occupied by
a PPr marking agreement with the relativised NP. Paradigm and macro-function
correlate by definition: Verbal prefixes are used to index an argument of the verb
(which is normally the subject, but could be a topic, hence “macro” function).
Pronominal prefixes are used to mark class agreement in a relation of adnominal
modification between the relativised NP and the relative verb. In subject relatives,
where the relativised NP and the subject of the relative verb are co-referential,
the choice of paradigm shows us which kind of syntactic relation is being marked:
verb-argument (VPr) or head noun-modifier (PPr).

## 2.2 Distributional criteria versus scenarios

Assessing the validity of reconstructions proposed in BGR is complicated by the
lack of an explicit presentation of data and methodology. Some discussion of the
methods used for reconstructing grammar can be found in publications on spe-
cific grammatical topics by other members of the *Lolemi* programme,<fnref n="2" /> such as
Nsuka-Nkutsi's (1982) work on relative clause constructions. These methodolog-
ical remarks give an indication of the decision-making process that may have
led to the reconstructions proposed in BGR. It is clear, for instance, that the geo-
graphical distribution of currently attested phenomena played a major role, such
that forms or patterns that have a very wide or a highly discontinuous distribu-
tion were readily recognised as retentions. Moreover, grammatical quirks that
are attested in only a handful of non-adjacent languages also made it into PB,
such as Burssens' rule changing the word-final *HL sequence of a head noun

<footnote n="2">²The *Lolemi* programme was a large research project at the Royal Museum for Central Africa
led by A.E. Meeussen, which started in the early 1960s and aimed at using all grammatical
descriptions of Bantu languages available at that time for the historical-comparative study of
Bantu morphology and syntax.</footnote>
into *HH when immediately followed by a connective relator, a possessive pro-
noun or a relative verb form with an initial *H (Meeussen 1967: 106; Nsuka-Nkutsi
1982: 58). This is no doubt because it was deemed unlikely that such a seemingly
random grammatical phenomenon could emerge several times independently.
Finally, when alternative candidates for reconstruction have a comparable geo-
graphical distribution, there appears to have been a tendency for reconstructing
the more complex or elaborate situation and to assume that the more likely di-
achronic evolution in Bantu is simplification.

Two things are lacking in this approach. One is the pursuit of a detailed and
credible diachronic scenario that can lead from a proposed reconstruction to the
totality of currently attested patterns. The other is awareness of recurrent mor-
phosyntactic changes that can have occurred independently at different times
and places, such that cognate morphemes with a similar function and morphosyn-
tactic behaviour can be the outcomes of parallel evolutions, rather than reflexes
of the same proto-form. I will briefly illustrate this with two aspects of
Meeussen's PB reconstruction that may need to be reconsidered, viz. the recon-
struction of an augment and that of a full paradigm of possessive pronouns.

The augment is a prefix or proclitic that precedes the class prefix of nouns and
some adnominal or nominalised modifiers (de Blois 1970). Formally, it is typically
either identical to the Pronominal prefix (PPR) or it consists of the vowel of the PPR.
Its function, if any, differs from language to language. Often, one can only list the
conditions in which it does or does not appear, and the former tend to be far more
numerous than the latter. Augments can be found all over the Bantu speaking
area. Their loss is also well documented in many languages, because they often
leave formal traces, such as so-called “latent augments” (de Blois 1970; Grégoire
& Janssens 1999). This is probably why Meeussen (1967: 99) reconstructs an aug-
ment in PB, more precisely as a weak demonstrative in prenominal position that
functioned as an anaphoric marker in specific syntactic contexts. However, the
pre-posing of demonstratives is still a common process in Bantu, including in lan-
guages where the noun usually has an augment, which tends to be deleted in the
presence of a prenominal demonstrative (Van de Velde 2005). Such prenominal
demonstratives are very similar to the augment as reconstructed by Meeussen
and arguably represent a new cycle of augment creation. Moreover, there are
several Bantu languages in which the augment appears to be a relatively recent
innovation, or that have (traces of) an older augment coexisting with a more re-
cently developed one (Van de Velde 2019: 254–255), as in Nyakyusa M31 in (4).
Nyakyusa has two paradigms of augments, one with a vocalic shape (4a) and
one with a CV- shape (4c). The first one is part of the default form of the noun
and has no clear semantic value, whereas the more recent CV-shaped augment is
an anaphoric marker, in line with Meeussen's reconstructed augment. Both are cognate with the proximal demonstrative *u-ju* in (4b).

(4) Nyakyusa M31 (Bastian Persohn, p.c.)

a. *u-mu-ndu* ‘the person’

b. *u-mu-ndu u-ju* ‘this person’

c. *ju-mu-ndu* ‘the very person’

The Nyakyusa data in (4) show that augments can emerge and disappear repeatedly. Since the demonstrative modifiers from which they develop are at least partially cognate, augments in different Bantu languages are cognate as well, without necessarily being reflexes of a single PB paradigm. The recurrent nature of augment creation and erosion makes it impossible to know whether an augment existed at any given proto-stage, much less at which state it was in its grammatical evolution.

The second illustration concerns the paradigm of possessive pronouns. Pronominal forms are extremely unstable in Bantu, with morphological material constantly being added and deleted (as shown, for instance, in Kamba Muzenga (2003), and Idiatov (2022 [this volume))). Consequently, Meeussen (1967: 107) points out that it is very difficult to reconstruct specific proto-forms. Instead, he tentatively provides one out of a number of alternative reconstructions for the forms that could have made up the PB paradigm of possessive pronouns. We are here less interested in the proto-forms of the pronouns than in the structure of their paradigm, and more precisely in the question of how many forms it contained. Among contemporary Bantu languages, there is a typological distinction between those with a full and those with a reduced paradigm. Languages with a full paradigm have a possessive stem for all the nominal classes to which a possessor can belong. The Mituku D13 examples in (5) provide a partial illustration of a full paradigm: possessors expressed by means of a noun of class 3, 4, 12 or 13 are each indexed by means of a different possessive stem (bolded in the examples).

(5) Mituku D13 (Stappers 1973: 32)

a. *meli y-aɔ* ‘its roots’ (of a tree, cl. 3)

b. *meli y-ayɔ* ‘their roots’ (of trees, cl. 4)

c. *beópí b-ákɔ* ‘its wings’ (of a bat, cl. 12)

d. *beópé b-átɔ* ‘their wings’ (of bats, cl. 13)
In contrast, languages with a reduced paradigm have only two stems for third person possessors: one for the singular and one for the plural. In the Mwera P22 examples in (6), the human class 1 possessor is indexed by means of the same pronominal stem as the class 14 possessor, the one also used for all other 3SG possessors.

(6) Mwera P22 (Harries 1950: 59)

a. *meyo g-a:kwe* ‘her eyes’ (the woman’s, cl. 1)

b. *kunoŋa kw-a:kwe* ‘its tastiness’ (the beer’s, cl. 14)

Both types of paradigm are found throughout the Bantu area (Van de Velde
Forthcoming), so that current geographical distributions do not provide a clear
hypothesis for reconstruction.<fnref n="3" /> Meeussen reconstructs a full paradigm, perhaps
due to a general preference for the more complex of alternative reconstructions.
However, in terms of diachronic scenarios, the path from a reduced to a full par-
adigm is much more likely than the reverse path. Possessive pronouns for third
person possessors of class 2 upwards in full paradigms are transparent genitive
(aka connective) constructions with a personal pronoun in the modifier position.
This can be seen in (5), where the possessive stems consist of the genitive linker
*a*, followed by a class marker and the personal pronoun stem ɔ. The scenario for
the emergence of full paradigms is therefore trivial. In contrast, we would expect
much less formal transparency in full paradigms if they had been handed down
from PB. Moreover, there is no obvious reason why so many Bantu languages
would have reduced their original paradigm. The hardest thing to explain in a
scenario of paradigmatic reduction that must have repeated itself independently
on numerous occasions is the uniform all-or-nothing nature of the typological
distinction. All examples of reduced paradigms known to me have six members
(one for each person and number) and all full paradigms have as many third per-
son forms as they have noun classes, on top of first and second person forms.
A plausible scenario of paradigmatic reduction would have resulted in partially
reduced systems in at least some languages, e.g. along lines of animacy.

Now that more Bantu descriptive and comparative studies are available, we
can and should be more attentive to attested patterns of morphosyntactic change
in an attempt to verify whether plausible diachronic scenarios lead from pro-
posed PB reconstructions to the current morphosyntactic variation. I will do this
for relative clause constructions in the remainder of this chapter.

<footnote n="3">³Full paradigms may be absent in zones A and B, i.e. the far North-West. This needs to be verified. If they are, this would strengthen the case for reconstructing a reduced paradigm in PB, as pointed out by Koen Bostoen.</footnote>
## 3 Typological variation in Bantu relative clauses

According to much of the literature starting with Nsuka-Nkutsi (1982), the three types of agreement patterns in Table 2 can be found on the relative verb in contemporary non-subject relative clause constructions.

<table><caption>Table 2: Agreement patterns on the relative verb in contemporary non-subject relative clause constructions</caption><thead><tr><td>Type</td><td>Agreement pattern</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>SBJ</td><td>agreement with the subject only</td></tr><tr><td>NPrel-SBJ</td><td>agreement with the relativised NP and the subject (Meeussen's Indirect)</td></tr><tr><td>NPrel</td><td>agreement with the relativised NP only (Meeussen's Direct)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Type SBJ agreement is illustrated in (2), type NPrel-SBJ in (1c) and type NPrel in (1a-1b). These three agreement types strongly correlate with the choice of a paradigm of agreement markers. Agreement of type SBJ tends to be expressed by means of a Verbal prefix and agreement of type NPrel by a Pronominal prefix. Consequently, agreement of type NPrel-SBJ is normally expressed by a PPr-VPr-succession. Since Pronominal prefixes are typically used on adnominal modifiers to mark agreement with their head noun, this correlation is not surprising.

This general picture has to be clarified and completed on three accounts. First, as will be illustrated below, an additional marker of agreement with the relativised NP can occur in types NPrel and NPrel-SBJ, giving rise to two more agreement types, namely type NPrel-NPrel and type NPrel-NPrel-SBJ. Second, contrary to what appears to be generally assumed in the literature, all types of agreement can be found in subject relatives as well as in non-subject relatives. Third, in many relative clause constructions across the Bantu domain, agreement markers on the verb belong to a morphological paradigm that formally differs from the paradigms of both Verbal prefixes and Pronominal prefixes and that is found exclusively in relative verb forms. I will use the term *Relative prefixes* (RPr) to refer to such paradigms of agreement markers dedicated to relative verb forms. Nsuka-Nkutsi (1982) did not recognise a separate RPr paradigm because he relied on a binary distinction, identifying every paradigm of agreement markers as PPr as soon as it diverges from the VPr paradigm. As we saw in §2.1, the most important distinction is between paradigms that contain first and second person forms and those that do not. Dedicated RPr paradigms tend to be of the latter type.
Indeed, in subject relative clauses, the distinction between adnominal NPreI agreement and SBJ agreement is easiest to see with first or second person rela- tivised NPs, because paradigms of adnominal agreement markers only have third person forms. Example (7) illustrates agreement type NPreI-SBJ in a subject rel- ative clause. The first person plural form is indexed twice on the relative verb, once as its relativised NP (by a third person plural prefix of class 2 in Pre-initial position) and once as its subject (by a first person plural prefix in Initial position).

(7) Yao P21 (Sanderson 1922: 73)

uwe [u-tu-li ၊wa-yao]

1PL preiN2-IN1PL-be 2-yao

‘we who are Yao’

In contrast, the second person plural pronoun in (8a) is indexed twice on the relative verb as its relativised NP and never as its subject, illustrating agreement of type NPreI-NPreI. Both agreement prefixes, *a-* and *ba-*, are class 2 forms, i.e. third person forms. Both differ from the second person plural prefix *mu-* seen in the following main verb *mu-raire*. Example (8b) illustrates agreement of type NPreI-NPreI-SBJ. It also shows how agreement prefixes in relative verbs can be formally distinct from those of both the *VPr* and the *PPr* paradigms. In Nkore-Kiga JE13/14 non-subject relative clause constructions, prefixes that would have an /a/ in the *VPr* or *PPr* paradigm have an /u/ in the *RPr* paradigm, hence *a-bu-* in (8b), instead of *a-ba-*. Something similar can be observed in (7). In Yao the class 2 *RPr* in the Pre-initial slot is *u-*, instead of the *a-* we would have found in the class 2 form of other paradigms.

(8) Nkore-Kiga JE13/14 (Taylor 1985: 23)

a. imwe [*a-ba-tuura* aha], mu-raire buhooro

2PL preiN2-IN2-live here IN2PL-sleep well

‘You, who live here, how are you (lit. did you sleep well)?’

b. *a-ba-ntu* *a-bu-tu-twire* *omu n-si*

AUG2-2-person preiN2-preiN2-IN1PL-live.PFV LOC 9-country

y-aabo

PPR9-their

‘the people in whose country we live’

Individual languages can have multiple constructions that belong to different agreement types. Moreover, individual constructions can show a split in agreement type depending on properties of their agreement controllers. With respect
to his Indirect type (= type NPreI-SBJ), Meeussen (1971) points out that in some
constructions it only appears when the subject of the relative verb is of the first or
second person. With a third person subject, these constructions are of the Direct
type (i.e. with type NPreI agreement). Following Meeussen, I will refer to these as
Luba-type constructions, and to "normal" type NPreI-SBJ constructions that do
not show such a split as Lega-type constructions. Luba-type constructions can
be found in the East of the DRC and in Eastern Angola. The Mituku D13 non-
subject relative clause construction in (9) is an example. In (9a) the relative verb
has a first person subject and agreement is of type NPreI-SBJ: the relativised NP
is indexed on the verb by the prefix UNG- and the subject by the prefix tS-.
In (9b) the relative verb has a third person subject (expressed by means of the postverbal
independent pronoun bo) and agreement of type NPreI.

(9) Mituku D13 (Stappers 1973: 59)

a. ms-nts ú-ts-tóma
1-person preiN1-iN1pl-send
'the person we send'

b. ms-nts ú-‘tóma bô
1-person iN1-send they
‘the person they send’

Finally, relative clause constructions of all agreement types across Bantu can
involve one or more optional or obligatory relativisers. There is formal variation
between the attested relativisers, which is due to the great number of their pos-
sible sources (different types of demonstratives, personal pronouns, connective
relators, etc.) and to the fact that many of them are clearly recent innovations.
Since relativisers immediately precede the relative verb in many cases, it is often
impossible to determine in a non-arbitrary way whether one is dealing with an
independent relativiser or with an agreement prefix that indexes the relativised
NP, a recurrent ambiguity that is inherent to the BRA cycle. This indeterminacy
can be illustrated by the alternative ways in which Nkore-Kiga non-subject rela-
tives such as (10) have been analysed in the literature.

(10) Nkore-Kiga JE13/14 (Taylor 1985: 22)
*a-ka-cumu* ku *w-aakozesa*
AUG12-12-pen preiN12 iN2SG-used
‘a pen you used’
Taylor writes *ku* separately from the verb, apparently analysing it as an inde-
pendent relativiser, whereas Nsuka-Nkutsi (1982: 124) treats it as a prefix of the
relative verb. In (10) Taylor’s analysis is reflected in the orthography and Nsuka-
Nkutsi’s in the glosses.

4 From PB agreement type SBJ to the present

The goal of this section is to show how the BRA cycle can generate every con-
struction attested in contemporary Bantu if we start from a proto-language that
had subject and non-subject relative clause constructions with type SBJ agree-
ment. Translated into Meeussen’s PB, this starting point looks like (11). Note that
in (11a) the Verbal prefix indexes the noun mɔ̃-ntɔ̃ ‘person’ as the subject of the
relative verb, not as the relativised NP. The construction in (11a) does not differ
from a non-relative clause construction and as such is ambiguous between the
readings ‘the person who cultivates’ and ‘the person cultivates’. The examples
in (1) and (11) are only partial reconstructions that concentrate on agreement.
There may have been a relativiser and/or prosodic or morphological differences
between relative and non-relative constructions. That being said, many instances
of morphosyntactic ambiguity between relative and non-relative constructions
exist in the contemporary Bantu languages as well.

(11) Meeussen’s (1967: 113) PB examples reanalysed

a. mɔ̃-ntɔ̃ á/ɔ́-d im-á ì-píà
1-person vPr1-cultivate-Fv 5-garden
‘a person who cultivates the garden’

b. ì-píà á/ɔ́-d im-á mɔ̃-ntɔ̃
5-garden vPr1-cultivate-Fv 1-person
‘the garden that the person cultivates’

c. mɔ̃-ntɔ̃ tɔ́-d im-ìd-á ì-píà
1-person vPr1pl-cultivate-appl-Fv 5-garden
‘the person for whom we cultivate the garden’

The great majority of contemporary instances of type SBJ agreement can be
considered direct reflexes of the proto-situation illustrated in (11). The other a-
greement types are the result of the BRA cycle, schematised in Figure 1. The
stages will be commented on and illustrated in what follows. Figure 1 is illustra-
tive rather than exhaustive, in that it only schematises the BRA cycle applied to
Possible starting situation

NPre1i [AGRj-VERB SUBJECTj (...)]]

Step 1: Emergence of a relativiser

NPre1i RELi [AGRj-VERB SUBJECTj (...)]]

Step 2: Integration of the relativiser
in the relative verb

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

Step 3: Simplification of the double
agreement

NPre1i [AGRi-VERB SUBJECTj (...)]]

<caption>Figure 1: Illustration of a possible BRA cycle</caption>

non-subject relatives with a postverbal lexical subject. Subscripts i and j signal a relation of agreement between two elements. REL is short for relativiser.

The first stage of the BRA cycle involves the emergence of a relativiser in-
between the relativised NP and the relative clause, which can originate in a
demonstrative, a personal pronoun, a connective relator, or another element.
Whatever its origin, the relativiser agrees with the relativised NP. The over-
whelming variety of origins and forms of this relativiser, and its random dis-
tribution in the Bantu domain,<fnref n="4" /> make it clear that its presence is in most cases a
recent innovation and therefore that the BRA cycle is often and easily initiated
in the Bantu languages. The first stage of the BRA cycle can be illustrated with
the Chokwe K11 example in (12).

(12) Chokwe K11 (Kawasha 2008: 50)

*ly-onda* [lízé *a-a-mbách-ile* *pwo*]

5-egg REL5 IN1-TNS-carry-RPST 1.woman

‘the egg which the woman carried’

Relative verb forms with agreement of type NPre1-SBJ (i.e. “Indirect” relatives)
are the result of the second stage in the BRA cycle: the gradual integration of

<footnote n="4">⁴For a detailed discussion of the origins, use and distribution of relativisers in Bantu, see Nsuka-Nkutsi (1982: 1–93).</footnote>
an erstwhile independent relativiser into the verb. Evidence for this stage can be found in the sometimes unexpected shape of the prefix in Pre-initial position that indexes the relativised NP, due to the fact that it is usually a reflex of a morphologically complex relativiser, rather than of a Pronominal prefix. The unexpected *bu-* shape (versus expected *ba-* ) of the Pre-initial in the Nkore-Kiga example (8b) may illustrate this, although its origin is currently not clear. Moreover, in non-subject relative clause constructions with a lexical subject, there is a very strong correlation between agreement of type NPreI-SBJ and the postverbal position of the lexical subject and between type SBJ agreement and a preverbal subject. The straightforward historical explanation in terms of the BRA cycle is that a preverbal lexical subject hampers the integration of a relativiser into the relative verb form (see also Hamlaoui (2022 [this volume]).).

Relative verbs with agreement of type NPreI (“Direct” relatives) are the result of the third and last stage of the BRA cycle, viz. the reduction of the succession of two agreement prefixes to a single one. This can happen through merger or through the deletion of one of the prefixes. In theory, when a PPr-VPr succession of prefixes is simplified through the deletion of one of them, the surviving prefix can be the second, i.e. the one that indexes the subject. It is impossible to know whether this may have happened in the history of a construction with agreement of type SBJ, but there are some rare examples of reduction through merger in which the newly forged agreement marker indexes the subject. For instance, the initial *a* of the class 2 RPr *abá* in (13a) from Mbagani L22 is very likely a reflex of the initial *a* that also shows up on (optional) relativisers (13b). Crucially, the resulting subject index is the reflex of a prefix that had been there from the start, accreted by an invariable initial element.<fnref n="5" />

(13) Mbagani / Binji L22 (van Coillie 1948: 272)

a. *di-kamá* [*abá-bátúlé-la*]
5-foot REL.IN2-cut_off DEM
‘the foot that they cut off’

b. *di-kamá* [(*a*)*di abá-bátúlé·la*]
5-foot REL5 REL.IN2-cut_off DEM
‘the foot that they cut off’

<footnote n="5">⁵The Nguni S40 languages have a non-subject relative clause construction with a Relative Pre-
fix of the shape (l)V(-)vPr-, in which the quality of the first vowel (here represented as V) is
determined by that of the vowel of the Verbal prefix. This appears to suggest that this Rela-
tive prefix originates in a form that contained a succession of two prefixes that both index the
subject, which is not obviously compatible with the BRA cycle. However, this Nguni Relative
prefix is similar to the one found in Mbagani. Its initial *a* comes from a demonstrative stem *la*
and undergoes anticipatory assimilation.</footnote>
The BRA cycle also accounts for the minority patterns mentioned in §3, such as NPrel-NPrel agreement, which is the result of successive applications of the cycle. It explains why dedicated paradigms of rpr's have emerged in many languages, either as reflexes of relativisers, or of mergers between two prefixes; and why there is no fundamental distinction in agreement types between subject and non-subject relatives. A relativiser can appear before relative verbs of any agreement type, because the BRA cycle can be re-initiated while constructions are halfway or fully through a previous cycle. The BRA cycle also makes perfect sense of constructions of the Luba-type, which have agreement type NPrel-SBJ when their subject is of the first or second person, but agreement type NPrel elsewhere. These constructions are halfway between stage 2 and stage 3 of the cycle. The reason why reduction has not taken place with subject agreement prefixes of the first and second person is that the non-lexical subject in these constructions is expressed by means of a postverbal pronoun, whose paradigm lacks first and second person forms in languages with Luba-type constructions (Nsuka-Nkutsi 1982: 42, 222).

The fact that BRA cycles are easily started and that they can evolve fast is illustrated by languages that have multiple alternative relative clause constructions that can be shown to be at different stages of a BRA cycle. Van de Velde (2022) illustrates this with examples from Punu B43, taken from Blanchon (1980).

## 5 No path from Meeussen's PB to the present

As a reminder, Meeussen's (1967) partial reconstruction of relative clause constructions has three features that are relevant for relative verbs as agreement targets:

1. a distinction between a Direct (PPR-) and an Indirect (PPR- VPR-) construction;

2. the PPR indexes the relativised NP and the VPR the subject of the relative verb;

3. the Indirect construction was used for non-subject relatives if the relative verb has a pronominal/grammatical (i.e. non-lexical) subject and the Direct construction elsewhere.

The picture we find in contemporary Bantu differs considerably from this reconstructed situation. First, there are some additional agreement types, namely
type SBJ, NPreI-NPreI and NPreI-NPreI-SBJ. Moreover, subject relatives and both
types of non-subject relatives (with lexical versus grammatical subject) can be-
long to any of the attested agreement types. Third, a wide variety of relativisers
has emerged, distributed randomly over the Bantu domain, as well as a number
of dedicated rPr paradigms in individual languages. For the sake of the argument,
we will assume in this section that Meeussen's partial reconstructions are valid.
Starting from that assumption, we will try and identify paths of morphosyntactic
change that can lead from that reconstruction to the morphosyntactic variation
that is currently attested in Bantu. As will become clear, this turns out to be
impossible.

Nevertheless, if we take Meeussen’s reconstruction as the starting point, the BRA cycle could account for much of the needed morphosyntactic change. For instance, the evolution from Indirect to Direct relatives involves the type of prefix reduction found in stage 3 of the BRA cycle. The constant emergence of new relativisers corresponds to stage 1 of the cycle, and type NPreI-NPreI agreement corresponds to stage 2 of a BRA cycle that has a ‘direct’ relative as its starting point.

However, since the BRA cycle cannot generate a vPr that indexes the subject
of the relative verb, contemporary constructions with agreement of type SBJ are
problematic, and so are constructions with agreement of type NPreI-SBJ that
are used for subject relatives or non-subject relatives with a lexical subject. I
will address the problems arising from Meeussen's reconstruction in order of
increasing complication. The least complicated are non-subject relatives with
a pronominal subject, as these are reconstructed as Indirect, so that a vPr that
indexes the subject of the relative verb is already present from the start. All we
need to assume is the simplification of the original PPr-vPr- succession of prefixes
through the loss of the PPr in the constructions that today have agreement of type
SBJ, as schematised in (14).

$$
(14) \quad \frac{\text{BGR}}{\text{relativised NP}_x [\text{PPr}_x - \text{vPr}_y - \text{VERB}...]} \rightarrow \frac{\text{attested agreement type}}{\text{relativised NP}_x [\text{vPr}_y - \text{VERB}...]}
$$

Although such an evolution is in theory possible, it is impossible to show that
it has taken place, because it leaves no traces. We do know that when reduction
of a PPr-vPr succession takes place through merger, the resulting rPr tends to
be a continuation of the PPr, in that it indexes the relativised NP. The Mbagani
example in (13) is one of the few clear counterexamples that I could find. This
may point to a tendency for the PPr to survive and the VPr to be deleted, and
could therefore be an argument against the likelihood of the evolution in (14). Yet, Nsuka-Nkutsi's sample contains 128 non-subject relative verb constructions with a pronominal subject and agreement of type SBJ in languages from every Guthrie zone except B (Nsuka-Nkutsi 1982: 217–228). Constructions with type NPrel-SBJ agreement are also widely attested in Nsuka-Nkutsi's sample: 46 examples in all zones except C, F, R and S. This means that we would have to assume that the evolution schematised in (14) must have happened dozens of times independently. This is in theory possible, because it is in line with the observation that the BRA cycle is permanently available and that it can evolve fast. But again, it can only be assumed, not observed, and most facts indicate that the vpr is the most likely to go when a ppr-vpr succession is reduced.

Moving on to subject relatives and non-subject relatives with a lexical subject, Meeussen's reconstruction runs into trouble, because many currently attested constructions would imply the evolutions in (15).

(15) BGR             attested agreement type

a. relativised NP<sub>x</sub> [PP<sub>r</sub><sub>x</sub>-VERB] → relativised NP<sub>x</sub> [VPr<sub>y</sub>-VERB]

b. relativised NP<sub>x</sub> [PP<sub>r</sub><sub>x</sub>-VERB] → relativised NP<sub>x</sub> [PP<sub>r</sub><sub>x</sub>-VPr<sub>y</sub>-VERB]

If (15a) could be shown to be possible, its output would be a potential input construction for a BRA cycle of which the output of (15b) would represent stage 2. Therefore, the evolution in (15b) does not strictly need to be assumed to have taken place. We will concentrate on the morphosyntactic change represented in (15a) that needs to be assumed if Meeussen's reconstructions are valid.

A first relevant observation is that there is no way in which the BRA cycle can lead to the integration of a prefix that indexes the subject of the relative verb into a relative verb form. In other words, a prefix that indexes the relativised NP in Initial position is a dead end for the BRA cycle. It could only be replaced by another prefix that indexes the relativised NP. Therefore, another type of morphosyntactic change than those that make up the BRA cycle would be needed to achieve (15a).

The only alternative possibility that I am aware of is proposed in Nsuka-Nkutsi (1982: 250–251), who endorses Meeussen’s reconstructions. He explains the switch from a PB ppr paradigm to a vpr paradigm in the Initial position of relative verb forms in terms of analogical levelling, by pointing out that the formal differences between both paradigms are minimal. Nsuka-Nkutsi further points out that the majority of contemporary subject relative clause constructions in his sample have a ppr if they lack a relativiser, but that a vpr is more common in
constructions with a relativiser.<fnref n="6" /> He proposes a functional motivation for this
correlation: analogical levelling is more likely to occur if it does not lead to am-
biguity between a relative and a non-relative construction, an ambiguity that
is lifted by the presence of a relativiser. There are two problems with an expla-
nation in terms of analogical levelling. First, analogical change is not as rigidly
systematic as needs to be assumed in this case. Second, while it could explain
formal changes in parts of paradigms of agreement markers, it cannot explain a
change in agreement controller. This second problem dismisses the hypothesis
of analogical levelling for non-subject relatives with a lexical subject. If the in-
herited PPr in the Initial position of their relative verb were to acquire the shape
of a VPr, this prefix would still index the relativised NP, rather than the subject of
the relative clause, which is *not* the type of agreement we find in the contempo-
rary Bantu constructions with an Initial VPr. Example (16a) repeats Meeussen’s
pseudo-PB example from (1b). Analogical levelling of the PPr and VPr paradigms
would bring about no changes whatsoever, as the two paradigms were identical
from the outset for class 5 controllers. However, what we find in the contempo-
rary constructions with a VPr in their Initial position is a reflex of (16b), repeated
from (11b), i.e. my proposal for reconstruction translated in Meeussen’s PB.

(16) Meeussen’s (1967: 113) PB examples reanalysed

a. *ì-píà dí-dim-á mò-ntò*
5-garden PPr5-cultivate-FV 1-person
‘the garden that the person cultivates’

b. *ì-píà á/ɔ́-dim-á mò-ntò*
5-garden VPr1-cultivate-FV 1-person
‘the garden that the person cultivates’

Turning to the first problem with analogical levelling, we will now see why
analogical levelling does not work for subject relatives either. According to
Meeussen's (1967: 97) PB reconstruction, the VPr and PPr paradigms differ from
each other in that the PPr paradigm lacks first and second person forms and that
it has a low tone in classes 1 and 9, where the Verbal prefixes are high. Moreover,
there is a segmental difference in class 1, where the PPr is *jɔ́-* and the VPr *á-
or *ɔ́-*. Therefore, if we take the reconstructed PB situation as a starting point,
three formal changes are needed in order for the PPr and the VPr paradigms to

<footnote n="6">⁶Note that what Nsuka-Nkutsi counts as Pronominal prefixes includes dedicated Relative pre-
fixes. According to my counts using his sample, 42% of subject relative clause constructions
have a VPr. This percentage goes down to 28% in constructions that lack a relativiser, but it
goes up to 67% in constructions with a relativiser.</footnote>
collapse in the third person: a tone change in class 1, a tone change in class 9 and a segmental change in class 1. These three changes are each very minor and individually plausible, but in the context of analogical change they have to be counted as separate evolutions. In contrast, the formal changes needed for a merger of both paradigms are by no means minor in the case of first and second person controllers. In the singular, a PPR *jʊ̃- would have to change to VPR *n̂- (first person) or *ʊ̃- (second person). In the plural, the PPR *bá- has to change to VPR *tʊ̃- (first person) or *mʊ̃- (second person). All in all, these are seven formal changes, of which four are minor (including 2SG) and three are radical. Now, if we look at the geographical distribution of subject relative clause constructions in Nsuka-Nkutsi’s sample, we find that those with a VPR Initial are found in every Guthrie zone (albeit marginally in zones E, H and J) and those with a PPR Initial in all zones except N and S. Whatever the direction of change one wishes to assume, one has to conclude that changes must have taken place recently. Otherwise, we would find more clustering along regional and genealogical lines. In other words, the exact same set of seven formal changes motivated by analogical levelling should have produced itself dozens of times independently. This is by no means plausible and it is not what we find in languages where analogical levelling can be shown to have taken place. In Cuwabo P34, for instance, the PPR and VPR paradigms have collapsed in their third person forms (17), but relative clauses with a relativised NP of the first or second person have a class 1 prefix in the Initial slot of the relative verb (18), showing that we have agreement of type NPreI and a PPR in Initial position.

(17) Cuwabo P34 (Guérois & Creissels 2020: 478)

a. *Múyáná oŋgúlíhá nigagádda.

mú-yaná o-ní-gul-íh-a ni-gagádda
1-woman IN1-IPFV-buy-CAUS-FV.CJ 5-dry_cassava.H1D

‘The woman is selling dry cassava.’

b. *múyaná oŋgúlíha nígágádda*

mú-yaná o-ní-gul-íh-a ní-gagádda
1-woman IN1-IPFV-buy-CAUS-FV.REL 5-dry_cassava

‘the woman who is selling dry cassava’

(18) Cuwabo P34 (Guérois & Creissels 2020: 480)

nootééne íy' óoŋvívéérívatákúl' aápa
ni-oté=ene íyo o-ní-viveéri va-tákulu ápa
1PL-all=INT 1PL.PRO IN1-IPFV-live.REL 16-9A.house 16.DEM.I

‘all of us who live in this house’
Another example of a language where analogical levelling has taken place is Orungu B11b. Here, too, the resulting picture differs considerably from what we find in languages where relative verbs have a vPr that indexes the subject. The tonal differences between the PPr and vPr paradigms have disappeared in Orungu, leaving only a segmental distinction in class 1 and in the first and second person forms, which are absent in the PPr paradigm (Van de Velde & Ambouroue 2017). Moreover, the choice between a PPr and a vPr is free in class 1 in some relative clause constructions, suggesting that partial analogical levelling is still ongoing.

The near impossibility of full analogical levelling across the entire paradigm having taken place independently dozens of times can be contrasted with the trivial nature of the changes that make up the BRA cycle and that can easily explain the evolution from a construction with a vPr that indexes the subject to one with a PPr indexing the relativised NP in a relative verb form. Likewise, in order to explain a certain correlation between the presence of a relativiser and a vPr in Initial position, Nsuka-Nkutsi had to make the awkwardly functionalist claim that ambiguity avoidance would have blocked analogical levelling time and again in the absence of a relativiser. Compare this to the straightforward explanation that can be found in the application of the BRA cycle to a situation in which most languages have inherited relative verbs with a vPr that indexes the subject in Initial position: some have never started a BRA cycle (type SBJ, vPr-, no relativiser); some are in Stage 1 (type SBJ, vPr-, relativiser), some are in Stage 2 (type NPrel-SBJ, PPr-vPr) and some are in Stage 3 (type NPrel, PPr). The latter two can have a relativiser too, but this implies that they have started a second BRA cycle, which is less common.<fnref n="7" />

To conclude, there is no scenario of morphosyntactic change that can lead to the contemporary typological variation in Bantu relative clause constructions when starting from Meeussen's PB reconstruction. In contrast, if we reconstruct relative verb forms with a Verbal prefix that indexes the subject of the relative verb, the BRA cycle can handle the full catalogue of currently attested constructions without problems. Its strength is that it consists of small, trivial changes, all of which are widely attested, often in one and the same language. Meeussen

<footnote n="7">⁷In fact, Nsuka-Nkutsi (1982) does not recognise a subject relative clause construction with type NPrel-SBJ agreement. This strongly suggests that his analytical choices were influenced by the absence of Indirect subject relatives in the Bantuist tradition. It might explain, for instance, why Nsuka-Nkutsi (1982: 98) recognises an augment in the verb of subject relative clause constructions more than three times as often as in non-subject relatives, where the same morpheme would have more readily been analysed as a PPr. Likewise, the distinction between an independent relativiser and an agreement prefix that indexes the relativised NP is often vague, and indeed fully arbitrary.</footnote>
(1967: 120) observes that it is not clear whether the Indirect construction he re-
constructs was of the Lega-type or of the Luba-type. Remember that the latter is
a hybrid of Direct and Indirect relatives: Direct in the case of a third person sub-
ject, Indirect elsewhere. In the absence of a clear scenario for morphosyntactic
change, the evolution from either to the other is puzzling. However, as we saw in
§4, the Luba-type is clearly an innovation as compared to the Lega-type in view
of the BRA cycle and neither can be reconstructed in PB.

6 Which path from pre-PB to BGR?

The crucial argument against the reconstruction proposed in BGR with a Di-
rect (PPr-) and an Indirect (PPr-VPr-) relative verb form is that no path has been
identified that could lead from that reconstructed state of affairs to the current
situation. In this short section, for the sake of the argument we will also assume,
as we did in §5, that the reconstructions in BGR are right, and ask how this PB
situation could have come about.

According to Meeussen (1967: 113), there are no clear indications for recon-
structing morphological differences between relative verb forms and their non-
relative counterparts, other than their agreement prefixes in (Pre-)Initial position
and the tone of their Final morpheme (although see Meeussen 1971 for the latter).
Therefore, the adnominal nature of the agreement marked by the PPr in BGR's
PB relative verb forms is a participial characteristic of otherwise fully finite verb
forms, which is typologically unusual and in need of an explanation. This need
is strengthened by the fact that, to my knowledge, relative verb forms do not
show agreement with the relativised NP in any of the Benue-Congo languages
outside of Narrow Bantu, so that BGR's Direct and Indirect constructions must
be Bantu innovations. This brings up a question similar to the one discussed
in the previous section: which scenario of morphosyntactic change could have
led from the most likely (typologically usual and universally attested) pre-Bantu
situation in which relative verbs agree with their subject to BGR's Direct and
Indirect constructions?

An obvious candidate for such a scenario is the BRA cycle. The question is then
how old the BRA cycle is. If we wish to assume that it was already active at the
PB or pre-PB stage, then we also have to assume that a BRA cycle had created a
Direct and an Indirect construction in PB, while the pre-Bantu construction with
type SBJ agreement continued to exist. The problem with this latter assumption
is that every agreement type is currently attested in languages of almost every
Guthrie zone. Therefore, one would also have to make the extremely unlikely
assumption that this tripartite distinction (VPr-, PPr-VPr-, PPr-) has continued to
exist for many centuries, surviving in all branches at every split of the Bantu tree,
which is only imaginable if there had been for some reason a long cross-Bantu
pause in the activity of the BRA cycle. It is therefore far more straightforward to
assume that the BRA cycle was not yet active in PB.

7 Consequences for the PB verbal template

Since the BRA cycle consists of a succession of small steps, each of which must be
independently motivated, the question is which innovation exactly could have
activated the BRA cycle in early Bantu. As far as I can see, there are two options.
First, it could be the tendency for relativisers to emerge, corresponding to stage
1 of the cycle. Second, it could be the tendency of verb forms to attract and inte-
grate morphological material at their left hand side (stage 2 of the BRA cycle).

The first option is unlikely to be a feature that could set apart Narrow Bantu
from the other Benue-Congo languages. The emergence of relativisers from all
kinds of sources is typologically very common (cf. e.g. Hendery 2012 for an
overview of the multiple sources of relativisers in the languages of the world).
Besides being typologically common, the emergence of relativisers is also widely
attested in contemporary Benue-Congo languages outside of Narrow Bantu. In
a small sample of 25 languages covering the major sub-branches of Benue-Congo,
the great majority of relative clause constructions are introduced by a relativiser.<fnref n="8" />
In slightly more than half of these cases, this relativiser is invariable. Elsewhere
it agrees with the relativised NP. Most languages in which relativisers are invari-
able lack noun classes. Agreeing relativisers can have different sources. As in the
Bantu languages, they can originate in a demonstrative (as in Bafut, Southern
Bantoid, Tamanji 2009), in a personal pronoun (as in Noone, Southern Bantoid,
Hyman 1981) or in another element (e.g. -yī in Kuche, Plateau, Wilson 1996). It
is therefore by no means unlikely that PB had one or more agreeing relativisers.

<footnote n="8">⁸The six Southern Bantoid languages in my sample (Noni, Mungong, Medumba, Bafut, Ejagham and Mundabli) have an agreeing relativiser, which in Mundabli follows the relative verb. The three Northern Bantoid languages are typologically maximally diverse: Vute has no relativiser, Wawa a non-agreeing one and Tikar an agreeing relativiser. The three Edoid languages have a non-agreeing relativiser (Engenni, Degema and Bini); some Plateau languages have a non-agreeing relativiser (Migili, Fyem, Birom), some an agreeing relativiser (Tyap, Kuche). The Delta Cross (Obolo, Ibibio, Eleme) and Jukunoid (Kuteb, Mbembe) languages have either no relativiser or an invariable one. The two Kainji languages in the sample (C'lela, Cicipu) have an agreeing relativiser. Finally, Oko has an invariable relativiser.</footnote>
In contrast, as far as I know, there are no Benue-Congo languages outside of Narrow Bantu that have relative clause constructions of agreement type NPrel-SBJ or NPrel, or that otherwise show signs of the integration of an original relativiser into the relative verb form. Their relative verb forms either agree with their subject, or show no agreement at all. Many have subject markers that are analysed as separate pronouns, rather than prefixes. What sets apart most of Narrow Bantu, then, is a tendency for verbs to morphologise formerly independent relativisers.

This conclusion is relevant for the reconstruction of the typological profile of PB verb forms, especially the much debated issue of whether their pre-stem domain was rather synthetic or rather analytical, or whether it may have cyclically shifted between these typological profiles (Nurse 2007; Hyman 2011; Gülde-mann (2022 [this volume))). As has been pointed out by Hyman (2011) regarding Niger-Congo verb forms, there is evidence for both accretion and breakdown in their pre-stem domain and the main difficulty for reconstruction is to determine at which stage any given proto-language was. However, the dead-end nature of NPrel agreement in relative verb forms strikes me as an argument in favour of reconstructing a more analytical profile for the PB and Proto-Benue-Congo pre-stem domain. As pointed out in the previous sections, there is a clear path from type SBJ agreement to type NPrel agreement, but not for the inverse evolution. Therefore, if there had been a strong tendency for integrating agreeing relativisers (or any other preverbal syntactic material) into verb forms at a pre-PB stage, we would expect to find traces of NPrel(-SBJ) agreement in at least some branches of Benue-Congo and we would expect to find the contemporary variation in Bantu relative clause constructions to be compatible with the reconstruction in BGR. A possible hypothesis is that the emergence of a Pre-initial position in the verbal template is an innovation that took place at node 2 in the internal classification of Bantu proposed in Grollemund et al. (2015), i.e. excluding most of zone A. Indications for this hypothesis can be found in the near-absence of agreement of type NPrel-SBJ in relative verb forms in zone A (Nsuka-Nkutsi 1982: 217) and in the overall absence of Pre-initial negative markers in zone A (Kamba Muzenga 1981: 130–132). As for the latter, Kamba Muzenga (1981: 132) remarks “*L’emploi d’une postinitiale en zone A et dans une partie de la zone B peut s’expliquer sans doute par le fait que ces langues ont perdu l’usage de la préinitiale de la conjugaison* [The use of a Post-initial in zone A and parts of zone B could be explained by the fact that these languages have lost the use of a Pre-initial in conjugation – my translation].” However, unless clear indications for the loss of a Pre-initial position in zone A languages come up, the more likely hypothesis is that these languages have never developed one.
Finally, it would be interesting to apply this reasoning to other branches of
Niger-Congo. The Atlantic languages, for instance, tend to have little morpho-
logical material prefixed to the verb root, versus a lot of suffixation. They also
usually have type SBJ agreement on relative verb forms. An exception on both
accounts is Bijogo, where categories such as negation, tense and phasal polar-
ity are expressed by means of verbal prefixes. Interestingly, non-subject relative
clauses are of the Luba-type in Bijogo. They have agreement of type NPrel-SBJ
if the subject is of the first (19a) or second person or of class o-, and agreement
of type NPrel elsewhere (Segerer 2002). Subject relatives have agreement of type
NPrel, as can be seen in examples where the relativised NP is a pronoun of the
first or second person (19b).

(19) Bijogo (Atlantic, Niger-Congo) (Segerer 2002: 179, 176)

a. *e-we i-na-rɔrak-ɔ*
   E-goat E.IPFV-SM1SG-look_for-REL
   ‘the goat I am looking for’

b. *amɔ ɔ-bajokam-mɔ*
   you O.PFV-be_late-REL
   ‘you (sg) who are late’

This appears to confirm the idea that there is a correlation between rich verbal
morphology in the pre-stem domain and agreement of relative verbs with the
relativised NP within Niger-Congo.

8 Conclusions

The reconstruction of Direct and Indirect relative clauses proposed in BGR
(Meeussen 1967) is untenable, because there exists no scenario that could lead
from that reconstruction to the current situation. The best reconstruction is one
of a default situation in which relative verbs have the same agreement properties
as non-relative verb forms. Despite their typological rarity and their wide distri-
bution across Bantu, all contemporary attestations of constructions with agree-
ment of types NPrel (Direct), NPrel-SBJ (Indirect) and previously undetected
types such as NPrel-NPrel must be due to relatively recent parallel evolutions.
However counterintuitive this conclusion may seem, it is not that unfamiliar for
Bantuists. Consider, for instance, what Schadeberg had to say about Spirantisa-
tion:
The languages which [have] undergone Spirantization, or both Spirantiza-
tion and 7>5 [vowel shift], are not genetic subgroups or branches of Bantu.
I think this is a safe statement to make, even if the details of the genetic
subclassification of Bantu are, after many decades of research, still rather
hazy. Historical-comparative studies of (presumably) genetic subgroups of
Bantu, even small ones, again and again end up reconstructing a consonan-
tal system prior to Spirantization and a seven-vowel system prior to 7>5. A
commonly used argument is the observation that the precise results of Spi-
rantization differ even between closely related languages. Even synchronic
descriptions of languages which have undergone both changes sometimes
posit the situation as found prior to these changes for the underlying rep-
resentation in order to account for regular allomorphic alternations. An ex-
ample is Louise Polak-Bynon's grammar of Shi (D.53). (Schadeberg 1994:
81)

The mechanism that has driven the many parallel local evolutions from type SBJ agreement to other agreement types can be clearly identified as the Bantu Relative Agreement (BRA) cycle. The next obvious question to be asked and answered is which grammatical change may have activated the BRA cycle itself in Bantu. My favourite hypothesis for answering that question is that function words in preverbal position started morphologising at some PB stage, presumably the common ancestor of the languages under node 2 in Grollemund et al.'s (2015) internal classification. Due to this innovation, formerly independent relativisers started having the potential of being integrated into relative verb forms as prefixes in a new Pre-initial position.

Acknowledgements

This work is partially supported by a public grant overseen by the French Na-
tional Research Agency (ANR) as part of the program “Investissements d’Avenir”
(reference: ANR-10-LABX-0083). It contributes to the IdEx Université de Paris
– ANR-18-IDEX-0001. I wish to thank Sara Pacchiarotti, Rozenn Guérois, Koen
Bostoen, Dmitry Idiatov and two anonymous reviewers for their generous com-
ments.

Abbreviations

In what follows the starred forms are terms for positions in Meeussen's morpho-
logical template of the Bantu verb; those marked by a degree sign are names of
paradigms of agreement markers:
<table><tr><td>1, 2, 3, E, O ...</td><td>noun classes</td><td>INT</td><td>intensive</td></tr><tr><td>1SG, 2PL ...</td><td>first and second</td><td>IPFV</td><td>imperfective</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>person</td><td>L</td><td>low tone</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>singular/plural</td><td>LOC</td><td>locative</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>markers</td><td>NP</td><td>Noun Phrase</td></tr><tr><td>APPL</td><td>applicative</td><td>NPr</td><td>nominal prefix</td></tr><tr><td>AUG</td><td>augment</td><td>NPrel</td><td>relativised NP</td></tr><tr><td>BGR</td><td>Bantu</td><td>OPr</td><td>object prefix</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Grammatical</td><td>PB</td><td>Proto-Bantu</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Reconstructions</td><td>PFV</td><td>perfective</td></tr><tr><td>BRA</td><td>Bantu Relative</td><td>PL</td><td>plural</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Agreement</td><td>postFV</td><td>Post-final*</td></tr><tr><td>CAUS</td><td>causative</td><td>postIN</td><td>Post-initial*</td></tr><tr><td>CJ</td><td>conjoint</td><td>PPr</td><td>pronominal prefix°</td></tr><tr><td>cl.</td><td>class</td><td>preIN</td><td>Pre-initial*</td></tr><tr><td>DEM</td><td>demonstrative</td><td>PRO</td><td>pronoun</td></tr><tr><td>PRE</td><td>numeral prefix</td><td>REL</td><td>relative / relativiser</td></tr><tr><td>EXT</td><td>extension*</td><td>RPr</td><td>relative prefix°</td></tr><tr><td>FO</td><td>formative*</td><td>RPST</td><td>remote past</td></tr><tr><td>FV</td><td>final (vowel)*</td><td>SBJ</td><td>subject</td></tr><tr><td>H</td><td>high tone</td><td>SM</td><td>subject marker</td></tr><tr><td>H1D</td><td>first high tone</td><td>TNS</td><td>tense</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>deletion</td><td>V</td><td>vowel</td></tr><tr><td>IF</td><td>infix*</td><td>VPr</td><td>verbal prefix°</td></tr><tr><td>IN</td><td>initial*</td><td></td><td></td></tr></table>

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