Aspects of subject conjunction in Zulu

Abstract

Bantu languages have a number of grammatical genders which are paired into singular/plural classes. The purpose of this article is to find solutions for some of the agreement problems arising from the conjunction of two or more nouns. The research was carried out against the background of the gender conflict resolution rules as proposed by various Bantu linguists. It was found that concord selection is influenced by the semantic content of the conjoined nouns as well as by discourse notions such as presupposition. Accordingly discourse context plays an indispensable role in the interpretation of linguistic data in this study.