Object marking in Citumbuka

This study is a descriptive analysis of object marking in Citumbuka that specifically addressed two chief issues, which were to identify the impact the OM has on the structure of the sentence in Citumbuka. In doing so, the conditions that trigger object marking in this language were also discussed. The other issue was to analyse the relationship that exists between the OM and grammatical functions of the post-verbal lexical NPs in Citumbuka. In order to achieve that, the study employed a number of techniques to collect data. The questionnaire, focus group discussions and Citumbuka written tales analysis, helped in discovering the conditions that influence object marking on the verb and the impact they have on the structure of the sentence. They also assisted in revealing the relationship that they have with their corresponding post-verbal NPs. The Binding Theory was adopted and it guided this study in revealing the relationship that exists between the OM and its nominal NP with the aid of tree diagrams. To this end, the findings revealed that the OM in Citumbuka can function as an agreement marker or as an incorporated pronoun. Regardless of the function, both morphosyntactic processes of applicativisation and semantic features of animacy, definiteness, topicalisation and specificity influence object marking in Citumbuka. Additionally, the study also revealed that the occurrence of the OM licences dislocation of NPs on the sentence structure and a free order of the constituents. Moreover, its presence warrants the omission of the nominal object such that the sentence may or may not contain the post-verbal NP. Most importantly, the findings showed that, in Citumbuka, only one NP can be object marked at a time, the primary object being the one in SOCs and the secondary object in DOCs. However, with regards to the three objecthood tests, the study demonstrated that Citumbuka shows both symmetrical and asymmetrical features. Conceding that the study could in no way have settled all the polemics related to object marking in Citumbuka, suggestions for further studies in specific areas were provided in order to come up with a general approach or explanation to analysing object marking in Citumbuka which may also be useful in other related Bantu languages.