Special phenomena

Abstract In this chapter, some special phenomena that are relevant for a better understanding of the behavior of case in Africa are highlighted. These are in particular tone as a means of case expression (5.1), definiteness as a crucial feature in case marking (5.2), and the rule “no case before the verb”, which is the most important split condition (5.3). Definiteness is important both as a condition for split and as a historical source for case markers. Section 5.4 sheds some light on the emergence of case in the Khoisan languages !Xun and Khwe. Marked nominative is also a phenomenon that belongs here. It has been treated extensively in the preceding chapter but there remain some issues that need to be further discussed, relating to some western Bantu languages which have been claimed to be marked-nominative (section 5.1.1). Most of the topics have already been discussed in previous chapters in some way or other but require further analysis, as we will see below.