Theory and Description

Jóola-Eegimaa, an endangered Atlantic (Niger-Congo) language, has a rich agglutinative morphology resulting in complex words that often permit multiple readings. The regularity and limitations of these ambiguities suggests they are generated by a speaker’s systematic knowledge. Preserving that knowledge demands not simply cataloguing outward forms but also understanding the organizing principles that permit using that knowledge creatively. Investigation of Eegimaa verb stem structure shows that the superficial linear order of stem affixes, seemingly not compositionally transparent, arises from syntactic movement of sub-stem morphemes in a way that preserves the underlying structure necessary for compositional interpretation. Under this analysis a copy of complex v movement is left behind and has the right contents to predict patterns of possible and impossible verb reduplication. Such research can reveal how general features of the language faculty interact with specific lexical properties of morphemes to predict the order and interpretation of verb stem morphology.