Nanosyntax meets the Khoesan languages: Hadza personal pronouns and the INCLUSIVE/EXCLUSIVE

distinction
1. Introduction. The Khoesan language Hadza presents us with a rich pronominal paradigm (shown in (4))
that distinguishes SINGULAR/PLURAL and MASCULINE/FEMININE forms for each of the three persons.
However, there are fewer morphemes involved than categories, indicating that each morpheme in fact
corresponds to a larger piece of (syntactic) structure. The aim of this paper is to develop a fine-grained,
nanosyntactic analysis of the subject pronouns in Hadza. I show how the pronouns are built from small
atomic features, examining the internal syntactic structure of each morpheme in question and the steps of the
derivation. Special attention will be given to the INCLUSIVE/EXCLUSIVE distinction in 1.PL.
2. Theoretical framework: Nanosyntax. The main feature of Nanosyntax (Starke 2009, 2011, 2013; Caha
2009; Caha & Pantcheva 2012; Pantcheva 2011) are fine-grained syntactic representations with a strict onefeature-per-head constraint and phrasal Spell-Out, meaning that one morpheme may span one or several
syntactic heads and can spell out phrasal nodes as well as terminals, depending on the syntactic structure
(sub-tree) contained in its lexical specification. The structure of the utterance in preparation is built bottomto-top, one feature per cycle, and Spell-Out matches the nodes in this structure to lexical items at its disposal,
searching for an item that can lexicalize each node. The Spell-Out operation obeys three main rules. The first
rule is the Superset Principle, which states that a lexical item can spell out a node if it is specified for a
constituent containing that node. The second rule is Biggest Wins, specifying that the insertion of a lexical
item at a node overrides previous lexicalizations of daughter nodes. The third principle is Minimize Junk,
which decides the outcome of competitions between lexical items. Where several items match, the one with
the fewest superfluous features wins. Movement is triggered to create a configuration suitable for Spell-Out.
3. Analysis. In order to capture the pronominal forms, I make use of the following feature hierarchies for
each inflectional dimension:
(1) Number hierarchy: PLURAL > SINGULAR
(2) Gender hierarchy: FEMININE > MASCULINE
(Caha & Pantcheva 2012)
(3) Person hierarchy: SPEAKER > HEARER > PARTICIPANT (1 > 2 > 3)
(adapted from Starke 2013)
The syntactic structure each pronoun corresponds to is built incrementally with respect to each dimension.
For instance, the structure for 3.SG.MASC is the smallest (SG > MASC > PART), while 3.SG.FEM is slightly
bigger, as FEM is built on MASC (SG > FEM > MASC > PART). The largest structure for the 3rd person is
3.PL.FEM. The 2nd person adds HEARER to PARTICIPANT in its person dimension, which means that, keeping
number and gender constant, the 2nd person structures will be bigger. Still larger is the 1st person, which
contains a person dimension of SPEAKER > HEARER > PARTICIPANT.
Having established the basic syntactic structures for the pronouns, the next step is to find the way the
structures are divided among morphemes, in order to find out what sub-tree each morpheme is specified for
and how the derivation proceeds, which is the main focus of the paper. Given that Hadza has vowel harmony
(Sands 2013a), the data point to the following inventory of morphemes: bV, mi, ko, i, e, tV, V, and nV. bV
is common to all 3rd person pronouns, which leads the conclusion that bV lexicalizes the feature
st
PARTICIPANT. Likewise, V is common to all 1 person pronouns, meaning that V has the feature SPEAKER
in its specification, while nV lexicalizes HEARER and PARTICIPANT for 1.SG. Looking at the 1.PL forms, we
notice that the EXCLUSIVE (1+3) pronouns contain an extra bV, which suggests a person hierarchy of
PARTICIPANT > SPEAKER > HEARER > PARTICIPANT for the EXCLUSIVE. The INCLUSIVE (1+2/1+2+3)
morphology contains the EXCLUSIVE, adding nV to bV. This points to an INCLUSIVE person hierarchy of
PARTICIPANT > HEARER > PARTICIPANT > SPEAKER > HEARER > PARTICIPANT. If the analysis is successful and
the INCLUSIVE/EXCLUSIVE distinction can be captured in this way, it would be a welcomed result, as we
would not have need for additional oppositions such as MINIMAL/AUGMENTED (Cysouw 2000).
4. Conclusion. This paper focuses on achieving a nanosyntactic analysis of subject pronouns in Hadza. The
aim is to establish the internal structure of the pronouns and provide an account of how the structure is
partitioned among the relevant morphemes and how it is lexicalized. Finally, I attempt an analysis along the
same lines for the INCLUSIVE/EXCLUSIVE distinction, employing the apparatus used elsewhere to capture it.

(4) Hadza subject pronouns (Sands 2013b: 112)

SG

ono

V - nV

onoko

V - nV - ko

EXCLUSIVE

ubii

V - bV - i

INCLUSIVE

unibii

V - nV - bV - i

EXCLUSIVE

obee

V - bV - e

INCLUSIVE

onebee

V - nV - bV - e

te

tV

FEM

teko

tV - ko

MASC

itibi

i - tV - bV

etebe

e - tV - bV

MASC

bami

bV - mi

FEM

bako

bV - ko

MASC

bii

bV - i

FEM

bee

bV - e

MASC
FEM

MASC
PL
FEM

SG

MASC

PL
FEM
SG

3
PL

References:
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