Koen Bostoen

List of John Benjamins publications for which Koen Bostoen plays a role.

Articles

Dom, Sebastian, Gilles-Maurice de Schryver and Koen Bostoen 2022 Kisikongo (Bantu, H16a) present-future isomorphismDevelopment of Tense and Aspect Systems, Gvozdanović, Jadranka (ed.), pp. 105–141 | Chapter
In this article, we present the first quantitative study of what we call multiple unconditioned reflexes (MUR) in Bantu, more specifically of Proto-Bantu velar stops *k and *g in the West-Coastal Bantu (WCB) branch of the Bantu language family. MUR, also known as “doubles reflexes” in Bantu… read more
Kawalya, Deo, Koen Bostoen and Gilles-Maurice de Schryver 2021 A diachronic corpus-driven study of the expression of possibility in Luganda (Bantu, JE15)International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 26:3, pp. 336–369 | Article
This article employs a 4-million-word diachronic corpus to examine how the expression of possibility has evolved in Luganda since the 1890s to the present, by focusing on the language’s three main potential markers -yînz-, -sóból- and -andi-, and their historical interaction. It is shown that… read more
Dom, Sebastian, Gilles-Maurice de Schryver and Koen Bostoen 2020 Kisikongo (Bantu, H16a) present-future isomorphism: A diachronic conspiracy between semantics and phonologyDevelopment of tense and aspect systems, Gvozdanović, Jadranka (ed.), pp. 251–288 | Article
The North-Angolan Bantu language Kisikongo has a present tense (Ø-R-ang-a; R = root) that is morphologically more marked than the future tense (Ø-R-a). We reconstruct how this typologically uncommon tense-marking feature came about by drawing on both historical and comparative evidence. Our… read more
Bostoen, Koen and Joseph Koni Muluwa 2017 Chapter 10. Were the first Bantu speakers south of the rainforest farmers? A first assessment of the linguistic evidenceLanguage Dispersal Beyond Farming, Robbeets, Martine and Alexander Savelyev (eds.), pp. 235–258 | Chapter
Popular belief has it that the Bantu Expansion was a farming/language dispersal. However, there is neither conclusive archaeological nor linguistic evidence to substantiate this hypothesis, especially not for the initial spread in West-Central Africa. In this chapter we consider lexical… read more
In this article we reconstruct the actuation and transmission of a phonological innovation known as prefix reduction within the Kikongo language cluster situated in the wider Lower Congo region of Central Africa. We argue that this change spread from a focal area coinciding with the heartland of… read more
Dom, Sebastian, Guillaume Segerer and Koen Bostoen 2015 Antipassive/associative polysemy in Cilubà (Bantu, L31a): A plurality of relations analysisStudies in Language 39:2, pp. 354–385 | Article
Antipassive constructions are commonly associated with languages with a predominantly ergative alignment. In this article, we show that antipassive constructions can also occur in predominantly accusative languages such as Cilubà, a Bantu language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is… read more
Kawalya, Deo, Koen Bostoen and Gilles-Maurice de Schryver 2014 Diachronic semantics of the modal verb -sóból- in Luganda: A corpus-driven approachInternational Journal of Corpus Linguistics 19:1, pp. 60–93 | Article
We examine the origin of labial-velar stops in Lingombe, a language from the northern Bantu borderland. Labial-velar stops are uncommon in Bantu. It is generally believed that they were acquired through contact with neighbouring non-Bantu speakers, in casu Ubangi languages. We show that the… read more
This paper examines the diachronic origin of a vowel split in the Bantu language Hungan. It is shown that the inherited Proto-Bantu seven-vowel (7V) system was first reduced to a classical five-vowel (5V) system before the Kipuka variety of Hungan developed a new kind of 7V system. Such a 7V>5V>7V… read more
Bostoen, Koen and Léon Mundeke 2011 Passiveness and inversion in Mbuun (Bantu B87, DRC)Studies in Language 35:1, pp. 72–111 | Article
In this article, we examine two word order inversion constructions in Mbuun, a Bantu language which lacks a true morphological or periphrastic passive. Mbuun uses both an ‘OSV construction’ and an ‘impersonal 3PL construction’ as functional passives. We demonstrate that the pre-posed object in both… read more
This paper examines the irregular application of the sound change commonly known as ‘Bantu Spirantization (BS)’ — a particular type of assibilation — in front of certain common Bantu morphemes. This irregularity can to a large extent be explained as the result of the progressive morphologization… read more