Landuma: a case of radical alliterative agreement

Abstract The principal goal of this paper is to describe agreement in the Landuma language (Mel < Niger-Congo). Landuma shows agreement in animacy and, for inanimate nouns, radical alliterative agreement, a type of agreement conditioned by phonology: the first phoneme of the agreement prefix is conditioned by the first phoneme of the controlling noun. This type of agreement has much in common with agreement in noun class but is governed by essentially different mechanisms. Radical alliterative agreement is a challenge for linguistic theory, because it contradicts the generally adopted Principle of Phonology-Free Syntax and the understanding of phonological elements as unilateral entities. Radical alliterative agreement has been previously found in some other languages, first of all in the Kru languages (Niger-Congo) and in the Arapesh languages (New Guinea). The authors who have dealt with radical alliterative agreement have suggested a number of alternative descriptions in order to avoid theoretical problems. Some of the possible alternatives are also discussed in this paper.