The locative domain in Hausa

Abstract Chapter 4 demonstrates that there exists in Hausa (West Chadic) a grammatical category ‘locative domain’, which differs from all other domains in the language. Because of the existence of the locative domain, some verbs and nouns are inherently locative, and others are not. There are two types of locative predication in Hausa: stative and directional. The forms of locative predications differ depending on the value of the feature [locative] in predicates and in nouns in locative complements. If the predicate is not inherently locative, a locative predication is coded by the locative predicator. If the noun is inherently non-locative, the locative predication must deploy markers that allow such nouns to function as locative complements. The study proposes a new taxonomy of prepositions in Hausa. The presence of some prepositions is motivated by the lexical properties of predicates and of others by the lexical properties of nouns.