Locatives

Abstract This chapter discusses locative constructions in Bantu languages from a comparative perspective. Many Bantu languages have locative systems based on the prefixal noun classes 16, 17 and 18, but there are also languages that have more than three locative noun classes, while others use locative suffixes. In some Bantu languages, a productive locative noun class system no longer exists, and locative expressions have been analysed as prepositional phrases. The chapter reviews the different strategies of locative formation in Bantu, it compares the agreement properties of locatives in languages with productive locative noun classes to those in languages with deficient locative systems, and it shows which syntactic representations have been proposed to account for the grammatical properties of different types of locatives. The chapter also includes a discussion of the thematic properties of Bantu locatives and describes their use in locative inversion and locative applicative constructions