Bantu class prefixes: Towards a cross-categorial account

Bantu verbal forms are notoriously complex from a morphological point of view, in that they consist of several morphemes, some of which are obligatorily present, and others optionally. Nominal forms, on the contrary, look much simpler and less structured. Following a long line of research which started from Abney (1987), the aim of the present paper is to devise a strict parallelism between the structure of Bantu nouns and verbs, which is crucially based on the important role played by class prefixes. Moreover, in line with Manzini and Savoia’s recent work (e.g. 2008, 2011), I will argue that the same set of inflectional projections are to be assumed at both syntactic and morphological levels; indeed Bantu languages, which feature a very rich morphology, are the perfect candidates to show how morphology mirrors syntax. Finally, I will briefly investigate adjectives and (some) prepositions, as also these categories – even the latter – present functional projections which involve agreement.