Relative constructions and the Bantu Relative Agreement Cycle in Western Serengeti

This article offers the first comprehensive study of relative constructions among the membersof the Western Serengeti (WS) group, a group of closely related Great Lakes Bantu languagevarieties spoken in the Mara region in northern Tanzania.The study has both a synchronic and a diachronic angle. First, we offer a systematicdescription of the various relativization types found in these varieties with regard to thephonological (prosodic) and (morpho-)syntactic traits of both subject and non-subjectrelativization. Next, we situate our findings within a historical-comparative framework, withparticular reference to Van de Velde’s (2021, forthcoming) Bantu Relative Agreement (BRA)Cycle. Linking the source of the main relative marker to the proximal demonstrative, we offera fine-grained reconstruction of its development into a relativizer.We propose that the WS relative constructions instantiate Stage 1b of the BRA cycle whilesimultaneously showing remnants of what is either the direct reflex of the relativeconstruction reconstructed for Proto-Bantu (Van de Velde forthcoming) or the final Stage 3bof an earlier cycle. In this endeavor we are able to zoom in to the processes at play at theturning point where an old and a new relative cycle intersect.