Empty nouns in Bantu locatives

This paper presents an analysis of Chichewa locatives and their theoretical implications. Locative phrases exhibit contradictory properties, distributing with DPs but seeming to have preposition-like heads (ku, pa, and mu). I argue that they are DPs whose head nouns are silent. ku, pa, and mu are Case-markers, projecting KP complements to the null nouns and agreeing with them in gender. Word order shows that each KP loc raises to Spec of its containing DP; I propose that null N is licensed thereby. I analyze gaps within Romance DPs as empty Ns also, licensed by agreeing material in Spec positions. Conditions on noun gaps closely resembling those on DP-level pro, I propose a unitary requirement for null [+interpretable] Φ-features in terms of feature-checking relations (Chomsky 1995). This accounts for null nominal elements of all sizes and categories