Saying ‘more than usual’ by saying less than usual: utterance-final conjoint forms in Xhosa and Southern Ndebele

Many Bantu languages make a distinction between conjoint verb forms, which have a close bond with the following constituent and – crucially – can never occur utterance finally, and disjoint forms, which lack such a bond and restriction. We report on conjoint-like forms in the South African languages that violate this constraint: they can occur in utterance-final position, and they indicate that an eventuality held (or holds) to an unusual extent. We provide evidence that these final conjoint (FC) forms are directly related to “regular” conjoint forms, and we argue that they developed via speakers’ use of a form in an unexpected syntactic context, conveying a meaning that draws attention to the unexpected nature of the eventuality referenced. They thereby represent a previously undescribed pathway of semantic change related to the conjoint–disjoint distinction.