Binding Domains in Kikuyu

Kikuyu, like many other languages of Africa, employs special V forms in the class of syntactic constructions consisting of relative clauses, ex situ wh-questions, & focus constructions involving preverbal focused elements. This class of constructions shares the further property of being subject to a uniform set of constraints governing positions that are accessible to extraction rules ("island constraints"). It is argued here that the uniquely distinctive characteristic of these constructions is that they consist of open clauses, ie, simple clauses whose S-node dominates an indexed PRO-form but does not dominate its antecedent. The notion binding domain is characterized as a maximal sequence of open clauses. 30 References. HA