The chain
There is some variation in the use of the pgn markers and their present-day reflexes, both across the various Khoe languages and within a given language. The following generalizations seem to hold for all languages for which enough data exists:
All languages have pgn markers on some but not on all uses of nouns, pro nouns, and/or nominal modifiers.
No information exists on when exactly these pgn’s are used or may not be used.
The function of these pgn’s is also unclear, but in perhaps the majority of cases where information on their function is provided, pgn’s express what is referred to in the relevant literature as ‘emphasis’ on the preceding word stem.
In the present section I argue that the use of these markers has an internal structure that can be described as a cross-linguistic grammaticalization chain. The extent to which pgn’s are used on adjectives, demonstrative attributes, and personal pronouns is now examined in the three test languages chosen, that is, in Hiechware, Kxoe, and Naro. Probably in all Khoe languages nominal attributes precede the governing noun. But not infrequently there are also ways of placing attributes post-nominally, typically involving some extra morphological means. In Nama, for example, pgn use is crucially determined by whether an attribute precedes or follows the head noun. Consider example (6) taken from Nama.
(1)
The use of the pgn marker-p on the noun in (1) is obligatory. Its use on the adjective, however, correlates with word order: Whenever nominal modifiers like adjectives and demonstratives follow their head noun they must have a pgn on them, as in (1b), while preceding modifiers lack a pgn, as can be seen in (1a). Note further that there is also a difference in meaning: The adjective xarí ‘small’ is said to present “necessary information” in (1a) but “parenthetical information” in (1b); the latter is also referred to as an “appositive”, while in the former the meaning of the modifier is said to be “emphasized” (Hagman 1977:45–6). In many other instances of pgn use across the Khoe language family there are neither syntactic nor semantic clues that would be of help to account for the presence or absence of these markers.
In this paper only the most “unmarked” use of attributes is examined, which means e.g. that we will be preoccupied with the pre-nominal use of attributes.
