Reconstructing the Proto-Bantu Verbal Unit: Internal Evidence

Abstract

The question I would like to address in this paper is: What was the nature of the verbal unit (VU) in Proto-Bantu (PB)? Pre-Proto-Bantu? As seen in (1), the stem constituent is universally accepted at the PB level, which consisted of (i) an obligatory verb root or radical, (ii) optional extensions (either derivational suffixes or formal “expansions”), and (iii) an obligatory inflectional final vowel (FV), e.g. the -a ending found in most verb forms.