Object marking in affective constructions in Swahili

This paper seeks to examine the conditions that govern the occurrence or non- occurrence of the object marker in affective constructions (i.e., constructions involving Possessor Raising such as Alimshika mkono Ali ‘He held him (by the) hand Ali’ and Mwili ulimtetemeka ‘(her) body trembled (her)’) in Swahili. From data drawn from a corpus of affective constructions, this study demonstrates that the conditions for animate object marking in affective constructions differ from those for object marking elsewhere in Swahili syntax and may violate some rules such as ‘object selection prohibition rules’ in Mukama (1976)