Predicate partition for predicate-centred focus and Meeussen's Proto-Bantu "advance verb construction"

Meeussen’s (1967: 121) extensive grammatical reconstructions for Proto-Bantu contain a so-called “advance verb construction” that is comprised of an infinitive followed by a finite form of the same verb (typologically commonly called “cognate” verb) and conveys a marked type of information structure (IS) in which a predi- cate component is highlighted pragmatically. While Güldemann (2003: 335–337) already characterised this construction to pertain to the IS subdomain of so-called “predicate-centred focus”, he had to leave open some important structural and functional details. Since then, much more relevant data have become available, both in- side and outside of Bantu. In this chapter, we attempt to specify Meeussen’s (1967) proposal about his “advance verb construction” and its “relatives” by providing a cross-linguistic perspective of the relevant domain, presenting and analysing a wide range of relevant structures from across the Bantu family, and finally dis- cussing the results of this comparative family survey regarding both the synchronic variation and the diachronic dynamics of change