Predicate nominals in Tshila

Abstract Tshila /ts h ílà/ is a Kalahari Khoe language spoken in central-southeastern Botswana by approximately 300 people ( Schwab & Collins 2024 ). It is an SOV language. Tshila has a copular predicate nominal construction with the word order [Noun Noun COP]. The nouns in this language can vary in size according to factors such as the projection of phi-feature morphology and the presence of constituent negation and focus. Also possible in Tshila is predicate inversion. The interaction of the size of the DPs along with the presence of inversion shows interesting constraints on nominative Case assignment and phi-agreement. The analysis of this construction supports a universal hierarchy of phi-features ( Harley & Ritter 2002 ; Béjar 2003 ), not only within nominals but also on phi-probes. This analysis unifies Case assignment and phi-agreement as a single operation ( Chomsky 2000 ; 2001 ; Platzack 2006 ; Legate 2008 ; Georgi 2017 ), which supports the view that Case assignment is not postsyntactic.