Examining the status of object markers in Rombo-Kiseri

This article examines the syntactic status of object marking in Rombo-Kiseri, a variety of a Bantu language, Rombo (E623), spoken in the Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania. The article contributes to the documentation of main syntactic properties of object marking, and proposes that object markers in Rombo-Kiseri are best analysed as hybrid morphemes. The findings demonstrate that in Rombo-Kiseri, the co-occurrence of object markers with lexical object NPs is generally optional, but becomes obligatory when the noun phrase (NP) is a human proper name, indicating discourse-conditioned agreement. The language also permits multiple object marking, though in a fixed order, consistent with the hierarchical constraints reported across Bantu. Furthermore, locative object markers can independently license locative interpretations, showing pronominal-like property. Additionally, object markers are optional in neutral object relatives but occur freely in wh-questions. Generally, the evidence places Rombo-Kiseri in an intermediate position on the Bantu continuum. The language leans toward an agreement system while retaining pronominal-like properties in specific contexts. The study thus contributes to comparative evidence that Bantu object markers cannot be captured by a simple binary analysis, but are best understood as hybrid morphemes whose properties vary both within and across languages and constructions.