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This chapter presents a synthesis of the discussions in the preceding chapters, which described word order patterns in Gbe and Kwa languages by analysing the syntax of Gungbe and its relationship with other Gbe languages. The data show that the surface differences that may arise between these languages cannot be analysed in terms of opposing underlying structures. Instead, it is argued that all the Gbe languages are of the type S-H-C, and every case where the complement precedes the head must be seen as instantiation of comp-movement to the specifier of the head or to some other specifier position in the clause. The theory developed here naturally extends to Kwa languages, as well as typologically different languages that manifest complement-head sequences.

This chapter investigates the Gungbe nominal system. Based on the head-initial hypothesis, it proposes an analysis of the Gungbe D-system, where the specificity marker encodes D° and the number marker realizes Num°. Under the split-D hypothesis, it is suggested that these two functional heads project within the D-system as the nominal left periphery. Like certain Gungbe left peripheral markers, the specificity and number markers occur to the right edge because they force movement on their complement to their specifier positions.

This chapter discusses some aspects of the Gungbe clause structure in terms of the split-I and split-C hypotheses. It is argued that each of so-called ‘I-features’ is the head of a maximal projection that projects within the I-system. The first section provides a general overview of the Gungbe preverbal markers. It is shown that the Gungbe preverbal markers are of two types: negation, tense, and aspect markers, which encode I-features (i.e., IP-markers), and the markers that manifest the left periphery and express C-features (i.e., CP-markers). The next section discusses the distribution and the syntactic function of the IP-markers in the Gungbe sentences. The chapter then discusses the Gungbe mood markers.

This chapter is a brief summary of the basics of the Gbe languages. It presents an informal discussion of the morphological and syntactic aspects of Gungbe, Fongbe, Gengbe, and Ewegbe. These languages branch from three subgroups of the Gbe cluster: Vhe (Ewegbe), Gen (Gengbe), and Fon (Gungbe, Fongbe).

This chapter shows that the split-D hypothesis helps to account for the Gungbe pronouns. The first section discusses current theoretical analysis of the pronominal system cross-linguistically. Extending this analysis to the Gungbe data, the next section demonstrates that the Gungbe pronominal system can be characterized in terms of a tripartition that postulates the existence of strong, weak, and clitic pronouns. The last section concludes the chapter.

Building on the analysis of the Gungbe tense and aspect markers above, this chapter proposes a new analysis for the Gungbe imperfective and related clauses in terms of a biclausal structure. It suggests that the Gungbe imperfective marker selects for a small clause headed by a nominalizer ‘quasi null morpheme’. This morpheme encodes the feature [+n] associated with a nominalizing functional head that projects as the left-periphery of the small clause.

This chapter investigates two other instantiations of the C-system: focalization and wh-questions. Firstly it examines constructions in Gungbe and shows that this language involves a focus process that necessarily triggers leftward movement of the focused category (i.e., a maximal projection or a head) to a specific focus position. It then argues that focus phrases and wh-phrases are licensed in the focus position, [spec FocP], and a last section concludes the chapter.

This chapter extends the analysis proposed in Chapter 7 to Gungbe topic constructions and yes-no questions. It is argued that the sentence-final low tone is the reflex of a ‘quasi-null’ morpheme that functions as yes-no question marker (QM). This QM heads an interrogative projection InterP that projects within the C-system and whose specifier hosts the clause. In this context, the QM has scope over the whole clause, which is interpreted as a yes-no question.