Benefactives in Kipsigis: A Feature-Checking Analysis

Generative grammar has tremendously evolved since the ground breaking publication of Chomsky’s book Syntactic Structures in 1957. This paper attempts to explore the Theory of Feature Checking which is a module in Minimalism; the latest approach in the Chomskyan tradition, while showing its implication on the benefactive analysis in Kipsigis. In the language, benefactive is expressed through an applicative construction. We examine the various forms of benefactive and how it conjugates with different verbal types: intransitive, transitive and ditransitive. The implication of benefactive incorporation to the entire argument structure is also highlighted. The paper also illustrates how features of the verbal morphology having benefactive are merged and moved to be checked in overt syntax.