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Studi Linguistici e Filologici Online ISSN 1724-5230 Volume 6 (2008) – pagg. 345-370 Oye Taiwo – “Compound Verbs in Yoruba”

COMPOUND VERBS IN YORÙBÁ OYE TAIWO 1.0 Introduction

Compound words have been defined as words which consist of two words. Selkirk (1982: 13) says ‘compounds in English are a type of word structure made up of two constituents, each belonging to one of the categories noun, adjective, verb or preposition. The compound itself may belong to the category noun, verb or adjective’. Fabb (2001:66) defines a compound as ‘a word which consists of two or more words’. The words in (1) are derived from the combination of two or more words. 1. a [N Adéọlá] [NAdé] + [N ọlá]

‘personal name’ crown wealth b [NÌsòrí-òrò-orúkọ] [NÌsòri] + [N òrò] +[N orúkọ]

‘the nominal group’ group word name

c [P níhìn ín] [P nì] + [N ìhín]

‘here’ at here

The nominal compounds in (1a&b) consist of two and three words respectively. The prepositional compound in (1c) is made up of two words. However, many Yorùbá compounds are derived from the clause as is evident from the examples in (2). 2 a sòrò sọ + òrò

‘to speak’ say word

b kíyèsára kó iyè sí ara ‘to be observant’ put mind to body

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c Babaláwo Baba1 ní awo

‘herbalist’ old man/father has cult ‘The old man has a cult’.

d Adéwálé Adé wá sí ilé personal name Ade come prep. house ‘Ade came to the house’/ ‘Ade came home’.

The compound words, sòrò ‘to speak’, kíyèsára ‘to be observant’ babaláwo ‘herbalist’ and Adéwálé (personal name), are derived from full clauses. While the first two are verbal compounds, the remaining two are nominal compounds. We shall examine the structures of theses verbal compounds; determine the levels of their derivations and the implications of these compounds for subcategorization as well as the types of the derived verbs. The paper is organized in this way: section 1 discusses the theoretical background of the work. Here we adopt the Pulleyblank & Akinlabi (1988) version of the weak lexicalist hypothesis (WLH) for the derivation of the compound verbs and Chomsky (1995) bare phrase structure for the diagrammatic sketch of the derived verbs. We also give the typology of these verbs. In section 2, we give a detailed analysis of the various compound verbs in the language. This includes the PS rules that could account for them, the levels of their derivation and transitivity of incorporated and amalgamated verbs respectively. Section 3 is the conclusion. 1.1 Theoretical background

The weak lexicalist hypothesis (WLH) accepts that some words are syntactically derived while others are not (Adeniyi 2007:36). The morphology and syntax constitute semi-independent components, where principles of the morphology govern categories of level Xo. No ordering is imposed between the components hence, apart from the standard situation whereby the morphology provides inputs for the syntax. It is



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also possible for the syntax to derive a word-level category. We adopt the model in (3) following Pulleyblank & Akinlabi (1988).

3 Morphology 1&2

Syntax Pulleyblank & Akinlabi (1988:158)

In considering the possible interactions between morphology and

syntax, (3) posits two morphological components – Morphology 1 and Morphology 2. This is illustrated thus. The word adé personal name/‘crown’ is derived by the combination of an agentive nominal prefix and dé ‘cover’.

4 a- + dé adé agentive prefix cover personal name/ ‘crown’ Morphology 1

This word, adé, is the subject of the basic clause (the sentence) in (5). 5 Adé wá sí ilé Ade come prep house ‘Ade came to the house’/ ‘Ade came home’. In (5), Morphology1 is the input to syntax,

6 Morphology 1 Syntax where words are strung together to form a basic clause. It is possible to derive a word from the words in the clause in (5).



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7 Adé wá sí ilé Adéwálé (personal name) Ade come prep house ‘Ade came to the house’/ ‘Ade came home’. In (7), a clause is the input to the word. 8 Syntax Morphology 2

The examples in (5) and (7) establish the fact that a non-lexical category can derive a lexical one. The model in (3) is the one where all morphological processes - derivation (including phrasal derivation) and inflection- are located in a single grammatical component (Pulleyblank & Akinlabi 1988:158-160). With a single morphological component in which the syntactic input is needed in the formation of some words, the model is possibly modified to allow recursion from syntax into the morphology. They conclude that ‘the syntactic component determines the well – formedness of syntactic representations, while the morphology does the same for morphological representations. Where the morphology and syntax interact,… each component governs the appropriate aspects of the relevant construction’ (Pulleyblank & Akinlabi 1988:160)

In the analysis of these compounds, we employed the bare phrase structure of generative syntax. In this model, ‘a category that does not project any further is a maximal projection XP, and one that is not a projection at all is a minimal projection Xmin ; any other is an X1…’ (Chomsky1995:242). This model is employed in the diagrammatic sketch of the structures of the compounds. This is because many of the compound verbs in Yorùbá can be termed ‘postsyntactic compounds’ (Fabb 2001:68). They are derived from phrases. For example, the verbs in (2a&b), repeated below, are derived from phrases. 2 a sòrò sọ + òrò

‘to speak’ say word



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b kíyèsára kó iyè sí ara ‘to be observant’ put mind to body

The syntactic component of the model in (3) will determine the well–formedness of syntactic representations before such postsyntactic compound is derived. 1.2 Types of compounds

In the literature, three types of compounds have been identified. These are:

endocentric compounds: those with a head exocentric compounds: those without a head co-ordinate compounds: those where both words equally share

head – like characteristics (Selkirk 1982:13; Fabb 2001: 66-67)

The compound verb in (2a) has the verb sọ ‘to speak’ as its head, hence it is an endocentric compound; Adéwálé (personal name), in (2d) is an exocentric compound without a head, while padá ‘return’ is an example of a co-ordinate compound in which both words equally share head–like characteristics. The structures of these three compounds are given in (9) below. 9a

V

sọ órò sòrò ‘to speak’

V NP



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b

c.

Yorùbá compound verbs exhibit two of these types. These are endocentric and co-ordinate compounds. We shall discuss them in this paper.

V

pa dá padá ‘to return’

V V

a- dé Ø wá ilé Adéwálé (personal name)

N

IP

NP

I VP

TASP VI

V VP nom. pre

NI

N VP

II



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2.0 Verbal compounds Most Yorùbá verbs are monosyllabic in structure; many of the bi-

syllabic (polysyllabic) verbs are derived through incorporation and amalgamation. Incorporation was first understood as overt noun incorporation, whereby a generic noun is included in the verb by which it is governed. Baker (1988), as reported in Haacke (1995: 339), extended this concept to a general theory of grammatical function changing through the merging of morphological categories by movement of structurally lower lexical heads (Xo) into their superordinate governors. The following instances of incorporation and amalgamation are noticed in the derivation of compound verbs in the Yorùbá language.

noun incorporation preposition incorporation amalgamation of verbs

The amalgamation of verbs is a process in which two or more verbs

are combined to form a compound verb. Serial verbs as well as splitting verbs, with their inserted objects, could take part in the fusion.

In the discussions that follow, we shall examine the levels of the derivations of these compound verbs in line with our model in (3), we shall also categorize the verbs typologically as either endocentric or co-ordinate compounds, and as either transitive or intransitive verbs.

The various compound verbs in Yorùbá can be derived from the following PS rules.

V V + NP V V + NP + PP V V + PP V V + V V V + VI V V + NP (+ V + NP) + V



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2.1 V + NP verbal compounds The universally most common type of incorporation involves

incorporation of direct objects (Haacke 1995). Verbs derived in this way are many in Yorùbá because this is the most productive of all the ways compound verbs are derived in the language. The PS rule for the derivation of this type of compound is (10) below.

10 V V + NP Some verbs and nouns involved in this type of compound have lost their individual meanings, what remains are the meanings of the derived verbs. This seems to be the case with some of the compound verbs in (11).

V V + NP 11 a jíròrò ‘discuss’ jì (V) ìròrò (N) b jókòó ‘sit down’ jó (V) òkó ‘seat’ c dúró ‘stop’ dá (V) uró (N)

d yípo ‘surround’ yí ‘turn’ ipo (N) e pàdé ‘meet’ pa (V) ìdé ‘arrival’

The meanings of the individual words in (11a-c) seem to be totally lost2. In (11d), the meaning of the NP object is lost, especially in the standard dialect, while that of the verb is lost in (11e). Many other compound verbs derived through this process still retain the meanings of the individual words which combine to form them. These verbs are very many in the language. Some examples are in (12). V V + NP 12 a sòrò ‘to speak’ sọ ‘say’ òrò ‘word’ b juwó ‘to wave’ ju ‘throw’ ọwó ‘hand’ c buyì ‘to honour’ bu ‘cut’ iyì ‘honour’ d gbàdúrà ‘to pray’ gba ‘make’ àdúrà ‘prayer’ e sáré ‘to run’ sá ‘run’ eré ‘race’



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f ṣeré ‘to play’ ṣe‘do’ eré‘play’ g jọba3 ‘to reign’ jẹ ‘eat’ ọba ‘king’ h kígbe/kégbe ‘to shout’ ké ‘cry’ igbe ‘shout’ i ṣàlàyé ‘to explain’ ṣe ‘do/make’ àlàyé explanation’ j dáhùn ‘to answer/reply’ dá ‘break’ ohùn ‘voice’ k kórìráa ‘to hate/abhor’ kó ‘gather’ ìríra ‘hatred’ All the compound verbs in (11) and (12) have similar structures because they have the same combinations of a verb and its object. We give the structures of some of them below. 13 a b c d

VI

NP

VP

jí ìròrò jíròrò ‘discuss’

V

V

VI

NP

VP

sọ òrò s òrò ‘to speak’

V

V

VI

NP

VP

ṣe àlàyé sàlàyé ‘explain’

V

V

VI

NP

VP

gba àdúrà gbàdúrà ‘pray’

V

V



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The verbal compounds, derived with the PS rule V V + NP, are endocentric compounds. The head word in each of them is the verb. The noun (phrase) loses its categorial status as it is incorporated into the verb to derive the compound verb. Yorùbá belongs to languages like Khoekhoe and Eskimo, where the original transitive verb is rendered intransitive by object incorporation (Haacke 1995:341). All the derived verbs in (11) and (12), apart from those in (12i – k), have become intransitive in that they cannot subcategorize for NP object but could take other complements such as PP and CP complements or none at all. However, the derived verbs in (12i-k), sàlàyé ‘to explain’ dáhùn ‘to answer/reply’ and kórìráa ‘to hate/abhor’, still take NP objects as complements hence they are transitive verbs. They occur in the sentences in (14). 14 a. Òjó ṣàlàyé òrò náà Òjó explain word the ‘Òjó explained the matter’. b. Ó dáhùn gbogbo rè he answer all it ‘He answered all’

c. Mo kórìráa òlẹ ènìyàn

I hate lazy person ‘I hate a lazy person’

While the compound verb, kórìráa ‘to hate/abhor’ obligatorily selects an NP object, ṣàlàyé ‘to explain’ and dáhùn ‘to answer/reply’ may be intransitive; hence the sentences in (14a&b) are well-formed without their object NPs. One other feature to be noted in the verbs in (11) and (12) is their ability to occur in series. It is possible to have the following combinations in the language.



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15 a sáré lọ b ṣeré dé run go ‘go quickly’ play come ‘play come’ c buyì kún d gbàdúrà fún honour add ‘add honour (to)’ pray give ‘pray for’ e wá yípo f sáré dáhùn/sàlàyé come round ‘come round’ run reply/explain ‘reply/explain quickly’

g rọra sòrò h rọra kìgbe be gentle speak ‘speak gently’ be gentle shout ‘shout gently’

Both the morphological and syntactic components in (3) interact in the derivation of the verbs in (11) and (12). Morphology 1 derived the object NP either through prefixation (e.g. ì- + dé ‘to arrive’ = ìdé ‘arrival, u- + ró ‘to wait/stop’ = uró, ọ - + ba ‘to dominate’ = ọba ‘king’); or through consonant reduplication, insertion of vowel [i] and prefixation (e.g. ra rra ríra ìríra ‘hatred’ Awobuluyi 2008: 15-36). The transitive verbs select and merge with these NPs to form verb phrases at the syntactic level of (3). These objects are incorporated into their respective verbs in Morphology 2 in the process of deriving the compound verbs in (11) and (12). 2.2. V + NP + PP verbal compounds

In the formation of a compound verb from a verb and two complements, NP and PP, these complements are incorporated into the verb. Here, the syntactic component (the two phrases) interacts with the morphological component (Morphology 2) in this derivation. The PS rule for this type of compound is (16) below.

16 V V + NP + PP



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This type of verbal compound does not seem to be common in the Yorùbá language. We give two examples and their structures below.

V V + NP + PP 17 a kíyèsí4‘to note’/‘observe’ kó iyè sí

put mind to b kíyèsára ‘to be observant’ kó iyè sí ara

put mind to body c. fọwósí ‘agree with/ fi ọwó sí support put/use hand to/with 18 a b

c.

c

V

VI

PP

kó iyè sí kíyèsí ‘to note/ observe’

V NP

V

PP VI

VPINP

P NP

kó iyè sí ara kíyèsára ‘to be observant’

V

VI

PP

fi ọwó sí fọwósí ‘agree with/support’

V NP



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We observe that the V in (18) first selects and merges with the NP complement to form a VI, which merges with the PP to derive the compound verb. The head word in each of the compound verbs above is the verb. Both the PP and the NP lose their categorial statuses because the two are incorporated into the verb. The two derived verbs are endocentric compounds.

The derived verbs, kíyèsí’ to note/ observe’, kíyèsára ‘to be observant’ and fọwósí ‘to agree with/support’ are transitive verbs. Witness this in the sentences in (19). 19 a Ó kíyèsí ìwà wọn he note/observe character them ‘He noted their behaviour’

b Kíyèsára rẹ be observant your ‘Be careful’ c Bàbá rè kò fọwósí ìwà búburú rè yẹn father his neg. support character bad his that ‘His father does/did not support his bad behaviour’.

However, kíyèsára ‘to be observant’ will only optionally select an object when it is used in an imperative sentence. That is why the sentence in (20) is well-formed where it takes a CP complement.

20 Kíyèsára [CP kí ẹnikéni máṣe tàn ò jẹ]

‘Be careful so that no one deceives you’. 2.3 V + PP verbal compounds

A compound verb can be derived by the combination of a verb and a prepositional phrase, in this situation the prepositional phrase is incorporated into the verb to form the compound verb. The PS rule for the derivation of this type of compound is (21) below.



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21. V V + PP This verbal compound type is also not common in the language.

Some examples are given in (22).

V V + PP 22 a rànlówó ‘help’ ràn ní ọwó

help? prep hand b ṣeléṣe ṣe ní èṣe ‘wound/ injure’ do prep hurt c tèsíwájú tè sí iwájú ‘move on’ bend prep front d lọsíwájú lọ sí iwájú ‘progress’ go prep front The structures of some of the compounds in (22) are given in (23). 23a b

V

VPP

PI

P NP

ràn ní ọwó rànlówó ‘help’

V

VPP

PI

P NP

ṣe ní èṣe seléṣe ‘wound / injure’



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In the derivation of these compounds, the preposition ní selects and merges with object NP to form a PP at the syntax level of (3). The verb selects and merges with this PP to form a VP at the Syntax level also. Morphology 2 derives the compound verb from the VP. The nasal vowel of ní is elided in contraction, the remaining segment [n] becomes [l] before an oral vowel of ọwó ‘hand’. This is also applicable to ṣeléṣe ‘to wound / injure’. These derived verbs are endocentric compounds because they are headed by the verbs which incorporated them.

It is observed that the two compound verbs, rànlówó ‘to help’ and ṣeléṣe ‘to wound/injure’ have the feature of splitting verbs in the language. Hence, they would only occur as verbs if NP objects were inserted into them. Without this insertion, their occurrence will render a sentence ungrammatical. This is the situation in the sentences in (24) be low.

24 a i. Ayò ràn wá lówó ii. *Ayò rànlówó wá Ayò help us in-hand Ayò help us ‘Ayò helped us’. b i. O ṣe wón léṣe ii. *O ṣeléṣe wón he do them injure he injure them ‘He injured them’.

The two compound verbs are transitive verbs if their description above is put into consideration. Their transitivity is due to the property of the simple verbs ràn and ṣe which subcategorizes for NP objects. This property is transferred to the compound verbs. 2.3 Amalgamated verbs

In this section, we shall examine the structures of compound verbs derived from the amalgamation of two or more verbs. The amalgam verbs could either be serial verbs or splitting verbs5. The PS rules for the derivations of these compound verbs are given below.

V V + V V V + VI



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V V + NP (+ V + NP) + V 2.3.1 V + V verbal compounds

Two verbs that occur in series could be amalgamated to form a compound verb. Examples of this type are given in below.

25 V V + V 26 a jẹyọ ‘occur’/ jẹ yọ

‘appear’ ? (v) out

b padà ‘return’ pa dà kill? ?(v) c bùkún ‘bless’ bù kún

cut add The structures of the compound verbs above are given below. 27a b c

In the V + V compounds in (26), the two amalgamated verbs equally share head-like characteristics of the word. First, the two are verbs and both contribute to the meaning of the derived word. We cannot assign the head to only one of them. These compounds are co-ordinate compounds. While jẹyọ ‘to occur’/ ‘appear’ and padá ‘to return’ are

V

pa dà padà ‘to return’

V V

V

bù kún bùkún ‘to bless’

V V

jẹ yọ jẹyọ‘to occur’/ ‘appear’

V

V V



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intransitive verbs; bùkún ‘to bless’ could subcategorize for an NP object. These verbs occur in the sentences in (28).

28 a Ó jẹyọ ní ibí it appear prep here ‘It appeared here’.

b Ó padà sí ilé wa he return prep house our ‘He returned to our house’.

c Ó bùkún mi he bless me ‘He blessed me’. 2.3.2 V+VI verbal compounds

It is possible for some monosyllabic verbs to combine with padù6 ‘to return’ to form another verb. However, in such an amalgamation, the monosyllabic verb serves as the head of the derived verb. The PS rule for this type of compound verb is given in (29).

29 V V + VI

30 a yípadà yí padà ‘to repent’ turn return

b ràpadà rà padà ‘to redeem’ buy return The structures of the verbs in (30) are given in (31). 31. a b

V

yí pa dà yípadà ‘repent/change’

V VI

V V

V

rà pa dà ràpadà ‘to redeem’

V VI

V V



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The V + VI compounds in (30), unlike the V + V in (26), have

distinct head words. The structures of these verbs in (31) reveal that the verb that occupies the left-most part functions as the head. Semantically, this verb brings a change in meaning to the derived verb when it is combined with the other two verbs. For example, in (31a), padà ‘return’ becomes yípadà ‘repent’ when the verb yí is combined with it. Structurally, pa is first combined with da to form padà. Thereafter, yí is combined with padà as we have in (31a). If yí is first combined with pa, the result will be a nonsensical word *yípa in Yorùbá. We observe that the head words in the verbal compounds in (14a&b) and similar ones are structurally similar to phrases which, as pointed out in Owolabi (1995a: 106), are also left-headed in the Yorùbá language. We conclude that these compound verbs and similar ones are endocentric compounds.

The derived compound verbs in (30) could have the feature of splitting verbs in the Yorùbá language. This is because they could accommodate NP object insertion. Witness this in the sentences below.

32 a Ó yí mi padà he turn me return ‘He made me to repent/ He changed me (my mind)’.

b Ó rà mí padà he buy me return ‘He redeemed me’.

c Ó yípaḍà [CP kúrò nínú ìwà búburù rè]

‘He repented from his evil behaviour’. d *Ó ràpadà mi ‘He redeemed me’. Note however, that yípadà ‘to repent’ could be intransitive but

ràpadà ‘to redeem’ would not occur without the object NP inserted into it, that is why (32c) is also well-formed but (32d) is not.



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2.3.3 V + NP (+ V + NP) + V verbal compounds

The other means of deriving a compound verb from other verbs is the amalgamation of splitting verbs and their inserted objects. The PS rule for this type of compound verb is (33) below

. 33 V V + NP (+ V + NP) + V

Some examples of this type of verbal compounds are given in (34). V V + NP (+ V + NP) + V 34 a. téwógbà té ọwó gbà ‘accept’ spread hand take/accept b. gbókànlé gbé ọkàn lé

/gbékèlé ‘to trust’ carry mind put c. dáríjì dá orí jì ‘to forgive’ make head ?(V) d. dérùbà dá èrù ba ‘be afraid’ make fear ?(V) e. darapò da ara pò ‘mix’ pour body with f papòdà pa ipò dà ‘change’ kill? position ? (V) g ronúpìwàdà ro inú pa ìwà dà ‘repent’ think stomach kill? character ?(V)

The amalgamated verbs in (34a-d) are transitive verbs. As the sentences in (35) would reveal, these verbs subcategorizes fro NP objects. Those in (34e-g) are intransitive as we have in the sentences in (36).



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However, papòdà ‘to change’ could feature as a splitting verb as it allows NP object insertion, hence a transitive verb. This is the case in (36d).

35. a Ó téwógba ọmọ rè he accept child his ‘He accepted his child’. b Ó gbókànlé/gbékèlé wọn he trust them ‘He trusted/ trusts them’.

c Mo dáríjì yín I forgive you(pl) ‘I forgive you’. d Mo déèrùbà wón I be afraid them ‘I made them to be afraid’. 36. a Ó darapò mó wọn he mix with them ‘He mixed with them’. b Ó ti ronúpìwàdà he perf repent ‘He has repented’. c Ó papòdà kúrò ní àyè rè he change from prep position his ‘He changed from his position’. d Ó papò rè dà he kill-post his change ‘He changed his position’.



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The structures of some of the compound verbs in (34) are give in (37) below. 37 a b

V

VP

V

VI VI

NP

té ọwó gbà téwógbà ‘to accept’

V

VP

V

VI VI

NP

dá orí jì dáríjí ‘to forgive’



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c The compound verbs in (34) are also examples of co-ordinate compounds. 2.3.4. Levels of derivation of amalgamated verbs

The amalgamated verbs discussed above are derived through the interaction of the morphological and syntactic components of the model in (3) repeated below for convenience.

3 Morphology 1&2

Syntax Pulleyblank & Akinlabi (1988:158)

In deriving the V + V compound verbs, Morphology 1 selects the serial verbs and merges them to a compound verb. For example, Morphology 1 selects pa and dà and amalgamates them to become padà ‘to return’. The derivation of V+VI compound verbs involves both Morphology 1&2. After the derivation of padà ‘to return’ through

V

VP

V

VI VI

NP

ro inú pa ìwà dà ronúpìwàdà ‘to repent’

VI VI

V NP



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Morphology 1, Morphology 2 selects and merges rà ‘to buy’ with padà ‘to return’ to derive ràpadà ‘to redeem’. To derive the V + NP (+ V + NP) + V verbal compounds, the splitting verb selects and merges with its object NP to form a VP at the syntactic level of (3). Morphology 2 amalgamates the VP into a compound verb. For example, to derive téwógbà ‘to accept’, the splitting verb *tégbà selects and merges with ọwó ‘hand’, which is inserted into the verb to form the VP té ọwó gbà ‘to spread hand to take’. Morphology 2 amalgamates téè ọwó gbà to derive the compound verb téwógbà ‘to accept’.

3. Conclusion

Most Yorùbá verbs are monosyllabic in structure; many of the bi-syllabic (polysyllabic) verbs are derived through incorporation and amalgamation. In this paper, we examined these six ways by which compound verbs could be derived in the language.

object incorporation (V + NP) preposition incorporation (V+PP) the incorporation of NP and PP complements (V+ NP + PP) the amalgamation of two verbs (V + V) the amalgamation of a monosyllabic verb with a derives bisyllabic

verb (V + VI) the amalgamation of (a) splitting verb(s) and with its/their object(s)

The derivations of these compound verbs involve the interaction of

both the morphological and syntactic components of Grammar. We examined how these two components interact in these derivations. The derived verb examined the transitivity of the derived verbs and discovered that many of them subcategorize for NP object including some of those derived from object incorporation contrary to the established fact in the literature. We also discovered that some of the derived verb would only be acceptable in the language if they functioned as splitting verbs in that they would accommodate object insertion. Finally, we noticed that all the derived verbs are headed, hence endocentric; the only exception is the V



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+ V verbal compounds. In this type, the amalgamated verbs equally share head-like characteristics of the derived words and therefore, it is a co-ordinate compound.

Oye Taiwo

Department of Linguistics and African Languages University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

[email protected] NOTES 1 The word Baba ‘old man/father’ which bears two mid tones has the variant Bàbá with low and high tones. 2 Uró in (11c) could be derived by prefixing {u-} to ró ‘to wait/stop’ in the Èkìtì dialect of the language. I am grateful to Professor Owolabi for calling my attention to this. 3 The compound word jọba ‘reign’ is different from the verb phrase jóba

‘be king’ which is a contraction of jé ọba. The former is a compound word while the later

cannot be a compound word but a verb phrase.

4 It is possible to derive nominal compounds from these verbal compounds by attaching a nominal prefix to them. ì- + rànlówó = ìrànlówó ‘act of helping (someone)’ à- + kíyèsí = àkíyèsí ‘observation’ 5 The term serial verb has been applied to the combination of verbs found in many West African languages where all the verbs share a common subject in the surface structure (Bamgboses 1974:17). Splitting verbs are polysyllabic transitive verbs which have their NP objects inserted into them.



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6 It seems that padà ‘to return’ as a verb could be employed in the formation of many compound verbs in the language. Some examples of such verbs are padàbò ‘to return/come back’, padàlọ ‘to go again’, padàwá ‘to return/come back’ padàbòwá ‘to return/come back’, papòdà ‘to change’, etc. These verbs are instances where padà could occur with other verbs in series. It actually occurs with another compound verb in padàbòwá. It can also allow object insertion as we have in papòdà ‘to change’, where ipò ‘position’ is inserted into it. We shall discuss the derivation of papòdà ‘to change’ and others like it in section 2.3.3. below.

REFERENCES

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