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10© Taiwo, Oye Paul 2009
Research article
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Derivation of serial verbal constructions
Oye Paul Taiwo
University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
E-mail: oyepaultaiwo@gmail.com
Received: 1 March 2009
Reviewing editor: Andrey G. Kirillov Accepted: 15 May 2009
Published online: 1 June 2009
Abstract
Earlier works failed to account for the derivation of serial verbal constructions. This is because the deletion method adopted could not account for the derivation of the modified serial verbal construction type. In this paper, we employ the Minimalist Framework of generative syntax for the derivation of this problematic SVC-type. This is done through the works of two principles in the Minimalist Program, these are operations select and merge.
Keywords
deletion; computational system; select; merge; serial verbal construction For citation
Taiwo, Oye Paul. 2009. "Derivation of serial verbal constructions." Language. Text. Society 3 (1): e1-e11. https://ltsj.online/2009-03-1-optaiwo. (Journal title at the time of publication: SamaraAltLinguo E-Journal.)
1. INTRODUCTION
The familiar phenomenon known as serial verbal construction is prominent in West African languages. Other names by which the construction is known include verb serialization, serial verbs, verbal combinations, verbs in series (George 1975, 78). Bamgbose (1974, 17) gives the following definition of SVC:
The term 'serial verbal construction' or 'serial verbs' 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.
2. Types of serial verbal constructions (SVCs)
George (1975), Bamgbose (1983, 1990), Oyelaran (1982) give various types of SVCs in Yoruba. Bamgbose (1983, 1990) will be our guide because it is the most recent of all classifications or types. These are sequential SVC, consequential SVC and durational SVC. Others are modifying SVC, causative SVC and complex SVC.
In a sequential SVC, the action of the first verb precedes that of the second (Bamgbose 1983, 4). Two examples are given below.
1a. Ade a be oka rhan ze li oko Ade fut. cut maize roast eat at farm Ade will harvest, roast and eat maize in the farm'.
b. Ade nii be oka rhan ze li oko
Ade fut.neg cut maize roast eat at farm Ade will not harvest, roast and eat maize in the farm'.
In consequential SVCs, 'the event symbolized by the second verb is understood to be the consequence of that symbolized by the first' (Omamor 1977, 81; Bamgbose 1990, 161). This is the situation in the two sentences in (2).
2a. Olopaa a gwo ole tie pa policeman fut. beat thief the kill 'The policeman will beat the thief to death'.
b. Tope o mo omi ku Tope agr drink water die 'Tope drank water till he died'.
In the modifying SVC, one verb modifies another verb in much the same way as an adverb modifies a verb (Bamgbose 1983, 6). In the examples below, the second verb te 'to reach' modifies the first mo 'to know'.
3a. Mo mo Biodun te uli
I know Biodun reach house
i.e. 'I know Biodun intimately'.
b. Mi i mo Biodun te uli
I pres. neg know Biodun reach house i.e. 'I don't know Biodun intimately'.
In durational SVC, the action or state of the first verb continues until the action or state of the second verb is attained (Bamgbose 1983, 5). The sentences in (4) are instances of durational SVC in Ao.
4a. Oga wa o fu suuru yanzu ofo tie
boss our agr use patience settle matter the
'Our boss patiently settled the matter'.
b. Oluwaasu a su ure fu in
preacher fut. say blessing give you(pl) 'The preacher will bless you/pray for you'.
In the causative SVC, the first verb is the verb that causes the action or event of the second verb (Bamgbose 1990, 62). Consider the sentences below.
5a Oje ji o rho mi di obon
cold this agr make me become dirty-one 'This cold weather has made me a dirty person'.
b. Oba o be mi da ura oza diro
king agr send me make people market stop
'The king asked me to stop the marketers'.
3. The structure of serial verbal constructions
The structure of the SVC is such that it has only one subject or doer in the sentence (at the surface level) with more than one verb without any evidence of co-ordination (Yusuf 1995, 40). Consider the following examples.
6a. Tope o mo otin jo ya uli
Tope agr drink wine full come house i.e. 'Tope came home drunk'.
b. Oba o be mi fu aake ge ugin king agr send me use axe cut tree i.e. 'The king asked me to use the axe to cut the tree'.
The SVCs in (6) consist of three verbs each. In (6a), we have mo 'drink', jo 'full' and ya 'come' while the three verbs in (3b) are be 'send', fu 'use' and ge 'cut'. Because sentences like those above contain at least two verbs, Awobuluyi (1978, 116) says they are always complex and are formed by combining parts of simple sentences. Bamgbose (1990, 159) goes ahead to say that the first verb in a SVC must refer to the subject of the sentence but the verb that follows may
refer to the subject or the object of the sentence. Following AwobuMyi (1978) and Bamgbose (1990: 160-161), the SVCs in (6) are derived from the sentences in (7) and (8) respectively.
7a. Tope o mo otin Tope agr drink wine
i.e. Tope drank wine'.
b. Tope o jo Tope agr full
i.e. 'Tope was drunk'.
c. Tope o ya uli Tope agr come home
i.e. 'Tope came home'.
8a. Oba o be mi king agr send me
i.e. 'The king asked me'.
b. Mo fu aake I use axe
i.e. 'I used the axe'.
c. Mo ge ugin I cut tree i.e. 'I cut the tree'.
As Professor AwobuMyi rightly observed, parts of the simple sentences in (7) are combined to form the SVC of (6a). These are the whole of the sentence in (7a), the verb in (7b) and the verb plus its object in (7c). This is done by deleting the subjects of (7b) and (7c) because they are identical with that of (7a). In (6a) therefore, all the verbs refer to the subject. In the case of the SVC in (6b), it is derived from the simple sentences in (8) by the same deletion method where only the subjects of (8b) and (8c) are deleted. Unlike in (6a), not all the verbs in (6b) refer to the subject; only the first verb does; while the remaining two verbs refer to the object.
However, the derivational method fails to account for the SVC in (9).
9. Mo mo Biodun te uli
I know Biodun reach house
i.e. 'I know Biodun intimately'.
The failure of the derivational method is due to the fact that the SVC in (9) cannot be said to be derived from the combination of (10a) and (10b) below.
10a. Mo mo Biodun I know Biodun i.e. 'I know /knew Biodun'.
b. Mo te uli
I reach house i.e. 'I reached the house'.
The subjects of the two simple sentences in (10) are identical. One of them, that of (10b), should be deleted and the remaining parts of the simple sentence should be merged with (10a) to give us (9). Such a derivation cannot give us the same meaning as that of (9). Due to the inability of the deletion derivational method to account for SVCs like the one in (9), Oyelaran (1982) does not discuss the derivation of SVCs. Rather he gives a 'list of SVC types in (standard) Yoruba together with the characteristic surface constituent structure and an indication of the functional relations between NP's and VP's' (Oyelaran 1982, 124). The structure of the SVC in (9) according to Oyelaran (1982, 125) is given in (11).
11. Mo mo Biodun te uli
NP1 V1 NP2 V2 NP3
NP1 subj V1 subj V2 NP2 objV3
Because of the inability of the earlier theories and works to account for the derivation of all the SVCs, we shall give the structural representations and show the derivations of SVCs within the Minimalist Framework of generative syntax adopted for this study.
3.1. The structure of serial verbal constructions within the MP
Recent theories of generative syntax (e.g. The Principles and Parameters Theory, PPT) have abandoned the notion of deletion. This is because of the inability to recover the deep or D-structure from the surface or S-structure. In the Minimalist Program, we try to account for the formation or derivation of a sentence in a non-complex manner unlike the deletion and substitution methods (Marantz 1995; Napoli 1996; Radford 1997a). Operation Select and Operation Merge are the two operations that take place in the lexicon through the Computational System (Chl) (Chomsky 1995a; Chomsky 1995b, Radford 1997b). If the right lexical item is selected in the lexicon, it is merged with another one in a pairwise manner (Radford 1997a; Radford 1997b). For example in the SVC in (9), repeated below for convenience,
9. Mo mo Biodun te uli
I know Biodun reach house
i.e. 'I know Biodun intimately'.
The verb mo 'to know' and the noun Biodun are selected in the lexicon by the Computational System and are merged together by Operation Merge to give us the VP mo Biodun
'know Biodun'. Mo Biodun is in turn merged with the specifier Mo 'I' to derive Mo mo Biodun 'I know Biodun'. For the second clause, te 'reach' and uli 'house' are selected in the lexicon through the Computational System and merged together by Operation Merge to form the VP te uli 'reach house'. Te uli is in turn merged with the already formed tree Mo mo Biodun 'I know Biodun' to derive Mo mo Biodun te uli. 'I know Biodun intimately'. Operations Merge and Select are the mechanisms in the Computational System used in the derivation of sentences. The structure of the sentence in (9) is given in (Fig. 1) below.
AgrsP
D
Agrs'
Agrs
TaspPj
Tasp'
Tasp
AgroP
Tasp
V
DP
Agro't
Agro_ V Agro
V'
V
Moj 0 t'j 0i moii BiodiinXit'ii Agroi tj ti tXi 0 2 tei2 uliX2t'i2 Agro2 ti2 tx2
D
t;
In the structural sketch above, there is only one AgrsP projection. But others such as TaspP, AgroP and the VP have two projections each. The two projections have to do with the two verbs in (9). Each of the two verbs has to move from its position as head of the VP, adjoin to Agro to check off its agreement features, and then to the Tasp node to check and erase its uninterpretable Tense and Aspect head features'. Hence, TaspP, AgroP, and VP are projected twice for the two verbs. This is because there is only one subject in SVCs. Though there could be two projections of the VP, only the first VP has a specifier; others do not. Bamgbose (1990) and Yusuf (1995) have rightly observed that the verbs in SVCs will either be referring to the only subject in the construction or only one of the verbs will refer to the subject while the other will refer to the object. This is also the point brought out by Oyelaran (1982, 124) where the functional relations between NPs and VPs in SVCs were emphasized.
Since there is only one AgrsP in SVCs, the AgrsP in (Fig. 1) is not marked. Other maximal phrases have two projections each. These projections are marked differently to differentiate one from the other. TASPP1, AgroP1, VP1 Agro1 and the rest are the projections of the first verb while TASPP2, AgroP2 VP2, Agro2 are the projections of the second verb.
The SVC with three verbs in (6b) has the structure in (Fig. 2).
The structural representations in (Fig. 1) and (Fig. 2) above are for affirmative serial verbal constructions. The derivation of negative SVCs will still involve the two operations -Operations Select and Merge - that take place in the lexicon through the Computational System. However, it will also involve the selection and merging of the relevant negative markers in the language11. For this reason, the NegP will be projected for convergence to take place in negative SVCs. For example, the negative counterpart of the SVC in (6b) is given in (14).
14 Oba a bemi fu aake ge ugin
king past neg. send me use axe cut tree
i.e. 'The king did not ask me to use the axe to cut the tree'.
The negative sentence above has the structure in (Fig. 3) below. 4. CONCLUSION
We have, in this paper, shown one of the merits the Minimalist Program has over earlier frameworks of generative syntax. This is the ability to handle the derivation of complex structures such as serial verbal constructions in a non-complex manner. Unlike earlier theories which failed to account for the derivations of some serial verbal constructions, especially the modifying serial verbal construction type, the MP handles its derivation and that of other types successfully.
i (Ajongolo 2005) for these various features and how the are checked for convergence to take place. Ajongolo T.O. is a former name of Oye Taiwo.
ii Ajongolo (2005, 76-196) gives a detailed discussion of the various negative markers in the Ao dialect of Yoruba language.
AgrsP
DP Agrs'
Agrs TaspPt
DP^Xasp'
Tasp AgroP
Tasp V D Agro^
Agrox /\ V Agro DP
VP
V'
V' TaspP
/\
V D Tasp AgroP
X 2
Tasp V DP Agro'
Agro VP
/\ A
V Agro V DP
Oba o t'( 0 bé: ml t'( Agro t t t, 0 fu aáké^ t'j «___ t C 0 sé: igin„ t'( Agro t L
j j 1 ■ il X1 il 1 j il X2 2 i2 X2 i2 Agro2 i2 ^2 3 & i3 & X3 i3 & 3 i3 ^3
Agro VP
X X
V Agro V ' TaspP
o O X X r -3
^ /\ 3
V DP Tasp3 AgroP3
/\3 /\3 Tasp V DP Agro'3
X
AgrsP
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Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. Author information
Oye Taiwo is a Professor of Linguistics and Yoruba language, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Copyrights
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