Yoruba Verb Sub-classes in GPSG
Yoruba Verb Sub-classes in GPSG
Credit: Prof L. O. Adewole
Yoruba for academic purpose
1. Introduction[1]
A clear-cut distinction is not often
made between verb subclasses such as the
(1) (a) auxiliary verb
(b) modifying verb
(c) infinitive verb phrase
(d) serial verbs[2]
by most Yorùbá writers. For
instance, in their analysis of the serial verb constructions. Ẹkúndayọ̀ and Akinnasò
(1983: 116, 121) give the structure of Yorùbá serial verbs as (2) and exemplify
them with (3) and (4) (the numbering is ours).
(2) S
..>NP V (NP) V (NP) V (NP) …
(3) Wọ́n ti
tún lè wá
fẹ́ wá lọ
gbé
they
have again can come want come go carry
ẹrù náà
wá
luggage
the come
“They
might have again decided to go and bring the luggage”.
(4) Ó fẹ́
wá wá wa
wá
he
want come seek us come
‘He
intends to (come and) look for us here”.
We
agree with Ekúndayọ̀ and Akínaso that there are some serial verbs in (3) and
(4) but apart from these, there are auxiliary verbs in (3), a modifying verb
also in (3) and infinitive verb phrases in both (3) and (4). As these verbs
have been reorganized as belonging to different sub-classes in the language
(see Awobuluyi 1972, 1978: 53-62, Awoyale 1983 and Adewole 1988: 17-47), the
differences between the VP’s, which they head, should be made clear in any
analysis (2) fails to do this (2) states that all V’s in (3) and (4) can
optionally be immediately followed by NP’s.
The
claim made in (2) is not correct because it is only gbé “carry” out of
the nine verbs in (3) that can be immediately followed by a NP[3]. No
NP can occur immediately after any of the other eight verbs. In (4) too, it is
only wá “seek” that can be immediately followed by a NP[4]. in
this paper, we shall state the rules that introduce the subclasses of verbs in
(1) and show how (3) and (4) should be analysed.
2. Similarity
The
first question that will come to one’s mind is what the similarity between the
subclasses in (1) is for us to want to have them analysed here. We shall start
answering this question by introducing some rules in Generalized Phrase
Structure Grammar (GPSG henceforth)[5], the
framework within which this analysis is going to be carried out. Consider the
set of rules in (5):
(5) (a) S ..> NP, H [-SUBJ]
(b) VP ..> H[1] kú
“díẹ̀’, tán “finish”
(c) VP ..> H [2] rí
“see”, nà “beat”
(d) VP ..> H [3], PP lọ
“go”, wá “come”
(e) VP ..> H [4], S[kí] pé
“say”, ní “say”
(f) VP ..> H [5], NP PP rán
“sent”, rí “see”
(g) VP ..> H [6], ADVP lọ
rí “went” (there) “before”
(h) VP ..> H [7], S pé
“say”, ní “say”
(i) VP ..> H [8], NP ní
ilé “in the house”
(j) VP
< VP
In
(5), we have both the Immediate Dominance (ID) and the Linear Precedence (LP)
Rules, (5a-i) are the ID rules and (5j) is the LP Rule.
The
ID Rules state the hierarchical relations that obtain between expressions of
different categories i.e. in (5a), the ID Rule states that a NP and VP are
immediately dominated by a S. The rule says nothing about the ordering of the
constituents.
To
show the order of the constituents, the LP Rules are introduced. The
anti-symmetric transitive relation ‘<’ is used in GPSG to introduce LP
Rules. So, (5j) states that if a NP and a VP appear on the right hand side of
an ID Rule or if they both appear on the same mother as in (5a), the NP
precedes the VP.
Although
the rules in (5) give rise to structures like the ones in (6), none of the four
verb subclasses in (1) can be inserted as the first verb in any subtree that
the rules in (5) analyse. This is because whereas the verb subclasses must have
at least a VP in their complement, each of the rules in (5) introduces a VP
containing a single verb without any other VP in its complement. For instance,
while (5b) introduces a verb that may appear without any overt object, (5c)
introduces a verb which takes a single object. (5c) licenses the structure in
(6a) and (5d) and (5 i) license the structure in (6b).
(6a) [VP[V[2] rí][NP
Olú]]
(6b) [VP[V[3]
jẹun][PP[P ní][NPilé]]]
3. DIFFERENCES
Despite
the similarity between the verb subclasses in (1) just noted, each of them
appears as the first verb of a unique VP structure. We shall now discuss the
differences between the verbs in (1). We begin with the auxiliary verb.
3.1 The
Auxiliary Verb
In
Gazdar et. al. (1982: 11), the ID and LP rules which introduce the auxiliary
verbs are given as (7).
(7) VP[+AUX] ..>
H[9], VP[-AUX, + BSE]
[SUBCAT] < -[SUBCAT]
(7) States that a VP which has an
auxiliary as its first verb can take a VP as its complement and that all
lexical categories precede all non-lexical categories i.e. in a rule VP ..>
V, NP; V precedes NP. Rules like the ones in (7) can generate examples such as
the ones in (8) which give rise to structures like (9) but (7) cannot generate
(10).
(8) (a) Mo ń lọ
I is go
“I
am going”
(b) Mo ti lọ
I have go
“I
have gone (there)”
(9a) [VP[+AUX][V[+AUX,
9] ń][VP lọ]
(9b) [VP[+AUX][V[+AUX,
9] ti][VP lọ]]
(10) (a) Mo ń ti ilé lọ
I is from house go
“I
shall be going there from home”
The examples in (10) show that the
rules in (7) need to be modified. The modification we propose is (11)
(11) VP[+AUX]
..> H[10], (PP[ti]), VP
[SUBCAT
< [SUBCAT][6]
(11) states that when the auxiliary verb
occurs as the first verb in a VP, it can be followed by a PP[ti] and a VP or a
VP alone and that all lexical categories precede all non-lexical categories.
(11) ensures that we generate not only the examples in (8) and (10) but also
block the generation of such examples as (12) where the PP following the
auxiliary verb is not a PP[ti].
(12) (a) *Mo ń sí ilé lọ
I is to house go
(b) *Mo ń ní ilé jẹun
I
is in house eat
Despite the improvement of (11) on
(7), (11) still allows examples such as (13) which are not allowed in the language.
(13) *Ma máa á lọ
I will INF go
The reason why (13) is ungrammatical
is that the auxiliary verb immediately precedes an infinitive marker. It will
be noted that there is nothing in (7) or (11) stopping the generation of (13).
For instance, there is no specification on the VP of the rules; hence the first
verb in the VP can be a modifying verb, an infinitive or just any verb. To
disallow examples such as (13), we still need to modify the ID rule further,
(14) is our new proposal.
(14) VP[+AUX] ..> H[11],
(PP[ti]), VP[-INF]
(14) ensures that only a VP whose
head is non-infinitive can serve as a complement to an auxiliary verb. Note
that (14) does not disallow examples such as (15).
(15) Mo ti fẹ́ ẹ́ ra a
I have want INF buy it
“I
had wanted to buy it”
(14) allows the generation of (15)
because the infinitive verb marker does not follow the auxiliary verb
immediately.
3.2 The
Modifying Verb
Unlike
the auxiliary verb, nothing debars the modifying verb from immediately
preceding any verb. For this reason, we can have the lexical rule in (16) to
introduce it.
(16) VP[+MOD]
..> H[12], (PP[ti]), VP
(16) says that a VP[+MOD] node can
be followed by PP[ti] and VP or a VP alone, (16) can therefore generate not
only (17) where the modifying verb immediately precedes a main verb but also
(18) where it immediately precedes an infinitive verb marker.
(17) Ó tètè lọ
He
hurry go
“He
went in time”
(18) Ó fẹ́rẹ̀ ẹ́ tán
It
almost INF finish
“It
is about to finish”
The major difference between the modifying
verb and the auxiliary verb, then, is that whereas the former can occur with
the infinitive verb marker, the latter does not. Note that nothing in (14) and
(17) debars a modifying verb from introducing or being introduced by an
auxiliary verb phrase and vice versa. This shows that the examples in (19) and
(20) and the structures in (21) and (22) can be generated.
(19) Ó ti kuku wẹ̀
He AUX most bath
“He
has already had his bath”
(20) Ó kuku ti wẹ̀
He MOD AUX bath
“He
has had his bath already”
(21) [VP[+MOD][V[+ASSOC,
11] ti][VP[-MOD][v[+MOD, 12] kúkú][V[1]
wẹ̀]
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3.3 The
Infinitive Verb
To
start with, it should be noted that the orthographic representations given to
sentences (3) and (4) are not accurate because the infinitive verb marker,
which is the lengthening of the last vowel of the word preceding the infinitive
verb as in (18), is not indicated. If this is indicated, the VP in (3) and (4)
should be written as (23) and (24) respectively.
(23) Wọ́n ti tún lè wá á fẹ́ ẹ́ wá a lọ
they have again can come INF want INF come INF go
gbé ẹrù náà wá
carry luggage that
“They
might have again decided to go and bring the luggage”
(24) Ó fẹ́ ẹ́ wá á wá wa wá
he
want INF come INF seek
us come
“He
intends to (come and) look for us here”
There are three infinitive verb
phrases in (23) and two in (24) none of which are indicated in (3) and (4). The
rules that introduce the infinitive verb in the language are (25), (26) and
(27). While (25) expands the infinitive verb phrase, (26) and (27) introduce
the infinitive as a complement.
(25) VP[+INF]
..> H[13], (PP[ti]), VP[-INF]
(26) VP
..> H[14], VP[+INF]
(27) VP
..> H[15], NP VP [+INF]
While (25) and (26) together
generate (28), (25) and (27) generate (30), (25) which introduces the
infinitive verb phrase differs from (16) which introduces the modifying verb in
that an infinitive verb does not immediately follow an auxiliary verb. There is
no such constraint on the occurrence of a modifying verb for it can either
precede or follow an auxiliary verb. So, (14) and (25) taken together disallow
the generation of (29). The rules in (25)-(27) allow the generation of the
expressions in (28) and (30) and license the structures in (31) and (32).
(28) Mo fẹ́ ẹ́
lọ
I want INF go
“I
want to go”
(29) *Mo máa á lọ
I
will INF go
(30) Ó
ní iṣẹ́ ẹ́ ṣe
He
have work
INF do
“He
has some work to do”
(31) [VP[v[14]
fẹ́][VP[V[+INF, 13] ẹ́][VP[-INF] lọ]]]
(32) [VP[V[15]
ní][NP iṣẹ́][VP[+INF][V[+INF], 13] ẹ́][VP[_INF][V[1]
ṣe]]]]
3.4 The
Serial Verbs
As
with the other three verbal constructions, the serial verb construction also
contains at least two verbs in a verb+complement structure but it differs from
the other constructions in that its head can be followed by either a VP, a PP
or a NP and that this head is always a V[+BSE]. So, to expand the serial verb
construction, we should need a lexical rule like (33).
(33) VP[BSE]
..> H[16], (XP), VP
XP
= [-V,BAR2]
(33) will generate examples such as
the ones in (34) and (35) and will license the structures in (36) and (37).
(34) Ó fi ìwé na Olú
He
use book hit Olú
“He
hit Olú with a book”
(35) Ó rìn ti oko wá sí ilé
He
walk from farm come to home
“He
walked home from the farm”
( 36) [VP[BSE][V[i6] fi][NP ìwé][V[2]
na][NP Olú]]]
(37) [VP[BSE][V[16]
rìn][PP[P ti][NP oko]][VP[V[3]
wá][pp[P sí][NP ilé]]]]
4. The
Four Verbal Expressions Exemplified
The
rules we have introduced in the work so far will assign the structures shown in
(40) and (41) to (23) and (24) respectively. This is because, as we have stated
earlier, (23) and (24) contain not only serial verbs but also auxiliary verbs,
modifying verbs and infinitive verb phrases. For convenience, (23) and (24) are
reproduced here as (38) and (39) respectively.
(38) Wọ́n ti tún lè wá á fẹ́ ẹ́ wá a
they
have again can come INF want INF
want INF
“They
might have again decided to go and bring the luggage”.
(39) Ó fẹ́ ẹ wá á wá á wa
wá
he
want INF come INF seek INF
us come
“He
intends to (come and) look for us here”
(40) [VP[+AUX][V[+AUX,
11] ti][VP[+MOD][V[+MOD, 12] tún][VP[+AUX][V[+AUX,
11] lè][VP[-INF][V[+INF, 13] ẹ́][VP[-INF][V[14]
wá][VP[+INF][V[+INF] á][VP[-INF][V[14]
fẹ́][VP[+INF][V[+INF] ẹ́][VP[-INF][V[14]
wá][VP[+INF][V[+INF, 12] á][VP[BSE][V[16]
lọ][VP[BSE][V[10] gbé][NP ẹrù][VP[+BSE][V[1]
wá]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
(41) [VP[V[14]
fẹ́][VP[+INF][V[+INF, 13] ẹ́][VP[-INF][V[14]
wá][VP[+INF][V[+INF, 13] á][VP[BSE][V[16]
wá][NP wa][VP[+BSE][V[1] wá]]]]]]
5. Conclusion
Most
Yoruba writers have often find it very difficult to distinguish between the
subclasses of verbs listed by Adewole (1988: 17-47) and Awobuluyi (1978:
53-62). When one of these subclasses is being discussed, verbs from other
subclasses are often used to exemplify it. In this paper, we have been able to show
the relationship between four of these subclasses of verbs namely auxiliary,
modifying, infinitive and serial verbs. It will be noted that we cast the
analysis within the formalism of GPSG. This is not because the fact discussed
here could not be implemented in other frameworks, but because, according to
Zwicky (1986: 855),
GPSG is of recent vintage, less than a decade old, and
English is its first language. It is no surprise, then that the first
book-length exposition of the theory… relies on English to illustrate the
features of GPSG. Nevertheless, GPSG is intended as a… universal…. theory of
syntax.
The fact that these four subclasses
of verbs could be analysed straightforwardly in GPSG framework shows that other
“key sentence constructions in the language (which) are distinguished from one
another primarily by the types of verbs operating in them” (Awobuluyi, 1978:
53) could be analysed within the same framework.
Bibliography
Adewole, Lawrence Olufemi (1987), The
Yoruba Language, Published Works and Doctoral Dissertations 1843-1986: African
Linguistic Bibliographies 3, edited by Franz Rottland and Rainer Vossen.
Hamburg: Helmut Buske.
Adewole, Lawrence Olufemi (1988),
“The Categorial Status and the Functions of the Yoruba Auxiliary Verbs with Some
Structural Analyses in GPSG.”, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh.
Awobuluyi, Oladele (1972), “On the Classification
of Yoruba Verbs”, in Yoruba Verb Phrase, edited by Ayo Bamgbose, pp.
119-134. Ibadan, Nigeria: University Press Limited.
Awobuluyi, Oladele (1978), Essentials
of Yoruba Grammar. Ibadan, Nigeria: Oxford University Press.
Awoyale, ‘Yiwola (1983), “On the
Development of Verb Infinitive Phrase in Youba”, Studies in African
Linguistics 14, 1: 71-102.
Ekundayo, S.A. and F. Niyi Akinnaso
(1983), “Yoruba Serial Verba String Commutability Constraints”, Lingua 60:
115-133.
Gazdar, Gerald, Geoffrey K. Pullum
and Ivan A. Sag (1982), “Auxiliary and Related Phenomena in a Restricted Theory
of Grammar”, Language 58: 591-638.
Gazdar, Gerald, E. Klein, G. Pullum
and Ivan Sag (1985), Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell.
Oyelaran, Olasope (1982), “The
Category AUX in the Yoruba Phrase Structure”, Paper Presented at the 15th
West African Language Conference, University of Port-Harcourt, April 4-11,
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[1] This
paper was published as L.O. Adewole
(1991), ‘Some Yoruba verb Subclasses in GPSG’, Research in Yoruba Language and Literature 1: 66-74.
[2]
This is not say that these are the only verb subclasses in the language. For
other subclasses see Awobuluyi (1972, 1978: 53-65), Awoyale (1983) and Adewole
(1988: 17-47). In fact, Awobuluyi (1978: 53-62) classifies Yoruba verbs into
fifteen subclasses two of which are in (1) i.e. infinitive which he calls
nominal assimilating verb and the serial verbs. It should be noted, however,
that two or more of these verbs subclasses can occur in a single sentence. For
instance, the verbs in Òjò kò jẹ́ kí n wá “Rain prevented me from
coming” (Awobuluyi, 1978: 58) are classified as report verbs while those in Ó
ra ẹran jẹ “He bought meat and ate it” (Awobuluyi, 1978: 53) are
classified as serial verbs. From both, we can have a single sentence Òjò kò
jẹ́ kí n wá ra ẹran jẹ “Rain prevented me from coming (to) buy meat and
eat”.
[3]Note
that the occurrence of a NP here is compulsory.
[4]
Note also that the occurrence of a NP here is compulsory.
[5]
Familiarity with GPSG as proposed by Gazdar et al. (1985) is assumed in this
work. So, it is only the formalism of the grammar which is relevant to our
discussion that will be touched upon here. It should be noted, however, that
unlike in Gazdar et al. (1985), both [+INF] and [+BSE] are not used as VFORM
values in the work. For convenience, we have replaced all references to V”, N”
etc. with VP, NP. In our analysis, both matrix and embedded VP’s, NP’s etc. are
assigned one bar. Our use of S corresponds to V”, the maximal projection of V.
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