Difference between revisions of "Kistaninya Verbconstructions"

Revision as of 10:40, 4 May 2011

User:Bedilu Debela

This page is motivated by the intention to enumerate examples which represent typical verbal constructions of Kistaniniya. Hence, a number of representative examples are taken from construction headed by simple intransitive, transitive and ditransitive verbs, derivational verbs (causatives, passive), impersonals, copula, and converbs .

1. Constructions headed by intransitive verbs.

Intransitive verbs are characterized by not selecting an NP complement. On the basis of their semantic expression and their syntactic properties (1).

In the language, core-arguments and obliques are marked by different morpho-syntactic means. Unlike core-arguments which are optionally marked by bare object personal pronoun suffix on the verb, oblique arguments are referred to by applicative plus object personal pronoun suffix. Oblique arguments are adpositional phrases in Kistaniniya with a property of assigning thematic roles such as locative, instrumental, source, goal, beneficiary and maleficiary.

In addition to the subject, Kistaniniya allows only one further core or oblique argument to be marked on the verb. When an oblique is overtly realized in a construction, it is always the oblique that is marked on the verb. In idiomatic expressions headed by an intransitive verb, the oblique argument is referred by the applicative formative.

Intransitive verbs expressing motion take adpositional oblique object to mark their goal or source of movement. Consider the following examples headed by intransitive motion verbs(2).

2. Constructions headed by transitive verbs

Syntactically, transitive verbs are characterized by having a direct object complement. The complement they select can be phrasal or clausal(3.

In Kistaniniya, there is a type of verbs which have both transitive and intransitive valency specifications. Consider the following examples.In both examples the subejct is droped,and marked on the verb by SM. Though it is not marked by agreement marking the first example has an object, thus it is a transitive verb (4).

Notice that in the above examples, the verbal head optionally selects its cognate noun as its complement.

There are transitive verbs which select for clausal complements. The clausal complement can be declarative, interrogative, or infinitival (5).

3. Constructions headed by ditransitive verbs

In the language there are verbs like ad:əl- ‘distribute’, šil:əm- ‘reward’, ab- ‘give’ and wəd- ‘tell’ which requires two complements. The complements are a noun phrase and a prepositional phrase which are traditionally labeled as direct and indirect object respectively (6).

The constructions in (6) are headed by ditransitive verbs, and need direct and indirect object to satisfy their argument requirement. Template (6a), for instance, has əwjə ‘news’ and the PP yəzənnu ‘to Zennu’ as its direct and indirect object arguments respectively.

Double object applicative constructions (a transitive verb with applicative formative)have the same valency specification as ditransitive verbs. The base transitive head verb requires only one object. The second object (i.e. indirect object) is introduced by the applicative formative attached on the verb, thus it is a non-core argument (7).

In (7), the applicative objects which is introduced by the applicative formative is the PP yəzən:u ‘for Zennu’, and it is marked on the verb, by 3FEM.SG object pronoun suffixes.

4 Constructions Headed by Compound verbs

Kistaniniya forms a verbal stem by compounding categorically unspecified morphemes with the verbal stems bal- ‘say’ for intransitive reading, and k’inn- ‘make’ for transitive reading. The unspecified morpheme encodes the semantics, and the verbal stems provide grammatical informations like tense, aspect, agreement, etc (8).

5 Constructions Headed by copulas

Copular morphemes are used in sentence final position. The copula morphemes are the present tense copula -n ‘is’, the past tense copula nəb:ər- ‘was’ and the future tense copula hon- ‘be, become’ which are used with personal pronoun suffixes showing person, gender and number. Copular verbs take NP, AP, AdvP and AdpP as their complements (9).