2.3 Literature Review on Verb Extensions in Bantu Languages
2.3.1 Overview of Verb Extensions in Bantu Languages
2.3.1.2 Argument and Argument Structure in Bantu Languages
The concepts of argument and argument structure have been investigated by various scholars from different perspectives (Alsina 1992; Rugemalira 1993; and Wechsler 2014). Alsina (1992) dealt with the argument structure of causatives in Chichewa (N31). He made the assumption that the causative predicate in Chichewa has a patient that forms a thematically composite argument with an argument of the embedded predicate. Rugemalira (1993) brought in the idea of Predict Structure Constraints which posits two levels of representation: the argument structure which specifies the number of arguments that the verb can take and the lexical semantic structure which deals with verb and meaning of the action denoted by the verb. As I have said earlier, verb extension is a morphosyntactic operation in which a number of arguments can be added or reduced. Therefore, it is important to have a look at the argument concept as one of components of this operation.
The analysis of Alsina (1992) indicated that the complex predicate as shown in example 13 is a result of sharing thematic roles or fusion of two thematic roles (Alsina, 1992, p. 521). He demonstrated that “the combination of this causative morpheme with another predicate creates a
36 new argument that acts as semantic argument both of the CAUSE predicate and of the embedded predicate” (1992, p. 521).
Caused event 13. CAUSE ( ag pt PRED (---θ10----) )
Source: Alsina (1992, p. 521)
He stated that “the causative predicate in such languages11 has an internal argument, a patient, which is semantically identified with an argument of the embedded causative event structure, creating a thematically composite argument” (Alsina 1992, p. 552). He also shows that according to the theory, the causee is the patient of the causative predicate when it is expressed as an object but not as an oblique. I agree with and justify Alsina’s argument in this study on how arguments of causative and other productive verb extensions behave in Kuria.
Rugemalira (1993) investigated the productive verb extensions in Runyambo, namely applicative, causative, reciprocal, passive and stative. He intended to challenge the common view that the extensions are potentially a resource for increasing the number of verb arguments and demonstrated that the extensions form part of a set of interrelated mechanisms within Bantu languages which ensure that the verb arguments remain distinguishable from each other.
He categorized these extensions into two groups; one is transitivizer which consists of the applicative and causative extension as valence increasers; it can co-occur, but can never be repeated. The second group is de-transitivizer, which consists of reciprocal, passive and stative as a valence decreaser. In his study, he brought out the Idea of Predicate Structure Constraints which posits two levels of representation. The first is the argument structure which specifies the number of arguments that the verb can take (i.e. valency). In linguistic expressions this realizes a verb’s participant roles. Rugemalira showed that the important information carried by the argument structure is the total number of arguments that the verb permits. The second level is the lexical
10 θ and pt “this sharing of thematic roles, or fusion, is shown in (...) by the line connecting the two thematic roles involved.” (Alsina 1992, p. 521).
11 Languages such as: Chichewa, Shona, Swahili, Kinyarwanda and Tharaka (Good, 2005, p. 518)
37 semantic structure which provides information concerning the participant roles required by the verb and meaning of the action denoted by the verb (Rugemalira 1993, pp. 42-43).
Rugemalira (1993) also discussed the co-occurrence of extensions and confirmed a strong restriction against repetition in derivation in Runyambo. This is different from Kuria where the repetition of extension after one extension is very common; a single verb can have more than one extension (both valency increaser and decreaser) which recurs, as shown in chapter five of this study. In his conclusion, Rugemalira (1993, p. 207) illustrated that the means for expanding predicate structures have inbuilt restrictions which are part and parcel of the mechanisms for argument differentiation. As he argued, transitivizer extensions can co-occur but cannot be repeated:
In the example above, Rugemalira demonstrated that “two of the arguments (Y and Z) are realized as pronominal affixes, one of which (Z) must be a first person affix. Of the omissible arguments, one must be an inalienable part (T) and the other a participant locative (M)" (1993, p. 207).
Rugemalira argues that the number of arguments for the unextended verb sara ‘to cut’ is four (x, B, T, and M) (see example below from Rugemalira (1993, p. 129) example number 426a)
15. a-ka-sar-a omwana [isoce] [aha-mutwe]
he-pst-cut-FV child hair L13-head
‘He cut the child’s hair from the head’
The suffixation of two extensions, the applicative and causative, raises the number of arguments to six. At that point, the structure has reached the limit of expandability since neither applicative nor causative can be repeated. By verifying this, Rugemalira concluded that:
Argument differentiation demands that the number of arguments in any predicate structure be kept to the necessary minimum. If one predicate structure rather than two must be employed, then the most likely arguments to get early discharge will be the omissible ones (1993, p. 208).
12Rugemalira (1993) refers to T as isoce ‘hair’ and M for ahamutwe ‘on head’.
13 Rugemalira (1993) refers to L as locative.
38 In Kuria causative and applicative are valence increasers (as called transitivizer by Rugemalira) and once attached to the verb root they require an extra argument for each, regardless of the number of arguments the verb has. This is not allowed in Runyambo as argued by Rugemalira (1993, p.
206).
Wechsler (2014) dealt with the co-occurrences (he calls it stacking) behaviour of valence-increasing extensions and their arguments in Manyika (S13), a dialect of Shona (S10). The study examined the behaviour of a set of verbal affixes in Shona. He focused on the valency increaser extensions, namely applicative and causative, which tend to change the status of the verb from intransitive to transitive and transitive to ditransitive. He also put emphasis on the argument limit and asymmetrical object phenomena involving case. Wechsler declares that, “Verb extensions differ widely in their semantic and syntactic effect. What they all have in common, however, is their ‘slot’ within the Bantu verb construction” (2014, p. 8).
In his discussion, Wechsler (2014) showed that Shona demonstrates a peculiar restriction on the co-occurrence of some extensions like causative and applicative, exhibiting an inability to co-occur where their co-occurrence will result in arguments exceeding three. Wechsler shows that the productive extensions in Shona are causative, applicative, passive, neuter and reversive. Although he did not work on all 15 verbal extensions of Shona, at least one verbal extension of each includes the three major types: affixes that add arguments, affixes that take away arguments and affixes that do neither of the two.
Wechsler (2014, p. 21) gave examples in which valence increaser extensions were combined with valence decreaser extensions. When he tried applicative and causative (which are both valence increasers) the sentence becomes un-grammatical, making him to assume that the co-occurrence of causative and applicative was not acceptable in Shona. See example 16.
16. sunga ‘tie’
*Ta-sung-is-ir-a vavhimi vasikana mbudzi 1PL (1)-tie-CAUS-APP-FV hunters girls goats
‘We made the hunters tie the goats for the girls.’
He stated that:
39 From this data alone, it might appear that Shona’s restriction is templatic. Under this account verb would have only one “slot” for each verbal extension that increases valence (causative and applicative), and an additional slot for each of the other extensions, as opposed to an explanation where there is one recursive slot for all verb extensions (2014, p. 22).
However, Wechsler disproved this hypothesis by giving an example where two valence increasers can be affixed together (Wechsler, 2014:22), see example 17:
17. donha ‘fall/drop’
Musikana a-donh-es-se-a Tinotenda poto ye-mvura girl 3SG(1)-fall-CAUS-CAUS-FV Tinotenda pot POSS-water
‘The girl made Tinotenda drop the water pot.’
In my view, this illustrates that the problem is not the competition for the slot because the repetition of causative shows that there is a slot for the valence increaser. However, Wechsler acknowledges that “the applicatives and causatives can stack under certain circumstances” (Wechsler, 2014:22-23). See example 18. This observation further justifies the view that rules and principles can hardly handle all intricacies associated with verb extensions in Bantu, both cross-linguistically and within a specific language. Again, this underlines the need to study languages as unique in some respects;
and that a variety of theories and principles need to work together as well.
Wechsler (2014, pp. 24-26) also discussed Shona Argument Cap (SAC): Shona verbs can maintain no more than three arguments and any construction that exceeds three arguments is ungrammatical.
He comments that, “the stacking potential of different verbal extensions is an empirical question and this data suggests that affixation itself is in theory infinitely recursive” (Wechsler, 2014, p.
26). The study also showed that there is repetition of extensions even to the adjacent morpheme (see example 17).
Wechsler (2014, p. 30) gave another example whereby the causative and applicative co-occur and the sentence is grammatically correct. See example 18,
18. bika ‘cook’
mai va-ka-bik-is-ir-a mwana chikafu mother 3PL(1)-pst-cook-CAUS-APP-FV child meal ‘The mother had a meal cooked for the child (by somone).’
40 Wechsler argued that “when there are too many arguments anticipated by the verb and its affixed verb extensions, omitting some to get the argument count back down to three solves the problem entirely” (Wechsler, 2014, p. 30).
Wechsler (2014, p. 31) discussed various argument structure theories as advanced by different scholars, and consequently presented data that disapproves some of them, for instance, a templatic stacking limitation that prohibits specific verbal extension from co-occurrence. In this theory, he argued that there would either be an individual “slot” for each verbal extension or each kind of verb extension. If there were slots for different kinds of extensions, all of the valence-increasing affixes would be competing for the same position and the valence decreasing affixes would do the same. And if there was one slot for each verbal extension individually, many stacked forms would be possible but the number of any given affix would be limited to one. He proposes the Three Structure Case Assigners Hypothesis (TSCAH) to the DP-arguments of Shona Verbs. These are:
assigner one (CA1) which traditionally assigns case to the subject (nominative case), Case-assigner two (CA2) and three (CA3) which assign case to the verbal objects (accusative case). He also counteracted Bliss’s argument about Shona in relation to Manyika from Bliss’s Theory (2009), and showed that in the analysis that they have something in common (Wechsler, 2014, p.
36). But Bliss’s theory does not examine intransitive verbs. What this study has in common with Wechsler (2014) is to show verb suffixes that change the argument structure of the verbs, repetition of extensions, and the valence increaser extension being allowed to co-occur (see more clarification in Chapters Five to Seven of this study).
In the above section, I have discussed a number of issues related to verb extensions and arguments in Bantu languages. In the following, I look at other Niger Congo languages which also deal with verb extensions. The point is that some scholars have used the same theories which I reviewed in Bantu literature while others used different ones. Therefore, my intention is to find out the state of affairs outside the sphere of Bantu languages under the same principles and guidelines.
2.3.2 Overview of Verb Extensions in other Niger-Congo Languages
Multiple extensions have also been investigated in other Niger-Congo languages. Among these are languages from West Africa. Damonte (2007), for example, examined the Mirror Principle and
41 the order of verbal extensions in Pular language (which is spoken in Guinea); Paster (2005) worked on the combinations of suffixes in Pulaar language spoken in Senegal (the Gombe Fula and Fuuta Tooro dialects) while Arnott (1970) researched on the verbal systems in Fula (consisting of six dialects). Although these scholars worked on related languages they argued against each other’s positions. For example, Damonte argued against Paster, Baker and Arnott that neither Mirror Principle nor Semantic Scope has control over the order of suffixes. His evidence showed that verb affixes in Pular occur in fixed order which is not based on semantic scope but rather matches the underlying order of their complements. Paster concluded that the orders of verb suffixes enter into semantic relation with each other while Arnott claimed that the order is fixed under the TDNR14 formula. Below is a summary of their discussions.
2.3.2.1 The Order of Multiple Extensions in Niger-Congo Languages
Arnott (1970) examined the verbal systems of Fula15. In his research, he dealt with nineteen verb extensions by giving the shape of the different extensions. He categorized two shapes of the extension morphemes, whereby I-X and XIX have the shape of consonants (-C-) and the others are vowel-consonant (-VC-) correlated with the type of radical. There is also a free variation of the extensions with the -C- structure whereby an extension with -C- structure takes a vowel before it is attached to a verb root. Examples of these are:
19. Form (-C- shape) Title
14 Arnott (1970, pp. 333, 366) reported that in the Gombe Fula dialect, the order of affixes is largely fixed. The first four suffixes to come after the verbal stem are consonantal suffixes ordered according to the formula ‘TDNR’ whereby /-t/ suffix precedes the /-d/ suffix, which precedes the /-n/ suffix, which in turn precedes the /-r/ suffix.
15The name Fula is sometimes used as a cover term for all of the Pulaar dialects plus other languages known by such names as Fulfulde, Fulani, and Fulbe (Paster, 2005).
42 (-d-) -or-
XIX -ɗ- -iɗ-/-ud- Denominative
20. Form (-VC- and other shapes) Title
XI -an- Dative
XVIII 2 R + -tir- Iterative-Reciprocal
Arnott (1970, pp. 334-370) explained how these extensions are used, the conditions and their functions for a single extension. In his discussion, he showed that there are possibilities of two or three extensions to be combined. He was also informed by his consultants that there are also accumulations of more than three extensions, although they are very rare and practically limited by the number of objects that can conveniently depend on a single verb. Below are some examples of the combinations of extensions (in Roman figures).
Table 2.9 Co-occurrence of Extensions in Fula Languages Two extensions
-it-ir-an-oy- -it-an-ilaw-(-oy-) -t-id-an-ilaw- -t-id-ir-an- -t-ir-id-an- -ɗ-it-in-ir- Source: Arnott 1970, pp. 365-370
In the combination of extensions, Arnott showed that they mostly follow their serial number as given above but those which are consonantal, especially I-X consisting basically of a single
43 consonant, should be arranged as -t- extension and will precede a -d- extension; either or both of these will precede -n-, and any or all of the three will precede -r-. These can be summarized as T-D-N-R formula, while -an-, -law- and -oy- follow in that order (Arnott 1970, p. 366). Paster (2005, p. 155) equally reported that “in the Gombe Fula dialect, the order of affixes is largely fixed.”
Arnott (1970) in his discussion further gave us the formula T-D-N-R in which extensions should be ordered. This is what I can relate to the template proposed by Hyman (2003) in which extensions should be ordered. For example, Paster (2005) studies Pulaar language by selecting some verb extensions from Arnott’s study, and she found out that the order is based on scope relations. Paster (2005) examines combinations of suffixes including those governed by TDNR. In her investigation, she dealt with eleven suffixes from Gombe Fula dialect and six suffixes from the Fuuta Tooro dialect. She found out that many of the verb suffixes enter into semantic relation with each other. Paster claimed that:
If it is true that their order is fixed, then the behaviour of these suffixes contradicts the claim of Rice (2000) that affixes are ordered according to their relative semantic scope and that templatic (fixed) affix order results only when affixes in question do not have a scope relationship. (Paster, 2005, p. 155)
Paster focused on the consonantal suffixes which are the examples from Arnott (1970) in which two or more of these suffixes are combined. She raised one issue: when a set of homophonous extensions is considered, how do we determine what constitutes a separate morpheme? For example -t- suffixes have different meanings and some of them overlap. Paster argues further that:
If order is scope-based, we predict the opposite ordering of these affixes should correspond to the opposite scope relation between the two … in the case of Causative-Separative, however, it is impossible to find an ordering alternation corresponding to meaning change because it is apparently impossible for Separative to have a scope over Causative. That can be explained by the fact that Separative generally applies to the verb whose semantics involves putting things together (Paster, 2005, p. 175).
Paster also discovered that whenever Modal has scope over Repetitive, then Modal -r- suffix after the Repetitive is predicted by the Scope Hypothesis. But when the Repetitive has scope over Modal -r- is ordered after Repetitive again. Paster showed that this was the first example seen in which the order of suffixes does not correspond to their scope (2005, p. 179).
44 Paster (2005, pp. 181-182) encountered other problematic orders whereby the Causative has a scope over Modal even in the opposite order. Since there is a clear scope relationship between the Causative and Modal, the Scope Hypothesis predicts that we should find only the scope-based order. She asserted that the fact that the opposite order is also allowed will need to be accounted for via a mechanism other than that used to generate scope-based order. Paster came up with the idea that Fuuta Tooro can be analysed as a mixed Scope-Template system similar to Mirror-Template system in Chichewa described by Hyman (2003) whereby the affix order is determined via the interaction of constraints representing the Mirror Principle (Baker, 1985) and language specific morphological template. In her discussions of the Fuuta Tooro data, Paster (2005, p. 155) observed that “scope relations do play a crucial role in the ordering of these suffixes.” (Paster, 2005:155). This can also be seen in Paster when he argued that, “a scope-based analysis is not only consistent with Arnott’s (1970) Gombe Fula data, but it also accounts for more of the data than did Arnott’s own accounts involving fixed ordering” (Paster, 2005, p. 189).
The result of the study of Fuuta Tooro Pulaar revealed that the Scope Hypothesis is very useful in accounting for the order of consonantal suffixes in that dialect. Paster insisted that not only the scope hypothesis is introduced by Rice (2000) but also the previous proposal relating affix order to scope (Baker 1985, Bybee 1985, Condoravdi and Kiparsky 1998). Even the majority of Arnott’s (1970) examples do obey the ‘TDNR’ in that they are also consistent with the Scope Hypothesis.
As one can discern from the principles which guide the suffixes, both in Bantu and other languages from Niger Congo, some languages demand a fixed template, for instance CARP by Hyman 2003 in Bantu languages and T-D-N-R formula by Arnott (1970) in other Niger-Congo languages outside Bantu. On the other hand, some need a mixture of principles to explain the order. Let us examine one empirical study about the order of arguments before I conclude this part.
2.3.2.2 The Order of the Arguments in Niger-Congo Languages
Damonte (2007) dealt with the order of complements where he showed that there is extensive literature on the order of verbal extensions in Pular. However, not much has been written on the order of the complements introduced by these affixes. In his analysis of the order of complements, Damonte (2007, p. 351) demonstrated that “the benefactive complement occurs immediately after
45 the verb, before the direct object of the verb, while instrument complement follows the object in its unmarked position.” He finds out that no exhaustive research has been carried out on the order
45 the verb, before the direct object of the verb, while instrument complement follows the object in its unmarked position.” He finds out that no exhaustive research has been carried out on the order