* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Nominal Complements: Subjective and Objective Complements
Proto-Indo-European verbs wikipedia , lookup
Old Norse morphology wikipedia , lookup
Ojibwe grammar wikipedia , lookup
French grammar wikipedia , lookup
Udmurt grammar wikipedia , lookup
Preposition and postposition wikipedia , lookup
Kannada grammar wikipedia , lookup
Malay grammar wikipedia , lookup
Ukrainian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Macedonian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Old Irish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Polish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Germanic strong verb wikipedia , lookup
English clause syntax wikipedia , lookup
Navajo grammar wikipedia , lookup
Germanic weak verb wikipedia , lookup
Scottish Gaelic grammar wikipedia , lookup
Portuguese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Swedish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Japanese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Ancient Greek grammar wikipedia , lookup
Chinese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Modern Hebrew grammar wikipedia , lookup
Old English grammar wikipedia , lookup
Russian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Sotho verbs wikipedia , lookup
Turkish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Icelandic grammar wikipedia , lookup
Latin syntax wikipedia , lookup
Lexical semantics wikipedia , lookup
Hungarian verbs wikipedia , lookup
Serbo-Croatian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Georgian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Yiddish grammar wikipedia , lookup
German verbs wikipedia , lookup
Kagoshima verb conjugations wikipedia , lookup
Draft September 2012 Chapter ## SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE COMPLEMENTS A verb phrase may include words or phrases that are complements of other nouns in the sentence rather than complements of the verb, e.g. he looks sick, she became a lawyer, where “sick” and “a lawyer” are complements of the subjects, and I painted the chair red, we elected Bill president, where “red” and “president” are complements to the objects “chair” and “Bill” respectively. We use the traditional terms “subjective complement” for the former and “objective complement” for the latter. 1. Subjective Complements Setting aside sentences in which the predicate itself is a noun or adjective (##), we can distinguish at least two sentence types with subjective complements: (1) sentences with verbs that express a transformation in the state of the subject and (2) sentences with a verb followed by an expression that describes the subject. Verbs of transformation typically have non-transformative base meanings. Below is a list of the most common Bole transformative verbs, followed by some examples containing these verbs.1 The “base” meaning is first. The transformative meaning follows the semicolon: bòngìru ɗowu mā nguru ī ‘turn around; turn into’ ‘sit, stay; become’ ‘return; turn into’ ‘remain, be left behind; become’ ‘make, do, be done; become, be too...’ As the examples below show, the subjective complement may be a noun or an adjective, though for verbs with the sense ‘turn into, metamorphose into’, only a noun would be pragmatically appropriate. There are several variants with verbs and subjective complements. The simplest form is VERB+COMPLEMENT. Verbs of transformation are all intransitive and hence allow use of the Intransitive Copy Pronoun (ICP—##), comprising j-+pronoun. For most verbs of transformation, the word bṑ “in the guise of, as” can optionally introduce a subjective complement. There is a tendency to use either the ICP or bṑ, though it is not ungrammatical to use both. The verb ī ‘become, be too...’ cannot use bṑ. Not all possible variants are given for all the verbs. 1 See the chapters on adjectives (##), ideophonic adjectives (##), and statives (##) for further examples. 1 Subjective and Objective Complements 2 mḕmù mā zònge = mḕmù mā b˘ zònge = mḕmù mā jnì zònge person return hyena = mḕmù mā person person return as hyena person jnì b˘ zònge return ICP hyena return ICP as hyena ‘the man has turned into a hyena (zònge)’ ˘shi bòngìraj jto mḕmù = ˘shi bòngìrab b˘ mḕmù2 goat transform ICP person goat transform as person ‘the goat (ṑshi) turned into a human (mḕmù)’ à ɗòwa mbùkùm = à ɗòwa jnì mbùkùm = à ɗòwa b˘ mbùkùm ‘he will become blind (mbùkùm ‘blind person’)’ b ka umbùlin, à ngùra jnì kùrḕɗì ‘if you throw it down, it will become a snake’ ī jnì s˘ma (*ī b˘ s˘ma) ‘he became deaf (s˘ma ‘deaf person’)’ àmma ī jnì njùrùl lai (*...ī b˘...) ‘the water has become very cold (njùrùl lai)’ àtti ī jnì ɓènèm sòmsòm ‘the gruel has fermented’, i.e. ‘the gruel has become sour indeed (ɓènèm sòmsòm)’ Even though subjective complements directly follow the verb, as do direct objects, verbs with subjective complements are intransitive and thus bear a different syntactic relationship to the complement than the relationship between verb and direct object.. The most obvious evidence that the verb is intransitive is that transformative verbs can use an ICP. By definition, ICP’s occur only with intransitive verbs. The verb ī ‘become’ seems to require the ICP in affirmative sentences when a subjective complement follows.3 For other verbs, the ICP is not grammatically required, and its use would be ungrammatical in all the following negative sentences (##). mḕmù à bòngìrà (b˘) zònge sa ‘a person cannot turn into a hyena’ ka ɗòwa (b˘) mbùkùm sa ~ ka ngura mbùkùm sa ‘you will not become a blind person’ àmma ī njùlùr sa ‘the water has not become cold’ (kob) àtti ài ɓènèm sa4 ‘don’t let the kunu go sour’ Tonal evidence also shows that the syntactic constituency of verb + subjective complement differs from that of verb + direct object, even though both constructions directly juxtapose a verb and a noun phrase. Low Tone Raising (LTR—##) DOES apply between a verb and a direct object, but not between a verb and a subjective complement. In the first two examples below, where the verb can only be used intransitively, application of LTR is unacceptable. In the third example, the verb bòngìru used Because the verb has a transitive meaning ‘turn, rotate’, ?*˘shi bòngìram mḕmù, with no overt mark of intransitivity or subjective complement status, is marginal because it sounds like ‘the goat turned a person’. 3 Without the ICP, the tendency would be to interpret the verb ī in its transitive sense ‘make, do’, i.e. ī s˘ma would be interpreted ‘he made a deaf person’, not ‘he became deaf’. Subjective complements after ī must be distinguished from transitive ī followed by a quality word. Thus, in tāsà emē ī kumbe ‘this bowl is too small’ (‘bowl this does [ī] constrictedness [kumbe]’), the word kumbe ‘constrictedness’ is not a subjective complement because it is a noun, not an adjective describing a quality of the bowl or a noun stating something that the bowl has become. 4 Kob is a prohibitive operator rather than a negator. Thus, (kob) àtti ài jnì ɓènèm ‘don’t let the kunu go sour’, with the prohibitive and without the negator sa is grammatical with the ICP . See ##. 2 Subjective and Objective Complements 3 intransitively with a subjective complement and no LTR is in contrast with the verb used transitively with LTR. à ɗòwa mbùkùm ≠ *à ɗòwa mbukùm ‘he will become blind (mbùkùm ‘blind person’)’ sùwā ka ɗowi pùkàra ≠ *sùwā ka ɗowi pukàra ‘you should become a student (pùkàra)’ mḕmù à bongiro ˘shi ‘the man turns into a goat’ (subjective comp.) cf. mḕmù à bongiro ‰shi ‘the man turns the goat around’ (DO) (This contrast would not be available for a construction with overt ICP, which could not take a grammatical direct object.) Some constructions optionally allow a subjective complement to be part of a phrase introduced by b˘ ‘in the guise of, in the capacity of’ (cf. use of this word below with OBJECTIVE complements). This does not seem to be possible for the verb ī ‘become’, and it is not required with any verb. mḕmù mā jnì b˘ zònge = mḕmù mā b˘ zònge ‘the man has turned into a hyena’ bòngùrū jnì (b˘) zònge = bòngìrū (b˘) zònge ‘he turned into a hyena’ The second type of subjective complement construction mentioned at the beginning of this section comprises a verbal expression including a complement to the subject. The verbal expression is typically an unergative intranstive verb, but transitive verbal constructions are also possible. The complements are typically statives (##), but adjectives (##) and ideophonic adjectives (##) are also possible. Such sentences differ from sentences with transformative verbs in that the subjective complement is syntactically optional., i.e. ??bòngìrū jnì ‘he transformed’ would not be felicitous5 whereas à j rùwè ‘he is wandering about’ (see first example below) is a complete sentence. à j rùwè sànkalnì Àbu pàtā sùlwainì kùrḕɗì ye pèten zengileŋ an bàrà ī ta wāshi dìɓɓànì ɗìnkaí íotto ɗòwatò karài ye ɗòwan pḕtìlà pok lwò rùkkū njālūlū nonti yāwi aj jo zòngìlòŋ àwo kàwā r‰ɗīɗī ‘he is wandering about irresponsibly’ ‘Abu went out naked’ ‘the snake emerged (looking) long and thin’ ‘the warrior continued fighting (while) stabbed’ ‘she cooked the food (while) seated’ ‘the clothes became (washed) snow white’ ‘the boy lost weight (becoming) very lean’ ‘the ostrich ran (looking) tall’ ‘the stomach swelled (looking) protruding and round’ We draw attention here also to a construction akin to sentences with subjective complements, viz. sentences with change of state verbs containing an ideophone (##) or ideophonic adjective (##) that seems to comment on the state of the subject. kulà tòɓɓu porot ‘the calabash has a hole in it’ calabash be-pierced ideophone srò bàkkū jnì murus grass 5 burn ICP ‘the grass burned to a crisp’ ideophone This sentence would be acceptable in the sense ‘he turned around’. Subjective and Objective Complements 4 mbormi pòííū jnì kàkkìɗàk ‘the ebony fruit dried up and became hard’ karàinì ‘his clothes are greasy and dirty’ ebony dry ICP ideophonic adj. jàttū jnì ndòkkòm clothes-his spoiled ICP ideophonic adj. Such sentences are on the borderline between sentences with unequivocal subjective complements and sentences with manner adverbs (##). In examples like those above, the ideophone seems to apply both to the event expressed by the verb and to the state of the subject. In those where the complement word is labeled ideophone, analysis as a subject complement seems untenable because the ideophone alone could not serve as a predicate, e.g. one could not say *kulà porot ‘the calabash is pierced’, but for words labeled ideophonic adjectives (##), this is possible, e.g. mbormi (ye) kàkkìɗàk ‘the ebony fruit is hard’. Bole does not have direct counterparts to many expressions using subjective complements in English. For example, English expressions using verbs that relate a subject to its complement through the senses, such as feel (good), look (sick), sound (silly), smell (bad), taste (salty) would generally take one of the following forms: kùmā ‘feel’ + nominal OBJECT expressing the sensation that one feels: kùmā zòi ëhe felt goodí (zòi ‘pleasure’) ita à j kùmè kàwa ëshe is feeling shyí (kàwa ‘modesty, shyness’) Unitary verb: mùskùɗu ‘feel nauseous’ kòlwu ‘feel better’ (after illness) Equational sentence with a “sense” noun as subject and a descriptive word as predicate: bjin otto zòi ëthe food smells goodí (“the odor of the food is pleasant”) An idiom: duwt ìdinì ëhe doesnít look happy í (“he beat his eyes”) The sense verb kùmā ‘feel’ differs from its English counterpart in that the Bole verb is transitive, whereas Bole verbs that require subjective complements are all intransitve. The words that express the counterparts of English adjectival complements like good or shy are nominal direct objects in Bole. Aside from the fact that they would be anomalous as predicates (??Lengì kàwa would mean ??‘Lengi is shyness’), they undergo LTR, as do all nominal objects of verbs. sùwā shi kume kawa sa ‘you shouldn’t feel shy’ 2. Objective Complements (“Small Clauses”) Verbs that take objective complements are transitive verbs that can be roughly grouped into three categories, listed with exemplifying verbs from Bole: (1) Verbs that change the state of an object into the form expressed by the complement ɗlu ī ‘install, turban (a chief)’ ‘make (into)’ (cf. intransitive use of this verb to mean ‘become’) Subjective and Objective Complements mtu 5 ‘change to, turn into’ (cf. intransitive mā ‘turn into, become’) In addition to these specific verbs, there is a fairly open-ended class of verbs of transformation, such as paint (X red), grind (X smooth), cook (X mushy), dig (X deep)— see examples below (2) Verbs that state a relationship between an object and its complement6 ḕsu ndolu ‘call (someone something)’ ‘want (object in the capacity of complement)’ (3) Verbs of discovery or perception of a relationship between an object and its complement bolu ‘find, come across’ deyu ‘leave’ ìnnā ‘see’ Most verbs of types (1) and (2) can (at least optionally) use a phrase headed by b˘ ‘in the capacity of, in the guise of’ as the objective complement. For verbs of type (3), it is possible that there are actually two syntactic constructions, viz. those with a direct object and an objective complement and those where the apparent object is actually the SUBJECT of a complement clause like I saw [that] THE GOAT [was] tied up, where the bracketed items would not have overt expression in Bole in any case. Note, however, that for ALL verbs of type (3), a pronominal object is a clitic on the verb, not a free pronoun, showing that even if object + complement is an underlying clause, the complement subject has been coppied as the grammatical object of the complementizing verb when it is a pronoun (see ## for discussion of copying semantic subjects of embedded propositions as objects of matrix verbs). (1) Verbs changing the state of an object ɗlan Àbārì b˘ Moi ɗlan-nì-n b˘ wokkìl moi mtantùn bòno ye (b˘) pḕtìlà ɓìllū gbìn ye (b˘) pḕtìlà an gùwa ī kàsìkàr ye (*b˘) gàraŋ òppan bòzò (b˘) gàraŋ òppū wùyo (*b˘) zùrkùlùk mtat tagàrda b˘ kùmbà rḕtū g‰rò b˘ bòlou ‘they have installed Abari as Moi’ ‘they made him (nì) the chief’s representative’ ‘they painted (“turned”) the house white’ ‘he painted the room white’ ‘the blacksmith made the sword long’ ‘they dug the hole deep (gàraŋ adj.)’ ‘he dug the hole deep (zùrkùlùk id. adj.)’ ‘she made the paper into a fan’ ‘he divided the kola in two’ An important subcategory of type (2) verbs comprises the verbs of comparison íyā ‘exceed’, àlā ‘be equal to’, ī ‘be up to, be the equal of’, mànā ‘be equal to, be as...as...’, ksu ‘be less than’, all of which can be used with a complement that expresses a standard to which the object is measured, i.e. .‘...exceed OBJECT (with respect to) STANDARD’. Chapter ## covers expressions using these verbs and hence they are omitted from the present chapter. 6 Subjective and Objective Complements 6 (2) Verbs stating a relationship between an object and its complement à j ḕsà Bamoi (*b˘) an shiri ǹ ndolū Bamoi b˘ s‰bà ndol-kā b˘ s‰bà Bamoi ndolū Lengì b˘ mòndù Bamoi ndolshī b˘ mòndù ‘they are calling Bamoi a thief (an shiri)’ ‘I want Bamoi as a friend’ ‘he wants you as a friend’ ‘Bamoi wants Lengi as a wife’ ‘Bamoi wants you as a wife’ (3) Verbs of perceiving a relationship between and object and its complement dewu ˘shi ye ngòratò ‘he left the goat tied up’ dei-kā ka ngòrakò ‘he left you (kā) tied up’ ìn ìnnā gam ngòranì ‘I saw the ram tied up’ ǹ ìnnā kùrḕɗì ye gàndànì mbìlàilài ‘I saw the snake lying (gàndànì) stretched out (mbìlàilài)’ mu innankun mǎ gàndàku ‘we saw you (pl.) lying down’ wal lwò ye kèwḕnì ‘they found the child well-fed’ wannan ǹ kèwḕno ‘they found me well-fed’ wankan ka rukkàko ‘they found you emaciated’ bòlannaí íǹ njālūlū ‘she came upon me teeny-weeny’ bolshī shi ɗowashì ‘he came upon you seated’ Akin to objective complements with verbs of type (2) are constructions involving ideophones and ideophonic adjectives such as the following, parallel to those with nominal complements (see end of §1). As with constructions such sentences differ from sentences with straightforward objective complements, first, because the ideophone seems to describe the action or state of the entire verb + object, and second, because, unlike words that appear as objective complements, the ideophone could not be the predicate of an equational sentence (##), directly equating the noun which appears as grammatical and the predicate. ka zùmā-tù kok-ko ɗalɗal ‘you shaved your head bald’ ngor-t wula taitai ‘he tied the load securely’ òssū ‘he ground the flour to a soft consistency’ you shave-tot tie-tot load head-your ideophone ideophone bìɗiki ndalar ground flour ideophone zùmā konnì sulsul ‘he shaved his head smooth’