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The syntax of nominalized complex verbal predicates in Dagaare
Author(s) -
Bodomo Adams B.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
studia linguistica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.187
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1467-9582
pISSN - 0039-3193
DOI - 10.1111/j.0039-3193.2004.00107.x
Subject(s) - nominalization , linguistics , computer science , verb , predicate (mathematical logic) , serialization , noun , affix , specifier , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , noun phrase , programming language , philosophy
. Nominalization and verb serialization are widely attested phenomena in the generative linguistic literature, but an in‐depth study of their interaction remains to be undertaken. Based on data from Dagaare, a Gur language of West Africa, this paper analyzes a type of complex predicate construction, nominalized serial verbs, in which only one of the verbs carries a nominalization affix. With this, a number of issues about the nature of complex predicatehood, syntactic alternations, and lexical categorial differences involving nouns and verbs across languages are addressed. The paper proposes that, basically, serial verb nominalizations are VPs headed by a NomP functional projection.