Abstract
This chapter previews aspects of the clause structure in Kwa (e.g., argument structure, serialization, tense, mood, aspect marking). that the discussion on the INFL domain shows that the Kwa languages are analytic because they resort to free morphemes for marking tense, mood, and aspect, where synthetic languages display inflectional morphology. It appears that the position of the verb with respect to both the aspect markers and the internal argument is an indication of verb movement in these languages, which lack inflectional morphology of the Indo-European type. Next, we suggest that discourse particles (e.g., topic, focus, question) are functional elements whose syntax has repercussion on word order variation.
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Notes
- 1.
This section is based on facts from Gungbe mainly, but see Bamgbose (1966) for some examples in Yoruba.
- 2.
This view also implies that these languages do not have a category Adjective proper.
- 3.
In Ewegbe, adverbs are derived from many attributive adjectives by suffixing e to the latter.Examples are sesi “hard” which becomes sesie “and nyui “good” which becomes nyuie “good”. Consider the examples below
Ede nyɔnu sesi ade
Kpɔ awu nyui ma
Wɔ dɔa sesie
Kpɔe nyuie Look closely “Be careful”
Others are vi “small”versus vie “little”, kpui “short” versus kpuie “ shortly”
- 4.
This variation also translates into the different readings Manfredi assigns to the examples in (24).
- 5.
The emphasis is ours.
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Aboh, E.O., Essegbey, J. (2010). General Properties of the Clause. In: Aboh, E., Essegbey, J. (eds) Topics in Kwa Syntax. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 78. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3189-1_3
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