Department of Language and Linguistics

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https://keffi.nsuk.edu.ng/handle/20.500.14448/2024

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Browsing Department of Language and Linguistics by Subject "Basa language, reciprocal, reflexive, valency decreasing verbal extension."

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    VERBAL EXTENSIONS: VALENCY DECREASING EXTENSIONS IN THE BASA LANGUAGE
    (Department of Languages and Linguistics, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, 2017-10-01) Abraham, David A.; Philip, Imoh Manda; Moles, Philip Daniel; Isa, Gambo
    This work investigates verbal extensions that affect the valency of verbs in the Basa& language (Western Kainji). It focuses on verbal inflections that result in the reduction of the verb’s valency by one argument with regard to the basic structure. This current study attempts to investigate the morphosyntactic effects of reciprocal and reflexive affixes in the Basa& sentences. The significance of this work hinges on the fact that no known work has described these processes in Basa&. The language is endangered because its native speakers neglect speaking it in favour of English and Hausa. Furthermore, there is dearth of information on Basa&, especially in areas of morphology and syntax, which are basic to the study of language. study will therefore attempt to fill this existing gap in the literature. In addition to the native intuitions of one of the researchers, as a native speaker of the Basa language, data collected for this work include discourse observation, staged and elicited spoken data from fluent native speakers. It was found in the study that affixes attached to the verb root result in deriving an intransitive verb from a transitive one, and a transitive verb from a bi- or ditransitive. Both operations are triggered by verbal extensions and move the internal argument (object) to the subject position. The derived structure, therefore, is headed by a complex noun phrase but the verb no longer sub categorizes an internal argument. The work explores the morphosyntax of Basa& verbs and serves as a springboard for this aspect of Basa morphosyntax. It also contributes to the morphosyntactic literature.