Valency-Changing Operations in Nkò̩ró̩ò̩ (Kìrìkà)

Valency-Changing Operations in Nkò̩ró̩ò̩ (Kìrìkà)

Ebitare F. Obikudo

Department of Linguistics and Communication Studies, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2024.801185

Received: 17 January 2024; Accepted: 25 January 2024; Published: 23 February 2024

ABSTRACT

Every language employs some valency-changing operation that either decreases or increases the transitivity of the verb. In the grammar of languages, the verb is considered to be the most important element in the sentence structure, and valence is the most common category of verbal morphology, surpassing tense, aspect, and subject agreement. However, it is often overlooked in the linguistic descriptions of many African languages. Moreso, within the Ijoid language family, this verbal category is under-described. This paper investigated the valency-changing operational types in Nko̩ro̩o̩, an Eastern Ijoid language spoken in the Niger delta region of Nigeria, West Africa. The data gathered from competent native speakers via elicitation and participant observation was analyzed within the qualitative research design. The findings revealed that Nko̩ro̩o̩ employs five valency-changing operations. Processes for decreasing the valency of a verb include passive, reflexive, deletion of an internal argument, and demotion of an internal argument. To increase verb valency, Nko̩ro̩o̩ employs a morphological causative marker. The paper established that Nko̩ro̩o̩ utilizes both morphological and syntactic means of decreasing and increasing valency, and that the operation of valence is both derivational and inflectional.

Keywordsː Nko̩ro̩o̩, Ijoid, arguments, transitivity, valency

INTRODUCTION

Traditionally, the sentence structure of languages consists minimally of a subject and a predicate. The verb is considered to be the most important element in the sentence structure, and as such, most often, the predicate is headed by the verb, which is accompanied by one or more core arguments, also known as valents, that are dependent on the verb. Finegan (1994) defines the verb as a lexical category that syntactically determines the structure of a clause especially with respect to noun phrases (which function as the arguments of the verb). The number and nature of the core argument is determined by the valency attributed to the verb (Crystal, 1997; Dixon and Aikhenvald, 2000).

According to Crystal (1997), valency is concerned with “the number of valents with which a verb is combined to produce a WELL-FORMED sentence nucleus…” (p. 407). A verb which takes no argument is said to be avalent. A verb that takes only one core argument is said to be univalent, bivalent when it takes two arguments, and trivalent when it takes three arguments. Every language employs some operation that either decreases or increases the number of arguments that the verb takes. These are called valency changing operations.

Although the verb is considered to be the most important element in the sentence structure in the grammar of languages and every language employs some valency-changing operation, the category of valence is often overlooked in the linguistic descriptions of many African languages.  Within the Ijoid language family which belongs to the Niger-Congo phylum, the verbal categories of tense, aspect, and negation have received greater attention in the literature (Benamaisia, 2001; Jenewari, 1977; Kekai, 2019; Nurse & Beaudoin-Lietz, 2016; Obikudo, 2013; Williamson, 1965). Even though a very common category in the verbal morphology of languages, verb valence has been neglected in the Ijoid literature. Since the verb is central to the sentence structure, an understanding of its associated categories will contribute to the overall comprehension of the verb structure and ensure proper usage of the verb. Such studies should not be limited to verbal categories such as tense, aspect, negation, and mood alone. Thus, the present study is aimed at filling this gap by providing a description of the various operations employed in decreasing and increasing the valency of the verb in Nko̩ro̩o̩, an Eastern I̩jo̩ language that has Kalab̩ari̩, I̩b̩ani̩, and Ki̩ri̩ke̩ as its closest linguistic relatives. To achieve this, data was gathered from competent native speakers via elicitation and participant observation. It is worth mentioning that the Nko̩ro̩o̩ language is referred to as Kirika by its speakers (Obikudo. 2013, 2022) and is spoken in the Opobo/Nko̩ro̩o̩ local government area of Rivers state, Nigeria, West Africa.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Traditional grammar makes a distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs. Transitivity is a property of verbs that relates to the ability of a verb to take a direct object. Transitive verbs take direct objects, for instance, buy, catch, bite, etc., while intransitive verbs do not take direct objects, for instance, die, sleep, go, etc. Verbs may be grouped into three transitivity classes namely, intransitive, transitive, and ambitransitive.

Many languages mark transitivity through morphology. For instance, in languages with polypersonal agreement, an intransitive verb will agree with the subject only while a transitive verb will agree with both subject and indirect object. In other languages, the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs is based on syntax. For instance, it is possible to identify a transitive verb in English by attempting to supply it with an appropriate direct object as in example (1). On the contrary, attempting to supply an intransitive verb with a direct object will result in an ungrammatical sentence (see examples 2a & b).

(1)        a. She bought a bag.

b. He caught the ball.

(2)        a. *He died a death.

b. *She slept a sleep.

Although intransitive verbs may not take a direct object, they may take an appropriate indirect object (cf. 3a & b). They may also take cognate objects that are considered to be integral to the action carried out by the verb (cf. 4a & b).

(3)        a. She laughed at him.

b. He danced with her.

(4)        a. She slept an hour.

b. He walked a mile.

Transitive verbs may take one or more objects. Monotransitive verbs take only one object – a direct object, while ditransitive verbs take two objects – a direct object (DO) and an indirect object (IO). In example (5), the verb injure is monotransitive while catch and buy are ditransitive.

(5)        a. He injured himself (DO).

b. John caught a fish (DO) for his mother (IO).

c. I bought her (IO) a dress (DO).

On the other hand, ambitransitive verbs have both a transitive and an intransitive meaning. For instance, in Kpelle, a Mande language, the verb kula in intransitive use means ‘exit’ (which includes to ‘go out’ and ‘come out’), while its transitive meaning includes to ‘remove’, ‘pull out’, ‘bring out’, ‘put out’, and ‘take out’ (Welmers, 1973, p. 397). In English, there are a number of ambitransitive verbs as seen in examples (6) and (7).

(6)        a. The pirates sank the boat.    (transitive)

              b. The boat sank.                        (intransitive)

(7)        a. The boy broke the cup.         (transitive)

              b. The cup broke.                     (intransitive)

Transitivity is closely related to valency. Valency is both a semantic as well as a syntactic notion. Semantically, valency refers to the number of arguments that are necessary to form a sentence with the verb, while syntactically, valency refers to the number of arguments that occur in the sentence (Payne, 1997; Wunderlich, 2012). Worku (2020) defines valency as “the basis for how verbs are divided into distinct semantic and grammatical classes on the basis of the number of arguments (valents) they take” (p. 421). Although valency and verb transitivity are closely related, they are not identical. While transitivity counts only object arguments of a verbal predicate, valency includes all arguments, including the subject of the verb. In other words, transitivity refers to the number and type of core arguments that are determined by the verb while valency relates only to the number of overt argument noun phrases a verb may combine with (Kibort, 2008). Valency thus refers to the number of arguments controlled or licensed by a verbal predicate. Two types of arguments exist within the sentence structure; the external argument that occupies the subject position, and the internal argument that occupies the object position. The external argument performs the semantic role of agent, that is, the performer of the action described by the verb, while the internal argument performs the semantic role of patient, that is, the entity that undergoes the verbal action.

Intransitive verbs are called univalent, monovalent or one-place argument verbs because they take only one argument which is the subject (that is, the external argument). Transitive verbs are either bivalent or trivalent. They are bivalent when they take two arguments – an external argument and an internal argument (that is, a direct object). They are trivalent when they take three arguments consisting of an external argument and two internal arguments (that is, a direct object and an indirect object). Bivalent verbs are two-place argument verbs while trivalent verbs are also known as three-place argument verbs.

Most languages employ some morphological or syntactic means of increasing or reducing transitivity as observed in the following statement:

Ninety percent of the languages investigated by Bybee (1985) have morphological manifestation of valence marked on the verb. This is the most common category of verbal morphology, even surpassing tense, aspect, and subject agreement. In 84 percent of the languages, valence is a derivational operation, while in 6 percent it is inflectional. So, while tense, aspect, and subject agreement are more common inflectional operations, valence is more common overall. (Payne, 1997, p. 172)

Thus, valency changing operations refer to the various ways in which transitive verbs may be transformed into intransitive verbs and vice versa. As opined by Payne (1997), they are very common in the verbal morphology of languages and typically increase or decrease the number of core arguments that occur with the verb. Alternatively, valency-changing operations may not affect the number of core arguments but alter their semantic roles instead (Dixon and Aikhenvald, 2000). Operations that increase verb valence include causative and applicative while valency-decreasing operations include passive and anticausative, antipassive, reflexive, and reciprocal. In the present study, only the operations that are observable in the Nko̩ro̩o̩ language will be discussed in the sections below.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This study employed a qualitative research method which involved collecting and analyzing language data in order to describe the phenomena observable. The data for this work was elicited by competent native speakers of the Nko̩ro̩o̩ language using the Lingua Descriptive Studies Questionnaire, which is a typological tool for linguistic fieldwork that was developed by the Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and freely available online at httpː//www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/tools-at-lingboard/questionnaire/linguaQ.php. The instruments for data collection included participant observation and oral interviews. The data elicited was recorded with a Marantz PMD 660 solid state audio recorder and a head mounted Shure microphone which enabled transcription via multiple playbacks.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This section presents and discusses data that describe the syntactic structure of the verb, in terms of the number of arguments or valents that a verb may license, and the processes employed to either decrease or increase verb valency in Nko̩ro̩o̩.

The syntactic structure of the verb

Syntactically, Nko̩ro̩o̩ verbs can be classified according to the number of arguments they can take. The verb does not only determine the number of arguments it takes but also the semantic role that the argument plays in relation to the verb. We can identify one-place argument verbs, two-place argument verbs, and three-place argument verbs. T

One-place argument verbs

One-place argument verbs are traditionally known as intransitive verbs. They license only one argument, that is, an external argument. The external argument is a noun phrase that functions as the subject of the sentence and plays the semantic role of agent. In example (8) below, the external argument is the third person singular feminine pronoun ‘she’ that functions as the performer of the action. One-place argument verbs may be stative or dynamic. Examples of one-place argument static verbs include sie ‘be bad’, gboli ‘be short’, and findi ‘be open’. Examples of one-place argument dynamic verbs include b̩ó ‘come’, omu ‘go’, and mé̩ndí ‘walk’.

(8)        á  mé̩ndí-máa ‘She is walking’

            3SG.F  walk-PROG

Two-place argument verbs

Traditionally known as transitive verbs, two-place argument verbs license two arguments – an external argument and an internal argument. The internal argument is the noun phrase that functions traditionally as the direct object and is assigned the semantic role of patient. Examples include pe̩í ‘eat’, ofí ‘sweep’, pé̩lé̩ ‘cut’, and órī ‘see’. In example (9), the nouns oní and o function as external and internal arguments respectively of the verb ‘cut’.

(9)        oní       o          b̩íó̩      pé̩le̩                 ‘They cut his leg’

            3PL      3SG.M leg       cut

Three-place argument verbs

Three-place argument verbs license three arguments, that is, one external argument and two internal arguments. In traditional grammar, the internal arguments correspond to the direct and indirect objects. All the arguments of the verb precede the verb in the sentence structure. Usually, verbs that function as three-place argument verbs include verbs of giving, verbs of placing and instrumental verbs (Katamba, 1993).  Examples in Nko̩ro̩o̩ include pirí ‘give’, b̩ó̩lō̩ ‘borrow’, and jíā ‘show’. Apart from the semantic role of patient (that corresponds to the direct object), the internal argument of the three-place argument verb (that corresponds to the indirect object) performs additional semantic roles. For instance, in example (10), Opunyé is the external argument and agent, while lógō and i are the internal arguments. Lógō ‘story’ is assigned the semantic role of patient while i ‘1^st person singular pronoun’ is assigned the semantic role of recipient because it is the benefactor of the action described by the verb.

(10)      Opunyé           lógō mié          i           pirí      ‘Opunye told me a story’

            PN                   story AUX       1SG      give

Valency changing operations in Nko̩ro̩o̩

Nko̩ro̩o̩ employs both morphological and syntactic means of decreasing and increasing valency, and the operations are derivational and inflectional. The valency-changing operational types in Nko̩ro̩o̩  are discussed in the following subsections.

Means of decreasing the valency of a verb in Nko̩ro̩o̩

There are four operations that are capable of decreasing the valency of a verb (that is, turning a transitive verb into an intransitive verb) in Nko̩ro̩o̩. They include passive, reflexive, deletion of an internal argument, and demotion of an internal argument. According to Payne (1997), the most common operations employed in decreasing verb valence in the languages of the world include reflexives, reciprocals, passives, and antipassives. Nko̩ro̩o̩ operates two of these more commomly occurring operations.

Passive voice

In languages that have passive voice, the valency of a two-place or three-place argument verb can be decreased by using the verb in the passive voice. When a sentence is passivized in Nko̩ro̩o̩, the external argument is deleted, and a verbal suffix is attached to the verb to mark the passive voice. This leaves the internal argument that plays the role of patient and the verb in the passive voice as the only constituents of the sentence. Nko̩ro̩o̩ thus operates agentless passives. This operation is inflectional because the addition of the passive marker changes the form of the verb without creating a new word from it. The passive marker is –miní with –ní as a variant and can be used with tense and aspectual markers, namely non-future time, perfective, and progressive aspect.

Passive marker with non-future time

The form of the passive marker used with the verb when it expresses non-future time is –miní.

(11)      a. wá   nji        ḿ         pe̩í                               ‘We ate the fish’                       (Active voice)

               1PL   fish      DEF      eat

               b. nji ḿ         pe̩i-miní                                 ‘The fish was eaten’                 (Passive voice)

                 fish DEF       eat-PASS

(12)      a. oní   íríára    ḿ        libí                             ‘They buried the woman’        (Active voice)

                3PL woman DEF      bury

              b. íríára ḿ                libi-miní                      ‘The woman was buried’         (Passive voice)

                woman DEF            bury-PASS

Passive marker with perfective aspect

The form of the passive marker used with the verb when it takes the perfective aspectual marker is  –ní. Both markers are suffixed to the verb, and the passive marker follows the perfective.

(13)      a. wá   nji        ḿ         pe̩í-suku                     ‘We have eaten the fish’           (Active voice)

               1PL   fish      DEF       eat-PFV

              b. nji ḿ         pe̩í-suku-ní                             ‘The fish has been eaten’          (Passive voice)

                fish DEF     eat-PFV-PASS

(14)      a. oní   íríára     ḿ        libi-suku                ‘They have buried the woman’  (Active voice)

                3PL woman DEF    bury-PFV

              b. íríára          ḿ         libi-suku-ní             ‘The woman has been buried’  (Passive voice)

                woman        DEF     bury-PFV-PASS

Passive marker with progressive aspect

The form of the passive marker used with the verb when it expresses progressive action or state is – miní. The progressive aspect is marked by the suffix –máa which is reduced to a monosyllable –ma or –má when occurring with the passive marker. The tone of the progressive in the passive construction is dependent on the tone on the last vowel of the host verb.

(15)      a. wá=ńdē       nji        ḿ         pe̩í-máa             ‘We are eating the fish’            (Active voice)

                1PL=SCL    fish      DEF     eat-PROG

              b. nji ḿ         pe̩í-má-míní                                ‘The fish is being eaten’           (Passive voice)

                fish DEF     eat-PROG-PASS

(16)      a. oní=ńdē      íríára     ḿ        libi-máa          ‘They are burying the woman’ (Active voice)

               3PL=SCL     woman  DEF    bury-PROG

              b. íríára          ḿ         libi-ma-miní                ‘The woman is being buried’   (Passive voice)

                woman        DEF     bury-PROG-PASS

The (b) examples in numbers 11 – 16 show the deletion of the external argument in the passive constructions. This process reduces the number of arguments or valents that the verb takes. It also affects the structure of the sentence. The sentences in the active voice as observed in the (a) examples have a Subject-Object-Verb structure while the sentences in the passive voice as seen in the (b) examples have an Object-Verb structure.

Reflexive

In a prototypical reflexive construction, both the subject and the object refer to the same entity. In other words, the action expressed by the verb is being carried out by the external argument on itself. Thus, the argument is both the agent and patient. Languages may employ lexical, morphological, or analytic reflexives to express this notion. Nko̩ro̩o̩ employs analytic reflexives, much like the English language, where the “reflexive operation is expressed via a lexical word that is distinct from the verb” (Payne, 1997, p.200). Nko̩ro̩o̩ reflexives are derived from a combination of the bound form of the personal pronouns, and the nouns b̩ú ‘self’ and odu ‘skin’ (of animal). The reflexives are listed in example (17).

(17)      Nko̩ro̩o̩ reflexive pronouns

            i b̩u odu          ‘myself’                                    a b̩u odu                      ‘itself’

            í b̩ú odu          ‘yourself’                                 wá b̩ú odu                  ‘ourselves’

            o b̩u odu         ‘himself’                                  ó b̩ú odu                     ‘yourselves’

            á b̩ú odu         ‘herself’                                   oní b̩ú odu                 ‘themselves’

The reflexive construction as a valency-reducing operation involves a transitive verb that normally licenses two or three arguments, occurring with only one argument – the external argument, which is understood to be both the agent and the patient in the construction.

(18)     o                      b̩u        odu      wo       íyé                   ‘He did (it) himself’

            3SG.M            self      skin     NOM  do

(19)      á          b̩ú        odu      pe̩le̩                                         ‘She cut herself’

            3SG.F  self       skin      cut

Deletion of internal argument

Another means of decreasing the valency of a verb is by deleting its direct object or internal argument. This operation is also known as object omission and is mostly applied to two-place argument verbs. The position of the deleted internal argument may be replaced by the nominative case marker, wo. Hence, a two-place argument verb that licenses both an external and an internal argument is reduced to licensing only one argument, that is, the external argument.

(20)     a. Bomá           bílébíín           ofí                    ‘Boma swept (the) room’

                  PN               room              sweep

             b. Bomá wo       ofí                                          ‘Boma swept’

                  PN               NOM             sweep

Demotion of internal argument

The internal arguments of both two-place and three-place argument verbs may be replaced by the noun yé ‘thing’. This operation, which is also called object demotion, downplays the centrality of the internal argument, thus decreasing the valency of the verb.

Demotion of the internal argument (direct object) of two-place argument verbs

(21)      a. Bomá             nji        fe̩é̩                               ‘Boma bought fish’

                  PN                 fish      buy

             b. Bomá yé        fé̩ē̩                                         ‘Boma bought (something)’

                  PN               thing     buy

(22)      a. wá   b̩uru    fí-suku                                    ‘We have eaten yam’

               1PL   yam     eat-PRF

              b. wá yé        fí-suku                                    ‘We have eaten (something)’

               1PL thing    eat-PFV

Demotion of the internal argument (direct object) of three-place argument verbs

(23)      a. Bomá           ókúrú   ḿ         wá       i           pirí      ‘Boma gave me the cloth’

                  PN                cloth    DEF     PRT     1SG      give

              b. Bomá              yé        wá        i          pirí                  ‘Boma gave me something’

                   PN                thing    PRT     1SG     give

Means of increasing the valency of a verb in Nko̩ro̩o̩

Increasing the valency of a verb involves turning an intransitive verb into a transitive verb. There is one means by which this is achieved in Nko̩ro̩o̩, by attaching the causative morpheme to the verb. This operation is derivational because a new verb is derived from the verb root to which the causative is attached.

Causativity

A causative form of a verb is one way of turning an intransitive verb into a transitive verb since the causative construction is a transitive one. Causativity refers to the means by which a subject creates a change in the state of an event, or makes someone or something else to do or become something. A causative construction is defined as a structure that is derived from a simple active sentence by adding a new argument to indicate the role of causer (Palmer, 1994). Causatives can be formally categorized into three types: lexical causatives, morphological causatives and analytic causatives (Comrie, 1989; Payne, 1997; Dixon, 2000). Nko̩ro̩o̩ employs morphological causatives that are derived via a change in the form of the verb. For a verb form to qualify as a morphological causative, it must be productive such that when applied to a number of verbs, it derives the same result. Many languages achieve this through the use of causative affixes. In Nko̩ro̩o̩, the causative morpheme is a low tone suffix –ma. When attached to verbs, it yields the meaning ‘make V’ or ’cause to be V’, where V is the verb. As such, the valency of the verb increases from one argument to two or three arguments. When attached to a stative verb (which are usually one-place argument verbs), a dynamic verb is derived. Example (21) provides a list of one-place argument stative verbs and their two-place argument counterparts that are derived by suffixing the causative marker –ma to the verb root.

(24)      Causative marker attached to one-place argument stative verbs

              nángúō̩              ‘be long’                                 nángúo̩ma      ‘lengthen’

              gbó̩ó̩n              be straight’                               gbó̩ó̩nma        ‘straighten’

              sie                    ‘be bad’                                      siema              ‘destroy, spoil’

              kuro̩                 ‘be strong, be hard’                kuro̩ma           ‘harden’

              jái                    ‘be calm’                                   jáima               ‘cease, stop’ (make calm)

              zárárá              ‘be flat’                                     záráráma        ‘flatten’

              kpataka           ‘be low’                                    kpatakama       ‘lower’

              b̩o̩b̩o̩                ‘be soft’                                     b̩o̩b̩o̩ma             ‘soften’

              gboli                ‘be short’                                 gbolima            ‘shorten’

              tie                    ‘be low’                                    tiema                  ‘lower’

              findi                 ‘be open’                                 findima            ‘dry/spread out’

              pe̩ke̩le̩             ‘be wide’                                  pe̩ke̩le̩ma           ‘widen’

(25)     a. árú               má       sie                                           ‘The canoe is bad’

                canoe           DEF     be.bad

            b. awo̩                má        árú       má         siema       ‘The children destroyed the canoe’

                children       DEF     canoe   DEF     be.bad-CAUS

In example (25a), the verb sie ‘be bad’ takes only one argument árú má ‘the canoe’, which plays the semantic role of patient. When the causative marker is attached to sie in example (25b), the verb takes on an external argument, awo̩ má ‘the children’, that functions as the agent, in addition to the internal argument, thus increasing its valency. The causative morpheme –ma can also be attached to intransitive dynamic verbs as a way of increasing the valency of the verb as seen in example (26).

(26)      Causative marker attached to one-place argument dynamic verbs

               gbéké             ‘fall’                              gbékema         ‘drop’

               kóró               ‘alight’                          kóroma           ‘drop’

The use of morphological causatives in many languages is restricted to intransitive verbs. However, in Nko̩ro̩o̩, the causative morpheme –ma can be applied to both intransitive verbs (as seen in the examples 24 – 26) and transitive verbs to form the causative of that verb. When it is attached to a transitive verb, another transitive verb is formed. This shows that it is a derivational process.

(27)      Causative marker attached to two-place and three-place argument verbs

              té̩ḿ                  ‘pound’                         té̩ḿma             ‘crush’

              b̩ó̩lō̩                   ‘borrow’                        b̩ó̩lo̩ma               ‘lend’

              sé̩kē̩                   ‘carry’                           sé̩ke̩ma             ‘raise, lift’

In most languages, causativity is associated with the verb. This is also the case in Nko̩ro̩o̩. However, there is a lone example of the causative marker being attached to the noun firi ‘work’ to derive the verb firima ‘send, order (someone)’; in other words, ’cause someone to work’. It is noteworthy that this process is not productive with nouns. Evidence from some dialects of I̩jo̩, I̩zo̩n to be specific, such as Kolokuma and Okordia, reveal that the word firí means ‘send’. So, it is likely that in Nko̩ro̩o̩, this verb has been lost synchronically but is still in use with the causative marker.

CONCLUSION

In investigating the operational types employed in decreasing and increasing the valency of the verb in Nko̩ro̩o̩, an Eastern Ijoid language spoken in the Niger delta region of Nigeria, West Africa, this paper established five valency-changing operations – four for decreasing valency and one for increasing valency. The valency decreasing operations include passive, reflexive, deletion of an internal argument, and demotion of an internal argument. To increase verb valency, Nko̩ro̩o̩ employs a morphological causative marker. In terms of the syntactic structure of the verb, the paper identified one-place, two-place, and three-place argument verbs. The external and internal arguments were identified as the two types of arguments that are dependent on the verb.

As a valency decreasing operation, Nko̩ro̩o̩ employs agentless passive constructions. The deletion of the external argument in the passive constructions reduces the number of arguments that the verb takes, thus decreasing its valency. The reflexive construction involves a two-place or three-place argument verb occurring with only the external argument, which performs the semantic roles of both the agent and the patient in the construction. The internal argument of a two-place argument verb may also be deleted, thus decreasing its valency to a one-place argument verb. Another means of decreasing verb valency is by demoting the internal argument (that is, the direct object) of two-place and three-place argument verbs, and replacing it with the noun yé ‘thing’, thus downplaying the centrality of the internal argument. As a valency increasing operation, the causative marker can be applied to one-place, two-place, and three-place argument verbs.

The paper established that Nko̩ro̩o̩ utilizes both morphological and syntactic means of decreasing and increasing valency. The morphological means of changing verb valence in Nko̩ro̩o̩ are both inflectional and derivational. While the passive is an inflectional process, the causative is derivational. Both operations are morphologically marked on the verb via suffixation. The deletion of the external argument in the passive construction and the deletion of the internal argument are both syntactic operations that affect the basic structure of the sentence which is Subject-Object-Verb. While the passive construction yields an Object-Verb structure, the deletion of the internal argument yields a Subject-Verb structure.

Despite the fact that valence is the most common category of verbal morphology, even surpassing tense, aspect, and subject agreement (Payne, 1997), it has been overlooked in the linguistic descriptions of many African languages. Valence is an under-described verbal category within the Ijoid language family. However, the findings of this paper address that gap by highlighting the syntactic and semantic relations that hold within a sentence, between the verb and its subject, and between the verb and its dependents in the predicate, and by describing how these relations can be adjusted via valency-changing operations. Thus, the paper contributes to an understanding of verb structure within the Ijoid family and is useful for typological studies.

Abbreviations

–                       affix

=                      clitic

1, 3                  1^st person, 3^rd person

AUX               auxiliary

CAUS             causative

DEF                definite article

F                      feminine

FUT                future

M                     masculine

NOM               nominative

PASS               passive

PFV                 perfective

PL                    plural

PN                   personal name

PROG             progressive

PRT                 particle

SCL                 subject clitic

SG                   singular

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