A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF DISYLLABIC VERBS IN EDO

ABSTRACT

This work gives a detailed analysis of the nature of disyllabic verbs in Edo. The objectives and concern are to give clear and explicit analysis on areas which have not been elaborately investigated in previous times. The areas include the grammaticality of the verbs as well as their morphological, syntactic and semantic components. In the present work, I highlighted the two types of disyllabic verbs as already pointed out by Agharuwa (2015) which he called the divisible disyllabic verbs and the indivisible disyllabic verbs with the use of relevant data often from competent speakers of the language; I was able to account for why these verb forms structure the way they are. Hence, in this work, one will see that the disyllabic verb carries wider and interesting information than other syllable types of verbs which include the tonal expression to mark for past tense without using the –RV suffix unlike the monosyllabic verb. Also, the grammar of the language can be violated if a wrong NP is used alongside with a disyllabic verb in the sentence. This is so because of opacity of some disyllabic verb. Also some dissyllabics are CCV syllabic form. This work will add to the knowledge previously known about disyllabic verb and will be of grate benefit to speaker of the language, teachers of the language and the entire linguistic community.